A short and a longer presentation of me, Stina Deurell. My background and the sources of inspiration that led to the Wider Embraces and You are Planet Earth.
Short About Me, Stina Deurell, Founder of the Wider Embraces
I’m curious, creative and a bit stubborn; when I do something, I really do it.
The Wider Embraces has been my primary focus since 2012. It has been an amazing journey together with great people. I’m a self-employed web developer, graphic designer and renowned nature photographer. I’ve been part of the Swedish environmental movement for decades, both as an activist and employee and on the board of several organisations.
I hold a third-degree black belt in Aikido and have been practising TM and Zen meditation. I was a leading member of Malmö Integral and am deeply interested in the natural sciences and philosophy.
The Longer Story about What has Inspired and Influenced Me
These glimpses from my life will give you an idea of where the Wider Embraces project has some of its roots. However, many people from diverse backgrounds have contributed to its development over the years.
Cosmology and the vast Universe
When I was four years old, I was looking at the night sky with my father. He told me that no one knew where the universe ended. It blew my mind; since then, I’ve tried to understand infinity.
I’m still struggling to grasp the vastness of the universe, although science has made tremendous progress during my lifetime, and today, we understand so much more.
– Resting in the Embrace of the Universe. Nothing to do, think or feel.
Field Biology and Loving the Outdoors
During my teens, I spent my free time outdoors together with my friends in our local Field Biology Club in Södertälje outside Stockholm, examining flowers and birds, lichens and butterflies, and just enjoying the sunrise, the snowfall, and the colours of the autumn leaves.
Learning to distinguish between different kinds of moss while walking across wetlands trained my awareness.
We were also a part of the growing environmental movement during the 1970s. I had my first political insights and realised that the grown-ups didn’t know how to solve the problems our modern lifestyle causes.
– As the Embrace of the Biosphere – I am life.
Environmental Movement and Ecosophy
From my first job, at the Field Biologist Organisation, until I started my web company in the year 2000, I mainly worked in different environmental organisations in Sweden, from the Anti-Nuclear Campaign to Friends of the Earth and The Green Party.
Two of my primary sources of inspiration for thinking about the relationship between humanity and the biosphere are ecosophy by Arne Naess and eco-philosophy by Henryk Skolimowski.
– The fight against the others, the destroyers, is over. The views from the Wider Embraces help me navigate differently.
Aikido – Connecting to Others
The Aikido dojo was a significant part of my life for twenty years. I spent about ten hours a week on the mat, exploring the depths and limits of my body and mind and how to relate to others with both force and harmony.
For most of those years, I ran one of Sweden’s largest Aikido dojos with a friend, Lunds Aikido Dojo.
Diving deeply into the Japanese culture, which is very different from the Swedish way of equality and consensus, has broadened and deepened my view of humanity.
– The foundation of Aikido is universal and inspires my work with the Wider Embraces
Computer Science and Web Design
There is a way of writing code where the function calls itself in a deep loop called recursion. It’s a very special way of thinking, and my mind learned how to switch to a different working mode during that course. It was the first time I became aware of my mind as an object.
It was in the mid-80s that I studied computer programming at the university. Since then, I’ve worked with computers, mainly with databases, communication systems, websites, and graphic design. Since the year 2000, as self-employed.
– I remember the first time I surfed the web in the late 80s – Wow, I was looking at information stored on a computer on the other side of the Atlantic!
Healing, Morphic Fields and Dowsing
In the mid-90s, in every new group I joined, there was always one person to whom I felt particularly connected. After a while, I realised it was the one doing Reiki healing. So, I joined a course and later became a Reiki Master. It took me a year of practice before I could feel the subtle energy, but eventually, it became a natural part of how I perceive the world.
Around 2000, I met Rupert Sheldrake and learned about Morphic Fields. His ideas and all the experiments he has done have contributed enormously to my understanding of our profound connectedness. I see our wider Embraces and morphic fields as overlapping concepts.
My parents worked a lot with dowsing, measuring lay lines, and other types of subtle energy around ancient constructions, but they also helped people find water and a good place for the bed. So, I’ve been immersed in a worldview stretching beyond the visible.
– Resting in our wider Embraces is the best healing method I’ve experienced so far—no magic rituals, no exclusive skills – Just open to the unconditional Embraces.
Zen and an Open Mind and Heart
When I moved to a cottage outside Höör, in the south of Sweden, in 1998, I found a zen centre five hundred meters down the road. After a while, I joined and, bit by bit, became a dedicated practitioner.
Pelle Bengtsson runs Enekulla Zendo and was the perfect zen teacher for me. The zendo is a beautiful blend of traditional Japanese culture, with strict rules on the one hand and open minds and hearts on the other.
Zen was not my first encounter with meditation. My whole family learned Transcendental Meditation (TM) in my early teens, and we all practised twice a day for some years.
To See Beauty Everywhere
My camera connects me to the planet and its beauty, allowing me to share that connection with others. I love being out in the forest by myself, but also offering courses and creating slide shows and exhibitions.
Thanks to my first digital camera and the internet, I found other photographers who saw images in a similar way. In 2005, I was accepted into the Swedish Association for Nature Photographers as one of their first two female members.
You can see some of my photos in my portfolio at my photo site.
– My camera has taught me to see beauty everywhere. The challenge is to make an image that transmits that beauty to the spectators.
Integral Philosophy and Friends
Since 2008, I’ve been part of the integral community. My first four years were a deep dive into complex thinking and meta-theories with my friends in Malmö Integral. We studied Wilber’s work, Subject-Object theory by Robert Kegan, Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck and Chris Cowan and much more.
But most of all, Malmö Integral was a safe yet challenging place to share our ideas and applications, to experiment, meditate, move, and discuss.
Later, I found other inspiring sources like Roy Bhaskar and his Critical Realism.
Integral philosophy offers a valuable toolbox for thinking about how different areas of life and the universe relate and have developed over time.
– In 2010, three of us from Malmö Integral arranged the first Swedish Integral Summercamp.
Fear of Domesday Despite a Secular Upbringing
I’m a third-generation non-religious person living in the most secular country on the planet: Sweden. Despite that, when I started to challenge the Christian doctrines, I found an intense fear of God, of Domesday and eternal punishment deep inside me.
Around 2009, I read the whole Bible and the Koran, and I had to ‘blaspheme’ from the bottom of my heart to push through the fear and get out on the other side, free.
Now, no one can threaten me with God’s punishment; I know there is no judgmental God, but there are unconditional Embraces.
– Is Domesday real or not? Until you deeply know it’s not, you live in fear, consciously or unconsciously.
Integral Coaching – Out of the Comfort Zone
Suddenly, one day, an offer from Integral Coaching Canada appeared in my inbox, and the photo of James Baye looked at me and told me that if I was ready to move out of my comfort zone, he was committed to challenging me. And he did, for sure.
We worked together for three years, more intensely during some periods and less during others. During the intense periods, I had daily challenges and was journaling every evening, and we met over Skype every second week.
Looking back, I’m amazed that I took on all the challenges, but most of all, I’m so grateful for the beautiful, skilful, precise and invaluable coaching I got from James.
– James’s emails always had this quote: “The most important thing in the world is to be willing to give up who you are for who you might become.” Nachman Bratzlav.
Big Mind and the Fear of Insanity
I don’t think I have ever felt such intense fear as when my arm rose by itself at the Big Mind seminar with Genpo Roshi in Copenhagen in 2010, and I received the microphone. We were exploring ‘owned and disowned emotions’ and had come to insanity. I have no memory of how he walked me through my terror, but on the other side, there was light, love, and freedom.
So I don’t care if it’s insane or not to take collective perspectives and rest in the wider Embraces and dream of a world where this is normal and sane.
– Sane or insane, the world or me?
The Dojo Ladies – Playful Exploration
A gathering of a close circle of female friends has been my most creative and beautiful playground.
It is a place to experiment and dive into the Embraces in a profound and fun way. Dancing, meditating, eating, and talking, all with open minds and hearts.
The WE Dojo – Online Unfolding
Unfolding the Wider Embraces wouldn’t have been possible without my thoughtful and lovely friends around the world.
We have met online weekly to explore and develop Wider Embraces as a theory and practice.
All photos, except those featuring me, are taken by me. You can see more of my pictures at deurell.se