Our Values

At the Saltee Academy we believe in the radical potential of human creativity.

We believe that as human beings come to know themselves as creators, deepen their relationship to the creating process, and embrace the ethos of creativity, they are freed to make their fullest and highest contributions to our collective work: the repair, regeneration, and evolution of the interconnected web of life.

This vision of creativity is quite different from the beliefs most of us have inherited from our culture.

Creativity is more than “self care”

Our productivity-obsessed culture often consigns creativity to the category of “self-care” - a reward and escape from the exhausting grind of daily life. Most of us learn from a young age that creativity belongs “on the side” - like the dessert we can only earn if we eat our liver and onions first or a luxury that we can barely imagine affording.

But, these attitudes grossly underestimate the real role of creativity in our lives.

The truth is that creativity is already at the core of everything human.

Creativity is more than “the arts”

Not only is creativity is foundational to our humanity, but it is also WAY bigger than what we think of as “the arts.” Your creativity might express itself through your teaching, parenting, leading, healing, research, community-building, designing, activism, story-telling, praying, or - more likely - a delightful combination of creative modes that uniquely expresses your spirit.

Creativity is the bridge between your inner life and your outer contributions. It is both how you listen to the world around you and how your life speaks back to that world. 

Creativity is the caring and curious imagination that brings the world to life.

Our vision for YOU

We believe that knowing who you are as a creator empowers you to own your own life story.

As you embrace all of your creativities and shift creativity from the margins to the center of your life, our vision is that…

• You feel less of the stuckness, confusion, and unhappiness that comes from fragmented, simplistic thinking about self and purpose.

• You find relief from the restless irritation and pain you experience when you are NOT creating what you are here to create.

• You accept and honor all aspects of your creating self and compose a life that allows you to give all your gifts.

• You are better able to recognize, withstand, and even embrace the times of uncertainty, not-knowing, and creative anxiety that are part of the creator’s adventure.

• You experience an expanded sense of belonging to yourself, a fuller alignment between your daily activities and your deepest values, and a felt connection to the community of creators of which you are an essential part.

• You cultivate a portfolio of life-and-work projects that you care about, that engage you deeply, and that feel satisfying and joyful to pursue.

Our vision for US

We believe that a world of creators is a profoundly life-honoring world.

As more and more of us come to understand ourselves as complex creators, our vision is that…

• We see ourselves as interconnected, freely generative beings on a shared mission to bring the world to life.

• We accept responsibility for the parts we are meant to play in co-creating the life-sustaining world we want to live in.

• We fall in love with our human capacities for creativity, consciousness, and caring and begin to invest heavily in the development of these capacities for all human beings.

• We grow in our ability to work with complexity – not in a reductive way that demands complexity be erased, but in an integrative and harmony-seeking way that seeks to discover and honor underlying patterns of interdependence.

• We collectively abandon our obsessive pursuit of short-term results and narrowly defined “success” and cultivate, instead, an obsession with nurturing the healthy, caring relationships with ourselves, each other, and the world around us that actually give rise to worthy, satisfying, and sustainable outcomes.

• We radically expand our ability to manifest new cultural, technical, spiritual and social solutions to the complex problems facing all life on earth.