POSTPONED TO 2011 - Please check back soon with additional details as we welcome the Matriztica Institute to Portland, Oregon in 2011.

About the Presenters: Dr. Humberto Maturana and Ximena Davila Yáñez

Ximena Dávila Yáñez:
My life experience and proximity to relational pain awakened an interest in the healing of myself and others as a career. This led me to ask questions about pain and suffering, and to discover and become aware. When looking at the theme of relational human living, all the pain and relational suffering for which one calls for help is of cultural origin.

In my study of human relations, I encountered the biology of cognition and the biology of love, which gave me the foundation to expand and develop my anthropological understanding of human relational living. In my practice I call this "Reflective Conversations with liberating consequences. " In talking about this with Humberto Maturana, he told me that I had consciously put into action the relational dynamic of the biology of cognition and the biology of love.

From the expansion of human understanding driven by my preoccupation for the healing and understanding of the cultural origin of pain and suffering for which one asks for help, I developed a vision of a relational theme of human existence. Afterwards Humberto Maturana and I delved into a conversation and became what we call the biological-cultural matrix of human existence. This is a notion with which we evoke the cultural dynamics of biological origin, realization, and conservation of humanness.

Humberto Maturana Romesín:
I have been interested since childhood in living beings with the question, in its depth poetic, about what is living and what is dying. It can be said that this question has guided my life and my professional dedication. As co-creator with Ximena Dávila Yáñez of the Matríztica Institute, my contribution is in the reflexive orientation that emerges from my work in the search for understanding of all biological dimensions of human existence, through the development of the biology of cognition and the biology of love.

After many years dedicated to biological research in neurophysiology and neuroanatomy, the study of perception and understanding of the biology of cognition and the biology of love, I am now dedicated to looking at the implications of this work within the relational field of human living.

This dedication comes from my conversations with Ximena Davila about her cultural anthropological understanding of what she sees happening with people who seek her assistance in regard to individual or family relational pain in their daily living. In fact what we do at the School originates from the expansion of human understanding that Ximena Dávila's vision lead us to.

This cultural anthropological understanding led Ximena Dávila and I to develop, in the course of our conversations, the vision of a theme of the relational origin, development and conservation of humanness in what we call the ‘human biological-cultural matrix of human existence.’

Download the Invitation from Escuela Matriztica de Santiago

Location: Willamette University Portland Center 1120 NW Couch Street, Suite 450 Portland, Oregon 97209 [Map]