World renowned writer, campaigner, broadcaster, teacher and academic, Alastair McIntosh, is to visit Keynsham to speak during the Keynsham Music Festival on 4th July 2014. Alastair is known across the world for his many books and especially for his achievements in Scotland helping the beleaguered residents of the Isle of Eigg to become the first Scottish community ever to clear their laird from his own estate. His next target was the attempt by a multinational quarrying company to turn a majestic mountain on the Hebridean Isle of Harris into a giant superquarry. He persuaded the Native American Warrior Chief Sulian Stone Eagle Herney to come to Scotland and help assemble the first-ever theological submission to a public inquiry. This attracted international attention and the tiny population of the island successfully achieved one of the most striking challenges to corporate power in British history.
In his own words, "I use the factual campaign stories as a carrier to express the deeper story of our times - the struggle of the human spirit to shine, the imperative of making community, the recovery of a credible spirituality.." He calls his work 'human ecology' - how the human race relates to the rest of nature in a way that allows both to flourish. His extraordinary breadth of knowledge and experience could not be more relevant to the problems faced by our civilization today.
In this sentence from his celebrated book, Soil and Soul, Alastair gave us this idea of the message he aims to get across in the Keynsham event: "We had to shake people out of a meek acceptance of the Powers that Be, out of the consensus trance zone and into the transformative fire of indignation."
Come along to Keynsham on 4th July and be inspired!
Find out more and buy tickets from Keynsham Town Council or at www.live-simply.co.uk