Our Philosophy
What happens when our relationships become the north star by which we live our lives?
What might emerge if we let go of our grip on fixed individualism and begin to see ourselves as vital members of ecological relationships on this planet? How might our changemaking change if we change our beliefs about what is real?
Theory of Change
While the structures of racial capitalism, extraction….. emerged through a complexity of circumstances, part of their staying power is due to a massive and pernicious centuries-old media campaign. Certain beliefs about what we are, what the world is, and what is possible, beliefs that enable the oppression and extinction of life, have seeped into and replicated themselves in countless power structures that have governed the planet. (examples - white supremacy culture?)
Living Systems sees the creation and exploration of different beliefs and stories as the most essential task, knowing that, as Donna Haraway instructs, “it matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.” Who are we and what worlds could we create if we know we are not bound by the colonial imagination?
WHY "LIVING SYSTEMS"?
We borrow the term Living Systems from the work of Maturana & Varela (1980). These Chilean biologists’ and philosophers’ work centered on the organization and structural determinism of units within systems. The heart is not a singular unit operating in a vacuum, rather it is an organization of cells that works in relationship with the vascular system. We have taken their important concept and placed it in the context of our current moment: what if our movements for justice are more like cells in hearts and not collections of individuals? What if we are more entangled than colonial belief systems dictate? And if our current colonial system and its stories are hellbent on collapsing the climate, what might a system organized toward sustaining the life cycle on Earth look like? What stories would it tell?
Living Systems believes/ insists that we stop seeing ourselves as mere individuals, but vital members of an ecology of life. Just as the heart cannot function without the network of organs in the body, each of us is necessary in and needs the systems we live in.
We invite you to dream
and think with us
about what
these systems might look like.
What We Value
Anchored in Curiosity, Beauty, and Softness, we design spaces and experiences that cultivate intellectual intimacy. We believe in the inextricable connection between learning, trust, and relationships. There are no safe spaces in which harm can be prevented, but we can create spaces where we feel safe asking risky questions. We do this through the cultivation of intellectual intimacy: fostering curiosity, finding beauty in dark places, and making the process of uncomfortable growth as soft as possible.
Our History
Living Systems began as an online course in 2021. Driven by the decolonial and ecopsychological nature of her graduate program, founder Leah Garza felt an urgency to share these concepts with her activism weary audience and clients.
Coming off the heels of 2020, the Pandemic, and the apex of anti-police movements created a fatigue in people seeking justice and change. It became evident that alternative stories about the context we lived in were needed. We needed to be free to wonder, what else is possible?
Our BEGINNINGS
The first cohort, gathered through social media and newsletter subscribers, invited 42 students on the maiden voyage into the Living Systems curriculum. The curriculum developed over the course of the year as a co-created project with the students, listening and responding to their inquiries and interests. While the first year created the scope and sequence of the Living Systems concepts, the curriculum is malleable and responsive to the interests and needs of the cohort it is working with. The curriculum itself is a living system.
Our Present
Living Systems became a phenomenon and went on to host multiple cohorts of new and returning students. To date, Living Systems has reached over 300 students, hosted 15 guest teachers, including Bayo Akomolafe, Dr. Neil Theise, and Daniel Fraga.
The need for spaces where people can ask divergent and complex questions without fear of reproach became clear. The need for alternative concepts and perspectives on how we exist became crucial for emergent futures to be born. Living Systems grew from a class taught by one person, into a project, a center, a system of teachers, courses, and immersive experiences.
Living Systems, alive and growing, is a relational space of agency, embodiment, praxis and knowledge-making, compassionate and conscious of the ever-changing needs of the people and the realities we live in. And this is only the beginning!
Leah Garza
Many worlds exist in this one world. In one world, Leah Garza is a veteran teacher and education organizer. She has spent nearly two decades in social justice movement spaces, working toward equitable change in public education. In another world, Leah is a shapeshifter. The trials incurred personally and collectively, through the Trump administration and later the pandemic and uprisings, made her a seeker. Leah learned to engage her ability to shapeshift as she began to ask questions of her purpose in this lifetime. Leah is a practitioner of the Akashic records, and offers radical healing work through the lenses of decoloniality and relational ways of being to subvert the colonial agenda. She is currently writing a dissertation at Pacifica Graduate Institute in the Community, Liberation, Indigenous and Eco Psychologies program, where she is wondering how decolonial pedagogies can build public spaces of intellectual intimacy toward relational ways of being for those of us above the Abyssal line. She holds an MA in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, an M.Ed. from UCLA and a B.A. in linguistics from Northeastern University.
