Partners in Process
The Emerging Process Community

Links to online groups and conversations fostering
Process Community, Process Practice, Process Art,
Process Research, and Process Explorations

Opening of Cobb Eco-Village in China, Oct., 2018, sponsored by Institute for Constructive Postmodern China

Links to Online Groups and Conversations
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More links will be added as we become aware of them.  Please send links if you are part of an online group or conversation that should be included.  We cannot include individual websites; there are just too many.  But we can include group websites and conversations.  Scroll down for an interpretation of the process movement.
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1. Becomings: A Collective for Emerging Artists
2. ​Bradley Artson's Moments of Torah Videos on Facebook
3. Center for Ecozoic Studies
4. Center for Open and Relational Theology
5. Center for Process Spirituality
6. Center for Process Studies
7. Church for our Common Home
8. Cobb Institute: A Community for Process and Practice
9. European Society for Process Thought
10. Faith on the Edge Podcasts (with Bruce Epperly)
11. Fat Soul Café Facebook Group
12. Flagstaff College
13. Homebrewed Christianity 
14. Institute for Ecological Civilization
15. Institute for Postmodern Development of China
16. International Process Network
17. Korean Institute for Ecological Civilization Facebook Group
18. Madawaska Institute for Religion and Culture (Canada) Facebook Group
19. Metaphysical Evolutions: ​Process Studies in Venezuela
20. Myra House Holistic Living Center (California)
21. Open and Relational Theology Facebook Discussion Group
22. Open Horizons: Exploring a Process Outlook on Life and Way of Living
23. Open Islam and Process Thinking Facebook Group
24. Pando Populus: Where Big Ideas come down to Earth
25. Postmodern Eco Facebook Group
26. Probing Process and Reality with John Cobb Facebook Group
27. ​Process and Faith Facebook Group
28. Process Musings (Blog on Spirituality and Practice)
29. Process Phenomenology Project
30. Process Philosophy for Everyone Facebook Group
31. Religion Online
32. Real Spirituality for Real Life Facebook Group
33. Sunshine Ecovillage in China (Location of Cobb Eco-Academy)
34. The Way Collective (a Process Church)
    
35. ​WeChat Groups in China: 生态文明读书会 and 杨门 and 生态文明2018三生谷暑期  (only available through WeChat)
36. West Coast Centre for (r)Evolutionary Theology
37. Whitehead Research Project Facebook Group​

Notes 
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1. There are many individuals around the world, and also some small groups, that are very much part of the process movement, but that do not have a web presence as a formal Group or an Online Conversation.  My focus on Groups and Online Conversations is limiting.  If you are among those doing good process work at a local level, please create a webpage and become a group!  We want to include you.
2. In many instances groups have a webpage and a social media presence: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube Channel.  We have included only the group's Facebook presence, because we didn't want to repeat ourselves too much.  Usually a Facebook group gives the other links and, most importantly, gives updates on their activities. 
3. Some of the Facebook groups are primarily conversations: that is, contexts in which people are engaged in discussions on the process outlook on life and way of living. 
4. In China there are many such conversations on WeChat.  We include the ID names, but there are no internet links except through WeChat.
5. We include groups that focus on another topic but include process perspectives in their approach: e.g. the Center for Ecozoic Studies, Rabbi Bradley Artson's Moments of Torah Facebook Videos (he is the leading Jewish process theologian in the world today), the Open and Relational Facebook Discussion Group, and Religion Online.

           -- Jay McDaniel, April 2020 - mcdaniel(at)Hendrix.edu

​What is the Process Movement​?

one person's interpretation

The process movement consists of people in different parts of the world, and from many walks of life, who share a common outlook on life and and way of living in the world.  They include artists, philosophers, scientists, theologians, poets, musicians, farmers, grandparents and teenagers.  Some are interested in the details of Whitehead's philosophy and others are more interested in general ideas that shape a process outlook on life.  Some are interested in theory and others more interested in practice.  All are part of the emerging process community.  All are process friends.  There are many others who are friends to the process community: that is, many organizations and people who are like-minded, like-hearted, creative contributors to the common good.  We wish that we could include them here, but that would make the list too cumbersome.  So our focus here is on those who identify with the process movement and its commitment to an outlook on life (worldview) and way of living.  

The Process Outlook

The outlook on life important to people in the process community is rich and complex.  As I see things, it is informed by at least twenty key ideas.  Here are some basics:

• Every moment in a person's life is an act of improvisation: creating something new out of a settled past.
• Improvisation goes all the way down into the depths of matter.
• We live in a universe of inter-becoming; each event in the universe carries the influence of, and influences, all the others.
• The building blocks of the universe are moments and relationships -- not 'things,'
• Each and every living being is a subject of its own life and not just an object for others, with intrinsic value.
• Injustice lies in denying the value of other lives, other subjects; and it harms all involved.
• Our human calling is to enjoy life as best we can and to help build communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, multicultural, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind. 
• As we seek to fulfill this vocation, we are beckoned by the ideal of Beauty: harmony and intensity of experience.
• ​This ideal of Beauty, and its inwardly felt beckoning toward the fullness of life for each and all, is how Deep Listening of the universe -- God -- is present continuously in life on earth and the entirety of the cosmos.

One of the most systematic articulations of this kind of thinking is the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and its many amplifications developed by process thinkers around the world.  Nevertheless, there are many expressions: Asian and African, Latin American and European.  You can find many process themes in biblical texts and stories, in the Qur'an, in Buddhism, and in indigenous perspectives the world over - as well as in western philosophical traditions (Heraclitus, Hegel, Bergson, William James, John Dewey).  This process outlook is not limited to Whitehead.  It is an attitude, an approach to life, and it can be communicated through many cultural traditions, both religious and secular. 

The Process Way

Complementary to the outlook is the way of living to which process people aspire and embody in varying degrees in their daily lives.  This way includes practices of various kinds: (1) social practices aimed at helping heal a broken world,  (2) inter-personal practices relevant to healthy relations with family, friends and neighbors, and (3) whole-person practice relevant to a personal spiritual journey.  All are important. 

The Center for Process Spirituality uses the image below, borrowed from Spirituality and Practice, to illustrate the wide range of process practices, all of which are important in the process way.  They include ethical sensibilities (compassion, kindness, justice, peace) but also others (faith, imagination, playfulness, silence, wonder, zest for life) which are part of that "richness of experience" or "strength of beauty" which humans naturally seek as individuals, and in community with one another and the wider world.  One process thinker, Patricia Adams Farmer, has interpreted each of these practices in a process way.  Check out her offerings in Open Horizons for some of these interpretations.
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The emerging process movement, consisting as it does of a growing and worldwide community, will focus both on the outlook and the way of living, neither to the exclusion of the other.  It will be enriched and deepened by cultural sources that are new to it. The process movement of 2050 will not look like the process movement of 2020, and the very word "process" may not be used to name it.  The movement, too, is in process.

​But for now "process" is our word.  It is the best we have to name a movement that means so much to so many.  My own hope is that this page can be expanded over time to include many new groups and conversations from many parts of the world.  Please email me if you have ideas or would like to add a group or conversation: [email protected].

-- Jay McDaniel, April 2020