🌳 The Tree of Embodied Ethics
Practices to shift from knowing about something, to actually living it.
Enrollment now open for School of Wise Innovation’s Spring Cultivator starting April 3rd!
Fellow travelers,
Last spring we sat at the feet of The Emerald’s Josh Schrei to learn about how ethics has traditionally been embodied.
He recommended practices that might be especially useful for entrepreneurs and technologists used to a culture of urgency, scale, individualism.
Because in order to make good decisions on behalf of all life, well, we need to actually be in conscious relationship with it. Which requires regular ritual connection to it.
Many increasingly get this. But there’s a difference between knowing about something, and actually knowing it in one’s body, such that it’s lived.
How do we shift from abstract to embodied ethics?
School of Wise Innovation has been keeping its antennae up for additional practices that might be relevant to founders and changemakers exploring how to live, work, and create with greater harmony.
e.g. Embodied practices that not only help us get out of heads and into our bodies, but train our sensitivity to the quality of presence and type of energetics we are bringing to our actions (how you do one thing is how you do everything).
Communal practices that not only create joyful connection, but train our egos to think less of our own survival, and hearts to open wider to our collective human family.
—> Inspired by The Tree of Contemplative Practices from The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, we’ve developed a v1 of a Tree of Embodied Ethics Practices to elevate such activities:
The Tree is not meant to be a definitive taxonomy, but rather an invitation to explore what embodied ethics practice means to each of us.
Consider for yourself:
Which of these practices have you found most joyful? Reliably teach you about yourself and the world?
Which are new to you? Which might you be avoiding?
What kinds of practices might be available through your lineage, or traditions that resonate, or that grew out of the land you’re on?
Who can you learn from or practice with?
Where can you create space in your calendar?
The question we consistently come back to at School of Wise Innovation is: “what does Life on Earth want innovators to learn and practice?”
May the Tree of Embodied Ethics inspire and support you in cultivating greater sensitivity, reverence, and harmony with yourself, your relationships, and the web of life.
Let us know what you think of this v1! Consider starting a conversation with your teams about how you might integrate more embodied ethics practices into your workflow or offsites.
Special thank you to Elena Lake who worked on early version of this, Samantha Sweetwater whose thinking helped refine it, and Eden Forrest Collective where the tree grew over the winter.
🌸 Spring Cultivator Begins in 3 weeks
In the absence of meaningful educational containers for visionaries to adopt a range of embodied ethics practices, we've dedicated 2025 to developing ̶a̶c̶c̶e̶l̶e̶r̶a̶t̶o̶r̶ ̶d̶e̶c̶e̶l̶e̶r̶a̶t̶o̶r̶ CULTIVATOR programming to help us practice what we preach.
Join a growing community of exceptional humans dedicated to integrating their inner work with their work in the world. Learning from some of the best wayfinders out there, to guide our next steps as the solar cycle springs alive.
Early bird available. Those who sign up for Spring Cultivator will also get access to recordings from Winter Cultivator.
With gratitude,
School of Wise Innovation
Love the tree, and the courses look truly inspiring! Will share the tree locally, assuming that's the intention :)
Love the tree of embodied ethics. Definitely poster material :)