{"id":90957,"global_id":"paricenter.com?id=90957","global_id_lineage":["paricenter.com?id=90957"],"author":"6725","status":"publish","date":"2025-12-18 15:45:27","date_utc":"2025-12-18 14:45:27","modified":"2026-08-26 20:26:28","modified_utc":"2026-08-26 18:26:28","url":"https:\/\/paricenter.com\/event\/creation-and-life-itself\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/paricenter.com\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/90957","title":"Creation and Life Itself","description":"
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Science, Art and the Sacred Series<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creation and Life Itself<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does it mean to be human \u2014 and creative \u2014 in an age of AI?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At its deepest level, creativity is about far more than making art, music or poetry. Life itself is an act of creation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Join us for three live online gatherings exploring creativity through philosophy, science, Indigenous knowledge, mysticism, poetry and the sacred \u2014 and asking what these different ways of knowing can tell us about what it means to be human today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

September 2, 3 & 4, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

9:00am PDT  | 12:00pm EDT  | 5:00pm BST  |  6:00pm CEST
Three 3-hour live sessions \u2022 9 hours of presentations, conversation and Q&A
All registered participants receive recordings of the complete event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three days. Six remarkable voices. One fundamental question.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

What does it mean to create \u2014 and to be part of a living, creative world?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over three days we will encounter Plato and the creative imagination with Angie Hobbs<\/strong>; the extraordinary authority of medieval women mystics with Lauren Cole<\/strong>; Indigenous creation stories and living knowledge with Isabel Hawkins and Shelly Valdez<\/strong>; paradise, imagination and the spiritual life with Nicholas Colloff<\/strong>; and poetry’s response to ecological catastrophe with Peter Reason<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, these perspectives invite us to reconsider creativity not simply as something humans do<\/em>, but as something fundamental to life itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curated and Chaired by:<\/strong>\u00a0John Pickering<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Program<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday September 2<\/strong>
The Pregnant Philosopher with Angie Hobbs
Medieval Women Mystics: Authority and Suppression with Lauren Cole<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thursday September 3<\/strong>
YAKANAL Indigenous Cultural Exchange: A Catalyst for the Creative Process with Isabel Hawkins and Shelly Valdez<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday September 4<\/strong>
One Foot in Eden: Paradise Lost and Found with Nicholas Colloff
Will there be singing? What can poetry say at a time of catastrophe? with Peter Reason<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Join us live from wherever you are<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Come for three days of ideas, conversation and reflection on creativity, life and what it means to be human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will be opportunities for questions and discussion throughout the event, and all registered participants will receive the recordings<\/strong>, so you can take part even if you cannot attend every session live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standard Ticket: \u20ac75<\/strong>
Solidarity Ticket: \u20ac40<\/strong> for those experiencing financial difficulty
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About the Event <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At its best, being \u2018human\u2019 means being creative. Here, \u2018creative\u2019 means more than just poetic language or beautiful images. It speaks to something primordial in nature, since life itself is creation. Our meeting will look at the complementary ways in which science, the humanities and spiritual traditions recognise this and how that might inform the lives we lead, singly or collectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All human cultures have Creation stories. They reflect our wonder at life itself and the enchanting diversity of Creation that it brings forth. To tell and re-tell the stories is part of being human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science is sometimes accused of disenchanting Creation; in fact, it has enhanced it, since the wonder remains. Scientists like David Attenborough express as much love for living things as poets or mystics have done down the ages and as people living in animistic cultures do now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Animistic Creation stories are of a transformative relation between beings of all kinds that continually and reciprocally bring one another into existence. So, in that view, simply living and being human is to be creative, where \u2018creative\u2019 means more than just making poetic language or beautiful images. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, we live in a time when science, the humanities and the arts are becoming more open, in complementary ways, to recognising this. Our meeting will look at how that might inform the lives we lead, singly or collectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will investigate what \u2018being human\u2019 and \u2018being creative\u2019 might have meant in the past, what it means in our time. We will look at creativity in science, in the arts and humanities and in spiritual traditions, paying particular attention to women\u2019s voices, those heard and those not. We will, for example, hear from speakers on Hildegarde of Bingen and Julian of Norwich, as well mystical traditions from South American cultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being human, all too human, is difficult. Being more than human, particularly so. Creativity in some sense extends, even transcends the human condition, and we will explore what philosophy and the humanities have to say about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now is a particularly appropriate time to do it, as both creativity and what it is to be human are brought into question by the rise of the machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Speakers and sessions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Click on a title to expand<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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