Beyond Bohm 2026 – Part 1: Meaning / Cosmology / Poetics

Beyond Bohm 2026 – Part 1: Meaning / Cosmology / Poetics

For decades, David Bohm’s oeuvre has largely been presented in three categories – his work in physics, in philosophy, and in social dialogue. In Beyond Bohm 2026, we will shift that emphasis, looking further afield for new perspectives on Bohm’s multifaceted vision. Initially we will explore Bohm’s organicist metaphysics from an experiential perspective – in what ways can his radical views on the nature of the human be put to the test in daily life? This will be followed by an introduction to Bohmian poetics – a new, multi-disciplinary theme in Bohmian Studies at the Pari Center. Finally, we will examine how the groundbreaking work of cosmologist Brian Swimme and philosopher John Vervaeke complement and extend Bohm’s diverse perspectives.

1. Into the Blue

July 4 and 5
With Lee Nichol, Bruce Alderman & friends

The recently-released Into the Blue: Chasing the Spirit of David Bohm is an account of fifty years of experimentation with David Bohm’s metaphysical perspectives. It is not a book of physics, nor is it a book of abstract philosophy. It is the distillation of practical, experiential engagements with core aspects of Bohm’s worldview: wholeness and fragmentation, the self-image, thought as a system, meaning, dialogue, soma-significance, and the implicate order.

Over the course of this weekend, we will inquire into these themes, and how anyone can pursue these questions in real-life ways. Of particular focus, we will outline new ways of understanding Bohm’s emphasis on somatic experience. Among these are rheosoma (the flowing body) and the open organism, an exploratory mode of recovering the innate depth of human being.

We will be joined by friends who have been participating in a group exploration of the weekend’s themes.

2 Hours, including Q & A

2. Exploring a Bohmian Poetics

July 11 and 12
With Lee Nichol, Bruce Alderman, Hester Reeve, Richard Burg & friends

Reaching back into antiquity, the notion of poiesis has a long and rich history. Originally it alluded to “creation,” as in an art object, or poetry. In contemporary usage poiesis has come to indicate the movement by which something emerges from concealment into living presence, and the degree to which that movement expresses truth, or wholeness. This could be a carving, or a cloud, or an automobile, or a concept.

This weekend we will take up three questions. First, in what ways can we think of David Bohm’s framework of implicate and explicate orders as poiesis, as revealing the coming-into-being of the human and natural worlds? Second, in what ways are human beings participants in this implicate/explicate movement of poiesis? And finally, the poetics: how can we think about and embody these questions – what can literature, song, painting, conversation, philosophy, and contemplative arts reveal about unfolding meaning?

Our intention here is long-term – to open up multiple new ways of experiencing and expressing the arc of David Bohm’s lifework. As in our first weekend, friends who are exploring this territory will join us and share their perspectives.

2 Hours, including Q & A

3. Unfolding the Senses

July 18 & 19
With Bruce Alderman, Brian Swimme, John Vervaeke, and Lee Nichol

Our final weekend explores how the sensibility cultivated across the first two weekends — the felt encounter with rheosoma and organismic being — might extend into the domains of perception, cosmology, and the renewal of meaning. Bruce Alderman, drawing from his forthcoming book Unfolding the Senses, will introduce the territory where Bohm’s vision meets the phenomenology of the senses, inviting participants to explore felt sense, motility, and vision as concrete pathways into embodied wholeness.

Two special conversations will deepen this inquiry: with mathematical cosmologist Brian Thomas Swimme (Saturday), whose work on cosmogenesis situates embodied perception within the creative arc of a time-developmental universe; and with cognitive scientist and philosopher John Vervaeke (Sunday), whose account of the meaning crisis and participatory knowing illuminates why the perceptual transformations at the heart of this work are both personally and collectively urgent.

Together, these encounters invite us to sense how a Bohmian poetics — a calling forth of form and meaning — might unfold through the living body, across deep time, and into our most pressing contemporary challenges.