This meditation builds empathy pathways to other life forms. It is part of a larger collaborative role-play project called The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025 depicting the story of the dawning of interspecies democracy. It’s a new era of equal rights for all living beings, where all species come together to organise and shape the environments and cultures they inhabit, in London’s Finsbury Park (and urban green spaces across the UK, the world, and beyond!) After much protest it has been agreed that a treaty of cooperation will be drawn up. The meditation is used as a tool for character development and immersion. As participants we use our imaginations and a bonding ritual to enter the body and consciousness of a different species and to reflect on the nature of their existence. This ritual transports us to the interspecies multiverse where we sit for a guided meditation. The meditation is followed by a sharing circle where we describe the experiences we have of our new bodies and sentience. By listening to each other we understand more about our place in webs of life.

Credits:
Treaty concept by Ruth Catlow and Cade Diehm
Meditation by Ruth Catlow and Sarah Friend in 2021.
The bonding ritual was originally created for a multispecies food justice LARP called ‘Now London is a City Farm…’ created by Ruth with Sara Heitlinger, Lara Houston and Alex Taylor as part of the Algorithmic Food Justice research project.

Practical information:
You can join this event either in-person, in the Kasarna Karlin venue in Prague, or remotely via the online Zoom platform. Please select the correct ticket at the registration check-out (see the JOIN button above on this page, just under the event date). A Zoom link will be provided to all registered participants closer to the event date.