Mapping Infrastructures of Mystery

In a time of profound and multidimensional crisis, the need for action coming from a deep appreciation of the mystery of life is more urgent than ever. But it seems like so much of the world is set against us engaging with that deep reality. What would happen if we see opportunities for experiencing life as a deep mystery as a common good? If we see the structural conditions for such experiences as something to cultivate, fight for, and to protect, just like public health care or educational systems? This is what we’ve been speculating about in a series of sessions organized by the Transforming Cities team and led by Joost Vervoort.

During the two previous mystery events we noticed that our participants were really keen to talk about the individual experiences they had had that made them feel truly in touch with the wonders of life and life itself. We talked plenty about where this mystery shows up for them; what it feels like; and how it affects them. This sharing helps us understand the power of mystery and plurality in how we might experience it, but these individual lenses don’t allow us to organize for that power just yet. During the second session we therefore introduced the concept of infrastructures of mystery. The examples and musings participants came up with were helpful in creating an initial ontology for infrastructures of mystery.  

We kicked off the sessions with an exercise of gathering seeds. Seeds are radical initiatives in the now that help us steer towards better futures (here: a future in which mystery is valued and centered). Although the seeds approach is not part of the ontology, we included this exercise because thinking of these real-world examples helps people access the thinking of what enables us to experience mystery and what context this happens in. Click on the image below to find out what emerged.

Next we presented two ways of looking at infrastructures of mystery. We looked at how infrastructures show up in our world. And then at what they exactly are; what the infrastructure component of it actually is. Click on the image below to immerse yourself in the ontology.

To let matter become an infrastructure of mystery, or to encourage those that already are to continuously allow for mystery, we wonder what we can do. We came up with a number of physical and mental actions that we can take as a society, as an institution, a group or individual to cultivate infrastructures of mystery. Click on the image below to find them.

Want to stay up to date about this research? Reach out to j.m.vervoort@uu.nl to be added to our signal chat.