ABSTRACT
Personal sustainability, extended to an ‘inner dimension of sustainability’ by the author is essential to complete our efforts towards sustainability. The individual needs to use his ‘inner technologies’ to enable the encounter with himself, the other and the world. Only that way he is able to take over the responsibility for his thinking and acting. Going back to social sculpture, imagination serves to connect us emotionally, aesthetically and morally with what otherwise can remain conceptual understandings. The author presents three examples of experiences using the inner atelier for imaginal work in order to connect groups for common processes of development. Addressed as ‘Earth Forum’, a methodology was developed, containing different phases where individuals use their imagination in the ‘inner atelier’ and share the respective experience with the help of active listening. The inner atelier is described as the space from which everyone can take a ‘hard look on what’s going on and reflect upon its implications’. Using it together, new social imaginaries can arise. Only strengthening the inner capacities in such a way can balance the nowadays-predominating outer activities and enable the transformation to a viable future.
