The Proteus Initiative

approaching an ecology of consciousness

We work with all aspects of social change – consulting, facilitating, writing, teaching. We strive to bring together a sensibility for, understanding of, and practice towards the relationship between ecological wholeness and social coherence and healing. Enabling people to stretch their processes of inner and outer development to greater edges and depths; this is the foundation for socially responsive and life-supporting practices.

We are very happy to be offering two different kinds of programmes currently, one long-term and online (starting 2026), the other residential on Towerland Wilderness in September 2025.


On-line:
Enabling Life -– An international online programme touching on the threads of a Delicate Activism, through a Reflective Social Practice, and illuminating Artists of the Invisible for a new era. This programme begins in 2026. Applications open now. For more information and to view the brochure, please see below or CLICK HERE.

ENABLING LIFE
FORM AND FREEDOM
VIEW PDF

In Person:
In September, on Towerland Wilderness, we will be offering a two week process which takes our Braving Artificial Intelligence exploration of 2024 to new and further places. It is called Form and Freedom. This programme is already full, but please notify us if you are interested to be put on a cancellation list, or if you’re looking for information concerning future such offerings on Towerland. To view the brochure, please see below or CLICK HERE.

FORM AND FREEDOM
September 2025
FORM AND FREEDOM
VIEW PDF

Integrating Goethe - professional development for social practitioners

An Invitation to join a group in Cape Town

The idea
Those of us who have been exposed to − and by? - the ‘Goethean Glance’ know that it renders the world a World once more, with all the promise that it contained in childhood, deepened and strengthened by our experiences of coming up against it. We know that it leaves us able to see further − though such seeing can also be painful. We know that seeing further ‘out’ can only be achieved simultaneously with seeing further ‘in’ − and we know what that entails.

The world reveals itself through us, we reveal ourselves through the world, we change the world through changing ourselves − yes, all of this, and all so elusive, so hard to catch, so impossible to hold, because what we hold can only ever be what has been, we can never hold the becoming. We know that, when we catch a glimpse of the becoming, the world becomes enthusiastic and inspired once more, yet that becoming comes with its own tearing sadness (who of us, asks Borges, has not lost something infinite in their lives?). We know, perhaps, that when we see through to the groundswell, to the incoming wave, of life, we see through to a world that is new; and those of us who are social practitioners, most of all, we know that, to see through the prism of our own burnished practice, lightly, is to hold a candle to the dark, and allow the world to breath once more. Read the full brochure HERE.