intercultural

Space to play — Board Games and Dialogue Tables

Playfulness creates space for establishing meaningful connections between people, which fosters encounters that both entertain, educate and stimulate the participants: by letting go of our compulsion of norms, codes and traditionally learned frameworks and allowing a new interplay to arise in the in-between space…. Feeling free to explore different perspectives together and to agree on appropriate rules for what is at stake.

The Quest for Wisdom foundation has created the Wheel of the Intercultural Art of Living, on which the game Amor Fati elaborates, enhancing Global Citizenship. The book with the same title explains the board game as well as the philosophy of the Wheel as the intercultural art of living. Lecturer Michiel de Ronde says about this book:

“I see your work as a great reassessment, also revaluation, of the pre-modern world orientation. All those profound insights and life-creating practices that were often worshipped or cursed through hierarchical dominance, you present within a depth perspective of an endless horizontal mythic-human field, through which the world can become a home for all beings and people can meet on the basis of dialogue and appreciation.”

NL/EN, 2024, ISBN 978 90 441 3970 9

Also the bilingual Dialogue Tables Four Winds (De Vier Winden) is developed to enhance an open cosmopolitan culture as global citizens. The Adinkra-game consists of a set of cards with Akan symbols and proverbs, ordered according to the wisdom of the five elements earth, water, air, fire and ether — in a way that the Ghanaian elemental wisdom might be compared to European visions on the natural elements.

There are more World Games and teaching modules (to be) developed, in which intercultural perspectives are playfully and dialogically incorporated.

World Games — for the Cosmopolis

QfWf-Archive — Mythical-Philosophical Boardgames

Playful Dialogues — the Dis-covering Dialogue Table

Purchase of Educative Materials

One hundred percent of the money raised by the sale of all of the products will be used in realising our upcoming QfWf educational projects, all of which are non-profit and run by volunteers.

Update 2025-02

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The Quest for Wisdom foundation (QfWf) is founded to stimulate the art of living in the cosmopolis

“Every person longs for the good life and every culture passes on its wisdom to future generations to grow as a person on an inward journey that connects all corners of the world. Thereby we flourish as a community, celebrating life in the cosmopolis “

In a tilting world order the QfWf aims to contribute towards a culture of openness and pluriformity by tapping into one’s own and shared historical roots. Can we learn to be global citizens by revitalizing wisdom traditions worldwide and liberating ourselves from groupthink?

The Wheel of the Intercultural Art of Living has been created to realize this mission. By the spinning of the Wheel around a yearly theme the three Quests flow together on our platform DeGuldenSnede:

Quest 1 Wisdom Web

Collecting and publishing wisdoms from all corners of the world according to the Wheel of the Intercultural Art of Living for the Wisdom Web

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Quest 2 Golden ratio

Developing intercultural programmes according to the Golden Ratio principle of natural and (inter)cultural growth. Since 2024 the QfWf-platform Golden Ratio is dedicated to initiatives of Global Citizenship around a yearly theme with intercultural and artistic forms, play and dialogue: Golden Ratio Collection (e)books and Animal Wisdom storytelling.

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Quest 3 Meet

Organizing living Encounters and a space between cultures through Meeting Days, Masterclasses and the QfWf video channel

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Animal Wisdom

Golden Ratio — Game for Wisdom — Animal Wisdom — Projects — Soul Circle

Narratives on Animal Wisdom

Happy as a fish in the water – Nour Kayali

The QfWf continues to collect animal stories from all over the world on the Animal Wisdom website. The overarching goal of this storytelling programme is to present how the symbolism in the narratives transcends cultural borders and at the same time the beauty of cultural diversity is presented. This goal is explained in the first two books of the Animal Wisdom Collection. This collection also contains specific cultural storytelling traditions and presents examples with various artistic forms, sharing the intercultural wisdom about how to become truly human (in the mirror of animal life) and how to build happy communities.

By developing this quest for wisdom perspective into (e-)books, teaching modules and other educational forms, these old treasures are preserved and made freshly available for new generations.

The good life in the cosmopolis

Courageous as a tigre – Nour Kayali

Animal stories can be found in all cultures of the world in a colourful diversity of narratives and genres. Through their differences, these stories express a cross cultural elemental wisdom that these animals embody.

The crosscultural significance of the narrative use of animals as embodying wisdom and natural strength forms a golden opportunity for building bridges between cultures. Educational goals of the programme include the strengthening ecological and cosmopolitan values of global citizenship — such as inclusion, cultural diversity, ecological awareness and 21st century skills. In appealing artistic and educational forms, the QfWf aims to reach different target groups: children, students, parents, teachers, professionals, managers and administrators.

`Free as a Bird’ – Annelie van Steenbergen

Further reading on the development of the programme Animal Wisdom in a series of articles (NL):
De Gulden Snede: deel 1 — deel 2 — deel 3 — deel 4 — deel 5 — deel 6 — deel 7 — deel 8

On the Animal Wisdom website the intercultural Wheel of Animal Wisdom categorizes the gathered animal stories from all over the world. This Wheel visualizes the overarching goal of the intercultural Animal Wisdom storytelling programme: how do the (un)wise animals mirror in a symbolic way human behaviour, virtues and mischief. The QfWf develops not a “flat moral” from those stories but a multifaceted one in artistic forms that is thought-provoking: as narrative wisdom that cultures worldwide have developed and that tells in a visual language about humanity and community building.

Intercultural Animal Wisdom

Sea Mermaid — drawing Chrisje Ronde

Communities from all over the world pass on their cultural wisdom gathered over generations in the form of stories, proverbs, symbolism and rituals.

The QfWf Storytelling program unlocks this intercultural source of wisdom and gives it appealing artistic forms, focused on connecting the stories and transcultural symbolism!

Animals embody elemental wisdom

Snake, symbol for natural wisdom – Nour Kayali

Animals represent an elementary wisdom, they display clever and vicious tricks as well as being paragons of virtue. However differently the animals are presented, according to the specific cultural and historical context in which the stories were created, in all cultural traditions animals reflect basic natural strength and wisdom.

Beautiful forms of the latter are found in the classic tales of the of the Hindu Panchatantra and the Buddhist Jatakatamala.
Also, the famous stories of the Ghanaian Anansi as well as the less famous but extraordinary adventures of cricket, chameleon and other Malagasy hero’s.

Bolinus brandaris, the purple snake — drawing Chrisje Ronde

Animals in myths, legends and fairy tales present a wise natural force: proverbial is the wisdom of the owl and the cunning of spider Anansi.

Birds in fairy tales and myths often convey messages, like the raven for example, as a mediator between the world of the gods, the humans and the underworld.

In addition to similarities, there are also interesting cultural differences. For example, almost all cultures have stories about dragons. Although they differ in shape on the one hand — sometimes more serpentine, sometimes more like a giant bird or like some kind of dinosaur — they all embody an enormous (super)natural power.

Read examples of Animal Stories as well as about the programme on — Animal wisdom

Update 2025-02

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Quest for Wisdom foundation

  • Quest for Wisdom Foundation (QfWf) stimulates the Intercultural Art of Living in a Globalized World!

    The QfWf wants to contribute to a culture of openness and to cultural diversity (inter-esse) by tapping into one’s own and shared historical intercultural roots and wisdom traditions.

    Cultural ANBI status

    The QfWf is acknowledged as organization with an culturele ANBI status (NL).

    The QfWf programs have been honored twice by a cultural fund:

    Storytelling programma Animal Wisdom in 2020-2021

    With a subsidy from Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds i.s.m. Fonds zuidoost, awarded in 2020, the QfWf has developed a storytelling-Project- around animal wisdom in storytelling traditions from the four corners of the world. The purpose of this program is to bring ancient wisdom into new forms for contemporary ears, which has led to the development of the website Animal Wisdom and the development of an Intercultural lesson for elementary education.

  • The “Global Citizenship of the streets” project in 2023-2024

    Start of the project with world cafe dialogues – photo Marc Broens

    With a subsidy from the Cultural Participation Fund, the QfWf has realized the “World Citizenship of the Street”-project in 2023-2024 in the form of a triptych in 3 phases. Reflecting on the history of slavery (phase 1) and collecting intercultural ingredients of collective and individueal dreams of global citizenship in images, music, dance, stories and other expressions of (inter)cultural heritage (phase 2) culminating in a social experiment with collaborating partner organizations (phase 3) for global citizenship. The result is an intercultural program with the wisdom and beauty from the four corners of the world.

    The QfWf does this by using Art as a magic and collecting it as ingredients in book form, under the title Amor Fati and Amor Mundi, on a digital platform The Golden Ratio and in a co-creative programme; developed and implemented in collaboration with the Cultural Dream Weavers Foundation and the Curinesa Foundation, independent artists, and with the Wehpokamanong association, which preserves the cultural heritage of indigenous groups from Suriname in the Netherlands and passes it on to young generations. This culminated in a final event in the fall of 2024.

    First there was the presentatation of Amor Mundi, the exhibition and the presentation of the QfWf-documentation book in the Pubic Library of Amsterdam (OBA) in Weesp on the 28th of September 2024. Especially the series of aquarelles of Greg Suffanti, in which the harsh (anti) migration policy is denounced and migrants are presented as persons like you and me and their human stories. Also Robin Stemerding, Nour Kayali en Louis van Marissing have contributed to the exhibition. Then the final event was organised on the 19th of October 2024 together with the residents of the Regenbooggroep, the organisation that gives shelter to migrants, refugies, homeless and people in need: sharing an intercultural programme with music, dance and sharing food from each others cultural kitches. A ceramic statue, made by Camile Smeets was presented: this Rainbow Paradise Bird with Cosmic Egg incorporates the world dreams of the intercultural project group. On the 25th of Januari 2025 the exhibition Amor Mundi was reopened in another OBA location, Reigersbos, together with the presentation of the book Amor Fati by giving previews of the seven chapters, in which life themes as world citizens are discussed and portrayed. Read more in Angela Gilds review on intercultural meetings.

    The need for an intercultural art of living

    Being able to deal effectively with our differences is a delicate matter in our current times.
    The objective of the foundation calls for an intercultural art of living as developmental path of ‘the multicultural society’ and visualises its mission with the Wheel of the Intercultural Art of Living.

    The QfWf sees Global Citizenship as the right answer facing the collective fear for strangers, migrants and ‘the others’. Instead of hatred and agression we follow dialogical and spiritual traditions, that see ‘otherness’ as a call for openness and inclusion.

  • The intercultural art of living is the ability to move as nomads between cultures and to be able to see the beauty of cultural differences. To enhance the art of living as world citizens the QfWf-Soul Circle organises every year around a social relevant theme an intercultural programme and presents this on its digital platform de gulden snede as well as by living encounters such as the yearly QfWf-Meeting Day.

    Just like the beauty of the Golden Ratio in natural forms such as the rhythmical growth of leaves and snail shells, as well as in cultural expressions such as the principles how cathedrals are built and the musical harmony in chords.

    This QfWf-vision and mission to contribute to a cosmopolic world order and culture of inclusion is the core of our

  • Quest for Wisdom, meandering along

Dealing with differences

Dealing with differences has been raised as a social issue by Paul Scheffer, in his controversial article Het multicultural drama (2000). Before that, the international debate had been heated up by Samuel P. Huntington’s terrifying perspective on the Clash of Civilizations (1996). Since then, there has been a heated political debate in many lands with multicultural populations, and the social debate in the social media is getting louder and more troubled ….

The QfWf wants to play a role in tilting the debate

Diagram met de 17 duurzame ontwikkelingsdoelen door de V.N. op 25 September 2015 aangenomen als deel van de 2030 Agenda
Diagram met de 17 duurzame ontwikkelingsdoelen

The QfWf wants to help turn the polarized debate about migration, refugees and religious strife from a problem for ‘political experts’, to a relevant issue for all of us, making an ethical appeal to everyone, from the current administration to our neighbours on the street.

How do we deal with, and how do we want to deal with ‘the strange other’?
That strange other can be the foreigner, the outcast, the fringe figure, the refugee and sometimes ourselves …

In order to tilt the debate, the QFWF sees it as a call to recalibrate the awareness of who ‘we’ are as citizens of the cosmopolis: nomads with intercultural identities.
These geopolitical landslides affect all of us as co-inhabitants of our shared planet Earth.
That is why the QFWF addresses this issue as a question, an ethical issue of a practical, social and political nature:

Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto, Italië — foto Joke Koppius

How do we not exclude the other and the others ― the ‘stranger’, of a seemingly different nature ― but to see them as part of us, as ‘the strange other(s)’ in ourselves?How do we create growth inducing inter- and transcultural connections, instead of a divide and rule philosophy, us versus them mentality and an increasingly aggressive environment, as can be heard in the cry: “Who does not belong to ‘us’ (culture, race, religion, ethnicity) is against us …?”

By stimulating the recognition of the beauty of our differences and shared commonality, instead of a fear of ‘otherness’.
The world of the arts and (inter-)cultural expressions create space both in and between people and establish meaningful connections between cultures!

Creating inter- and transcultural connections

QfWf-event in the Library of Amterdam – photo Michel Odjo

The QfWf aims to collect artistic, philosophical and practical forms of cultural wisdom from East and West, North and South and to further develop them into useful forms that inform and inspire the intercultural art of living … so that people interact as willing players in an in-between space (as defined by Hannah Arendt) and also keep in touch with their core selves, so that we can fully develop and happily share our world with each other in a spirit of cooperation, openness and hospitality.
Hospitality, respect and openness and other shared values of humanity are what truly connect people as sisters and brothers ― open to a common playing field for all!

Update 2025-02

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