Here & Now Studios designs immersive experiences for philanthropic foundations who believe in the power of story and are brave enough to aim for giant change.

In Island, the society's leaders focus the State's resources on making childbirth beautiful, safe, and as painless as possible. The policy is a triumph, changing not only how life is brought into the world, but creating an appetite for more reforms by focusing on something that leaps across partisan divides. This practice becomes a gleaming doorway to more life.

The cohort will study the role of birth in creating unity in a deeply divided time; learn and share stories of what beautiful birth can mean; meet with an iconic indigenous midwife who has stewarded hundreds of births; and workshop how the culture might reimagine birth and the impact that this might have.

Among the many lessons in school in Island is a whole curriculum on anger. Children learn to locate their anger in their bodies and to see it as something separate from themselves. They learn a dozen ways to let it go, and do this with every feeling. They are wise beyond belief by the time they are nine years old.

The cohort will study how education might be aimed at sharpening young people's feelings as much as sharpening their minds; meet with a world-class innovator and preschool teacher; study and share practices that create mind-body connections, hone intuitions, and yield the power to discern; and workshop how such curriculum could become common core.

In Island, the final rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood involves climbing a sheer cliff in pairs. Young people train for more than a year for the rite, seeking mentorship from elders and guidance from older peers, strengthening their bodies, and practicing collaboration when the stakes are high.

The cohort will study the role of rites of passage in creating wise, empowered, service-minded young people; welcome a leader wielding rites of passage to break cycles of trauma in his community; imagine how this social technology could fill voids of connection and meaning; and workshop how they might be made available to communities everywhere.

A foundational practice in the society of Island is ceremonial use of psychedelics, helping young people come of age with wisdom, adults turn toward beauty throughout their lives, and old people transcend their fear of death. Ceremony is seen as a social technology for building connection and making meaning.

The cohort will study the role of ritual and ceremony in treating purposelessness and disconnection; explore cycles of years and lives as anchor points for ceremony; meet with iconic leaders of a Lakota Sundance; and workshop how these technologies may be applied to society, especially in light of the re-emergence of psychedelics.

The people in Island make an art form out of what Huxley calls, "The Yoga Of Love," cultivating lovemaking as if it were a craft. The society sizzles with aliveness as the uninhibited feminine flows forth, filling life with sensuality and beauty. The society eliminates sexual shame, creating a tantric, ecstatic utopia.

The cohort will study the role of healthy sexuality in creating a richer sense of aliveness, connectedness, and presence; meet with a world-class creator of a community that embraces eros; learn how such places are created; and workshopping how this culture could become more authentically embodied and less possessed by lust.

The greatest triumph of the society in Island could be the caliber of men that it creates. This is exemplified by the character of Vijaya, a mountain of a man, six foot eight and pure muscle who is not inhibited in his power but instead taught to wield it with grace while embracing his sensitive side.

The cohort will study the craft of raising healthy men; explore how this might create safety for all; examine the role of the feminine principle in creating beauty; meet with a leader who has helped hundreds of men find gentle yet unyielding power; and workshop ways this society could approach raising generations of healthy men.

The society in Island turns dying into an act of beauty — the final ritual in the glorious lives they lead. The fact of death is not avoided, and dying is not hidden out of sight. Young people witness to death as they grow up, watching older generations leave the world in peace.

The cohort will study the role of beautiful death in transcending fear and supporting a culture of slowness, calm, and peace; meet a remarkably graceful steward of death; examine the tools and practices that lead to exquisite death; and workshop ways to help this society could reimagine what death can be.