MOWA

The Museum of Wonder and Awe

We are born into an elegantly designed, brilliantly composed organic interplay that invites us to move closer in wonder. Leap Forward is convening an interdisciplinary team of experts to create the Museum of Wonder and Awe, which will viscerally evoke and rekindle the curiosity and vitality with which we were born. Through a series of provocative immersive experiences in a safe, yet edgy environments, the Museum will make visible how our own human development and underlying interpersonal dynamics, are governed by Nature’s abundant and diverse adaptation strategies to surviving changing environments. Like all organisms, we are part of its creative intelligence, and as such are as wondrously informed by its elegance. The Museum will illuminate the role perception plays in creating a sense of separateness between us. It will bring awareness to the way it disconnects us from our natural environment and galvanize correction. We are committed to creating a space that will have visitors experience the awe-inspiring and wondrous natural garden we are part of and have them leave curious and inspired to better understand themselves, each other and Nature.

Wid enin g our lens of perc eptio n

-Albert Einstein

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

The Wonder (concept)

We are born into an elegantly designed, brilliantly composed organic interplay that invites us to move closer in wonder - to live in the questions. Yet so much of what we are exposed to throughout our lives is meant to teach us facts and instruct us. We are raised to be in the “know” in a world rich with unknowable mysteries.

The concept

Humans, like other organisms, are subject to Nature’s abundant and diverse adaptation strategies to surviving changing environments. We are part of its creative intelligence, and as such are as wondrously informed by its elegance.What if people could discover that individually and collectively, we are just as awe-inspiring? What if people could experience first-hand the fascinating and elegant dynamics underpinning the human social ecosystem responsible for many of our self-affirming and self-defeating behaviors?

The concept

Humans, like other organisms, are subject to Nature’s abundant and diverse adaptation strategies to surviving changing environments. We are part of its creative intelligence, and as such are as wondrously informed by its elegance.What if people could discover that individually and collectively, we are just as awe-inspiring? What if people could experience first-hand the fascinating and elegant dynamics underpinning the human social ecosystem responsible for many of our self-affirming and self-defeating behaviors?

Rekindling the curiosity and vitality with which we were born.

The Experience

What if we can fully recover our innate curiosity and wonder, and thereby delightfully respond to the mysteries and adventures of life? Imagine a series of provocative immersive experiences in safe, yet edgy environments that viscerally make life’s daily mysteries elegantly palpable - evoking awe, wonder, self-reflection, compassion and creativity.

vision

WaKiNg Up InSiDe

The New Human

It’s time to immerse ourselves in a new mythology – a new human story. Yes, our planet is facing great challenges, and yes, our societal structures are falling apart, and yes, our divisiveness seem to be growing exponentially every day. And we are so much more than that! We can rise above our habitual perception and beliefs andl behold the edge of a new horizon. It’s time to evolve toward a new level of perception, where we discover and internalize how we magnificently fit into the intricate and brilliant fabric of our planet’s ecosystem.

Why MOWA

“I am the hole on the flute that Gods breath flows through." - Hafiz

Within us are antennas that need fine tuning - to receive new information - to help us reveal a new perspective for how we fit with each other, within this planet, within this uni-verse. A new Map of Being that will illuminate the path to listening, to connecting, to creating, to choosing to living and loving differently. The pioneers who discovered new lands, agriculture, germs and technology, stretched themselves beyond their visible horizon to advance our wellbeing. They studied the physical world and made visible the invisible, applying their discoveries to help us adapt to our external environments . This is our moment to widen our angle of perception and redirect our exploration toward what is invisible to us in our interior world – to discover what’s blocking us from leading harmonious, regenerative and thriving lives.

If not now then when...

Steady scientific and technological breakthroughs are beginning to paint a clear picture of how the biological, neurological, psychological, social and natural sciences are entwined in shaping our behaviors. New technologies and other observational and measuring tools are beginning to help make our invisible interior processes visible, revealing what drives us to feel, think, behave and make the choices we make. The Museum of Wonder and Awe is weaving many of these specific, yet entangled breakthroughs together to create a visceral experience and make visible the wondrous invisible world that lives within us. It invites us to envision and contemplate new awe-inspiring social and natural ecosystems. Now we have the astounding opportunity to stretch and envision beyond our limited beliefs of what is possible, and peer into the mystery of a new era - The Era of Living in Awe and Wonder.

if not now then when...

To shift our perception of reality through reconnecting us back to all our sense-abilities To elucidate how our protective, adaptive mechanisms contributes to our perceptions that we are separate from each other and Nature To hear, recall and reclaime our inner voice by connecting to Nature’s echoes within and around us. To discover, rejoice and build upon our interdependence and unity with each other and all of Nature

One person at a time...

our Mission

Design Outline To give people connection...

Core Components of the Experience - The Structure

Reconstruction or Integration

Aha Experience of Awe

Immersive Experience that Disrupts Normal Perception

Begin with Creating a Safe Space – Something Awe-inspiring and Familiar

Design Outline

Re-awakening Curiosity, Wonder and Awe

Language and Communication The invisible meanings of symbolic words

Awakening Sensations Feeling in the body and reconnecting us to our sense-abilities

Perceptions The way it affects our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors

We are Nature Connecting us to our roots - we are organisms among organism

Immersive Experience

Themes

HumilityIntegrity Integrated Cooperation Conscious Communication Caring Co-evolution

The New Paradigm

Values

Ben Miller - Psychologist, Lauren Oliver - Storyteller, Filmaker Chloe Valdary - Cultural Anthropolgist Gail Taylor - Teacher, Education Amy Kruse - Neuroscientist, Funder Zorana Pringle - Creativity Scientist Jenna Kohkne - Producer, Society for Neuroscience

Team & Advisors

Gail Taylor

Social entrepreneur: employing scaffolding in design of healthier futures

Ben Miller

Leader. Doer. Advocate.

Chloe Valdary

Founder, Theory of Enchantment

Lauren Oliver

CEO of Story Giants. A multi-New York Times bestselling author, screenwriter, and producer with a passion for finding and empowering underserved creatives and audiences.

TEAM

Christine Urquhart

Director at Stand Together Ventures

Jenna Kohnke Gaffney

VP of Business Performance and Chief of Staff at Relativity Space

Zorana Pringel

Yale faculty. Author. Speaker. Creativity and innovation scholar.

Amy Kruse

Lead Investor | Entrepreneur | Board Director | Scientist | Innovator | International Keynote Speaker

Team / Advisors

Laura Shultz

MIT Early Childhood Cognition Lab. Her research focuses on the processes that support exploration, inquiry, and discovery in early childhood.

Alexander Laszlo, Ph.D

American systems scientist. Director of Research at the Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research (LINPR)

Janine Benyus

biologist, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature

Elizabeth Koch

Unlikely Collaborators & Tiny Blue Dot Foundation Founder | Creator | Philanthropist | Innovator | Storyteller

Others

We are a fifteen person community with diverse members from around the globe, sharing the challenges we face and the triumphs we experience as we continually choose to live a transparently authentic and interconnected life. We are scientists, entreprenuers, technologists, artists, impact investors, activists and more. We came together united by our feelings of pain and loneliness arising from our disconnection from ourselves, families, communities and Nature. In the process, we have discovered the grief we hold about our impending environmental, social, and economic collapse. Our intention is to make visible the path we have been taking that led us to bridge our differences and united us around our interdependence and care for ourselves, our families, each other and our planet.

About Leap Forward

Over the past 10 years of rigorous collaborative inner-work, we have emerged a complex and ever-growing coherent ecosystem that cultivates and nurtures our self awareness and trust in each other.In this space we are able to tap into our diverse resources and perspectives with a new level of cooperation, and integrate our experiences and knowledge to anticipate the needs of an unknown future. We began by creating nurturing spaces where we felt safe to expose and embrace our humanity, allowing us to share our deepest fears and greatest wishes. We are now focusing on listening to what wants to emerge in response to our current global challenges. We are growing and maturing together as we reap the rewards of co-creating and cooperating, choosing to live a self-directed life within an interdependent community. We have become resilient in the face of uncertainty and are beginning to trust our inherent ability to adapt to whatever comes our way. Together and apart, we are experiencing the daily challenges and joys of being with life as it occurs, not as we wish it to be. As we lean into our interdependence, we touch the wonder, mystery and delight of creation while facing the darkness together.

collective Why

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive."

-Joseph Campbell

ronit.herzfeld@leapforward.us

www.leapforward.us

CONTACT

Phsyical Space & Funding

OBJECTIVE 4

Production Needs

OBJECTIVE 3

Identify & Gather Team / Talent

OBJECTIVE 2

Concept & Script

OBJECTIVE 1