The May 2020 Contemplative Practice Webinar:

Indigenous Contemplative Science:
An Ethics of Belonging and Reconnection

Presented by
Yuria Celidwen

To be broadcast live on Friday, May 29th, 2020
3 – 4 pm ET / 12 – 1 pm PT
Free and open to all
$10 suggested donation

Yuria writes,

The current threat to social wellbeing, the restrictions on our basic human relatedness—touch and presence—and the evident systemic social inequality that leaves marginalized populations at impending higher risk, inevitably results in a profound, deep-seated sense of loss. The collective sense of identity, role, and responsibilities become brittle and grief arises as the predominant emotional experience. Our sense of belonging dissipates; life shows itself fragile.

Research has shown plenty of evidence on the impact of contemplative practice on physical and psychological well-being. However, the higher resolve of realization of spiritual goals that these practices can help achieve is still in very early stages. Indigenous traditional wisdom asserts that spiritual emergence is an identity ethic that enhances relationality and connectedness. It is a social ethos in practice in which a sense of conscious responsibility guides wise action for self, community, and environment. These practices validate the subjective experience and prioritize the realization of spirit awareness and ecological belonging and encourage psychological integration of the inner world (psychic experience) and outer world (ecosystem). They are centered in a liminal transcendent experience that reestablishes a sense of ecological connection and belonging through practices of collective creation and embodied ritual, story, and ceremony. They aim to engender an ecstatic arrest in the form of a self-transcendent experience of reverence in an ecopsychology of balance. They offer the possibility of reorienting our spaces of connectedness through meaningful rituals of presence and social solidarity in a dialogue of inclusivity and diverse ways of knowing.

This is a dynamic presentation that brings together Indigenous science and contemplative practice. We engage in dialogue with our current emotional experience and collectively reorient towards a sense of ecological belonging.

About the Presenter

Yuria Celidwen is a scholar of Indigenous Nahua and Maya descent from the highlands of Chiapas (Mexico). She works on the intersection of Indigenous and religious studies, cultural psychology, and contemplative science. Her doctoral research focuses on the experience of self-transcendence, ethics, and compassion across spiritual traditions. Her current research is specifically within Indigenous contemplative traditions. Her approach is interdisciplinary, conjoining reason and emotion, scientific inquiry and contemplative practice. She integrates contemplative practice with community-oriented ethics and social and environmental justice, with an emphasis on the rights of Indigenous peoples, the revitalization and transmission of Indigenous wisdom, and the rights of the Earth. She is co-chair of the Indigenous Religions Unit of the American Academy of Religion—Western Region, and serves as the Women’s Caucus Liaison to the Board.

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