This film was created by GPIW and the Contemplative Alliance at "Awakening the Wisdom of the Heart" dialogue in partnership with Naropa University in Boulder Colorado, April 2014.

The Contemplative Alliance (www.gpiw.org) is a network of organizations and individuals from across religious, faith and worship traditions who believe that contemplative practices and approaches are an essential element in the positive transformation of the critical issues of our times. We were launched at the Aspen Institute campus in 2008. Some of the founding participants were Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi (Buddhist Global Relief), Swami Atmarupananda, Imam Mohammad Bashar, the late Rabbi Zalman Schachter, Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister, and Fr. Thomas Keating and Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, among many others. For six years, we’ve traveled to cities throughout the USA engaging religious and spiritual communities in conversation around the efficacy of inner development, informed by a deep reflective faith practice, in shifting outer challenges.

Following the meeting in Aspen the Global Peace Initiative of Women (GPIW), the parent organization of the Contemplative Alliance, continued to facilitate this process when we organized follow-up conversations and gatherings on pressing issues of our time including how to understand the economic crisis from a spiritual perspective. Two meetings were held, one on Wall Street and one in Washington around the theme “Re-envisioning Prosperity.” In June 2013 we focused on strengthening, through unity, groups across the North East working toward similar ends, but from varying disciplines: economic, environmental, social and faith. In 2014, our goal has been to encourage a national conversation around heart-centered practices, rooted in deep inner wisdom, that are necessary to engender the outer shifts we seek.