The Seasonal Philosophy Salons are an exploration of place based community philosophy anchored in the seasonal equinoxes and solstices. Each salon is presented in response to each of these seasonal ‘cross quarters’. Working at the intersection of community philosophy, place based creative practice and ritual, the seasons are a provocation for collective reflection and learning. These events have been held on Jaara and Arrernte land since 2024.
Winter Solstice: The Lantern and The Star
It can be hard to see in the dark.
Dark times are periods of instability and uncertainty, and are ever present in our world today
This workshop is an invitation to reflect and share our skills on navigating in the dark.
Informed by Frances Weller’s work on the ‘The Long Dark’ and Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark, we will use two tarot cards, the hermit and the star, as our guides;
The hermit wanders through darkness with only a lantern to light their way.
The star appear above the rubble of the collapsed tower as a distant sign of hope.
How do we keep moving, when we can only see what is in front of us?
How do we fix our eyes on a distant horizon, knowing we may never reach it
Spring Equinox: Speaking of Renewal
The days grow longer. The weather warms. The wind changes.
Trees draw their sap up from their roots. New shoots emerge.
What wisdom have we gathered from our winter hibernation?
What nourishment might we offer our new shoots?
Reading is a pathway into other times/worlds/perspectives. It is a way of drawing meaning up from the roots of the collective unconscious. This spring workshop presents reading together as a collective philosophical practice. Through collective reading and reflection we will draw out and share wisdom gleaned from pages of poetry, fragments of essays and other writing that nourishes and help us grow.
Participants are invited to bring an excerpt of text to share.
Summer Solstice: Illuminate
The world is heating up. The shadows are illuminated. What happens when we pause and really see what’s around us? This Summer Solstice, we invite you to explore what’s illuminated when we truly pay attention to where we are — in both place and time.
Join us for a community philosophy walkshop designed to help us connect with the world around us. In this two-hour experience, we’ll practice the art of observation and collective meaning-making through reading, walking, and creating together. It’s an invitation to wander, listen, and reflect.
We’ll journey across a 1km route, weaving threads of thought as we stop to share, read, and map the things that matter to us. Along the way, we’ll explore how our surroundings shape our understanding and deepen our connection to the world.
Autumn Equinox: Gleaning
What does hope look like in a time of impending darkness?
How can we gather what we have to make what we need?
Our Autumn Community Philosophy Workshop will focus on what we can gather, glean and store away for darker days through care-full conversation over the kitchen bench. Join us as we gather, glean, chop and bottle what we have harvested over the past season, and consider what might be able to carry forward from this time into the future.
This hands on workshop will be part food preservation, part community philosophy. We will be exploring themes of gleaning, bricolage, mutual aid, radical rest and community care as we preserve what has been harvested from our local surrounds.
