Artwork by Maurits Wouters
The Story of Spiritual Ecology
Small Giants Academy, Melbourne
Artwork by Maurits Wouters
“Any story of transformation, both personal and collective, is born from the crucible of crisis, inviting us to imagine how we might reorient ourselves in an uncharted time.”
—Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
What role does story and the storyteller have to play amid our deepening ecological and cultural crises? What are the stories we need that can help us shift from our current collective narrative of separation to one of wholeness?
This September, Emergence founder, filmmaker, author, and Sufi teacher Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee will join Small Giants Academy founder Berry Liberman for a special conversation exploring how story can be a vessel for establishing a spiritual ecology grounded in interconnectedness, kinship, reciprocity, compassion, and reverence for the more-than-human world. Held at the Small Giants Academy headquarters in St Kilda, Melbourne, this special evening event will draw from Emmanuel’s new book Remembering Earth and Emergence Magazine‘s work to examine storytelling as an integral part of reweaving the connections between ecology, culture, and spirituality.
ABOUT EMMANUEL VAUGHAN-LEE
Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee is an author, Emmy- and Peabody Award–nominated filmmaker, and a Sufi teacher. He has directed more than twenty documentary films, including Taste of the Land, The Last Ice Age, Aloha Āina, The Nightingale’s Song, Earthrise, Sanctuaries of Silence, and Elemental, among others. His films have been screened at New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW, and Hot Docs, exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum and London’s Barbican, and featured on PBS POV, National Geographic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Op-Docs. His new book, Remembering Earth: A Spiritual Ecology, is published by Shambhala Publications. He is the founder and podcast host of Emergence Magazine.
DETAILS
Date: September 23, 2026 (6-7:30pm)
Location: The White House, 11 Princes Street, St Kilda
Learn more and purchase tickets here.