Integrity
For
Future
on tour
South Africa
Integrity isn’t a concept. It is an embodied experience. It only becomes meaningful, tangible and alive through people, their individual way to relate to it and the way they live it with others in the various contexts of their lives.
In order to make integrity, a core aspect of human life on earth, more accessible in a world that has not payed much attention to it and that is now caught in the trouble of the devastating effects that lack has created, I decided to go “on tour”.
To ask questions that reveal the unbroken strength and beauty that lays in each and everyone of us.
If it comes to integrity none of the many individual colours and expressions can be excluded or left out. This is why these questions are for everyone, to say for the average 8 billion people living on our planet today. Integrity only is if every single voice is being heard.
So where to start?
South Africa
cradle of humanity
Listening to 8 billion people on our planet seems to be a quite impossible thing. And where would you start? At least you have to start somewhere.
At the end it was a very personal decision of mine to begin the integrity journey in South Africa. The question I saw myself confronted with was how the most general (the huge question about the trustworthiness of human kind) and the most individual (the kaleidoscope of every human beings personal experience) could meet. These are my reflections.
The African continent is said to be the cradle of humanity. When asking core questions around our human species why not start where it all began?
South Africa as a nation holds the most complex historical background. The variety of groups managing to live together on a shared ground, building on layers and layers of trauma resulting in conflict, outbreaks of violence and self-perpetuating systems of oppression is unique. So what to learn from that?
Last but not least I trusted that my natural interest in deep encounters with the people I’d meet and my wish to experience South Africas peerless beauty in nature and wildlife are equally relevant ingredients of the journey.
Maps & Territories
From October to November 2022 I traveled the Western Cape of South Africa. Equipped with my > integrity questions, an > introductory letter and a handful connections I could thankfully make through friends in advance, a small rental car, my iPhone camera and a timeframe of 6 weeks I felt ready to expose myself to the unknown, ready for listening.
Traveling on my own wasn’t always easy, especially when inner or outer obstacles occurred. I am grateful for the many human angels that simply appeared when I really needed them. And I was not only carried by the depth and the benevolence of the people I met. Throughout my whole journey I was steadily and most reliably held by South Africas nature in the unnamable generosity that lays in its vast and endless beauty.
HOW TO WATCH THE INTERVIEWS
The multiple perspectives that are gathered here can be approached in equally multiple ways. You can choose to go through the interviews chronically in the order they are presented here and be in tune with the inner and outer choreography of my trip how it unfold. You could also scroll through them and pick randomly what is calling your attention from what you see. Another possibility is to relate through one of the three fields that are named below. The fields overlap. And there is emphasis. You find direct links to the interviews on Vimeo where you have access to additional information on peoples projects, ambitions and backgrounds. And the journey begins.
Integrity For Future on tour | South Africa – Nicole
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Melissa
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Caron
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Karin
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Koketso
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Andiswa
A personal note
On Complexity
As complex as South Africa is as complex my traveling experience has been. Every interview speaks for itself. And: with every share the singular pieces started to weave a bigger picture. People that never met seemed to be connected not only through the topics they revealed but also through their perspectives on life coming from the depth of their beings.
3 important fields of exploration did naturally emerge in my conversations. To name them might help to make the rich content more accessible without reducing its complex nature or doing any harm to the bits and pieces that all hold an integrity in themselves.
The relational field
Historical wounds & collective trauma
The social field
Equity & the rise of consciousness
The ecological field
Reforestation & Regenerative Agriculture
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Shirley
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Joanne
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Hanna
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Fezeka
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Trust
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Jenny
The relational field
Some of my interview partners are emphasising on the relational field. Key words here would be the impact of historical wounds, individual and collective trauma, healing and personal growth.
If you would like to enter the shares through this angle I invite you to meet Nicole Hermes (plant medicine), Karin Ritchie (trauma practitioner), Shirley Redman (People Of Love), Chris Nash (Patchamama Retreat Center), Andiswa, Koketso Ritchie (student), Caron Lee (Life Coach), Joanne Seekoie (coloured community resident), Ntomboxolo Mrubata (Bitou Women Of Change) Jenny Lawrence (Wild Spirit Lodge), Johann Kikillus (Ocean View Care Center), Doris Lindsay (HopeTown), Lesley Palmer (family therapist).
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Chris
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Zami
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Dave
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Ntomboxolo
The social field
Some of my interview partners are emphasising on the social field. Key words here would be the overcome of inequity, the rise of consciousness, collective soul wounds, community living and the healing of society.
If you would like to enter the shares through this angle I invite you to meet Shirley Redman (People Of Love), Andiswa, Koketso Ritchie (student), Melissa Saayman Krige (Platbos Forest Reserve), Zami Molo, Fezeka Jebese, Hanna Grotepass (homeopath), Joanne Seekoie (coloured community resident), Ntomboxolo Mrubata, (Bitou Women Of Change), Johann Kikillus (Ocean View Care Center), Doris Lindsay (HopeTown), Tina Hopff (People Of Love), Trust (restaurant owner), Dave (gated estate habitant), David Marcus (Rastafari elder), M’Lani Basson (Amado), Lesley Palmer (family therapist), Angus McIntosh (regenerative farmer), Nomonde Calata (Fort Calata Foundation).
An important event for me while I was traveling was the 2nd Fort Calata Memorial Day. I am linking here to the recording of this remarkable event.
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Tina
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | David
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | M’Lani
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Johann
The ecological field
Some of my interview partners are emphasising on the ecological field. Key words here would be reforestation, regenerative agriculture and the importance of the history of the land.
Listen to Chris Nash (Pachamama Forest Retreat Center), Melissa Saayman Krige (Platbos Forest Reserve), Angus McIntosh (Regenerative farming at Spiers Wine Farm), Jenny Lawrence (Wild Spirit Lodge).
An important event for me while I was traveling was the panel “Medicine meets Nature” with Zach Bush (physician and Co-Founder of Farmers Footprint) at the organic Wine Farm in Stellenbosch. I am linking to the short film Regeneration – The Beginning.
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Doris
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Lesley
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Angus
Integrity For Future on tour – South Africa | Nomonde
What has been revealed for you?
Thank you for joining me on my inner and outer journey.
Every single interview speaks for itself.
What has been revealed for you?
How did the listening changed you?
Where did you feel challenged in your perspective on life/humankind?
What patterns occurred for you?
How did the singular pieces started to weave a bigger picture?
And where did the coherence got lost?
How do you feel about that process of emergence and dissolve?
What has been revealed for me?
My own fields of learning
Here is what I would like to share about my own journey. Wherever you go on our beautiful planet one thing that can not be denied is the life destructing impact human attitude and action has within the ecological systems we should naturally belong to. This is also what I saw traveling South Africa.
At the same time people are becoming more and more aware and start to engage in the fields they feel drawn to. I was especially impressed by the ones willingly devoting their time and knowledge to reinstate the conditions for nature to unfold its inherent wisdom about life life-ing in a complexity to a degree that is beyond of what we can “make”. These people were learning through the widening of their capacities to perceive.
There is a link between our destructive behaviour and the piling up layers of trauma our societies are build on. The widening of our perception might help us see patterns in nature that are also accessible in us. And indeed, when I’m listening to my interview partners what I see subtly starting to emerge is a pattern of repair. Where there is separation, where there is suppression, where there is violation of life there also is a longing for repair which seems to be deeply embedded in the core of our human-beingness.
relational repair
social repair
ecological repair
the emergence
of a culture of repair
What I propose with the initiative Integrity For Future is a full acknowledgement of this longing of our souls to contribute to the beauty and to allow this inner tending towards repair to express in the world.
Repair doesn’t seek to fix. It is rather the capability and the willingness to feel our heart brokenness to the fullest. To not hide, dissociate or justify away from it but to admit, in love and honesty for the sake of the truth of the soulful beings we are.
Humanity is going through a dark night of the soul.
It is also composting the painful experiences of a culture of scapegoating and stepping into a new era of a culture of repair.
