Featured Facilitator: Manon Danker

WTR Network: How many workshops and/or events WTR focused do you run a year?

Manon: I think about 16 events, full spiral workshops, introductions, training. 

WTR Network: Are you part of a hub? Are other facilitators in your area?

Manon: From the start I have had the support of people who support WTR. They especially support me in setting up events and Full Spiral Journeys. I want to thank them and I would not have been where I am today without them. Femke Wijdekop, Lida Hospers, Maria Kolossa, Alieke Hartog, Zoe Saraswati Martin, Margriet Schager, Roos Godefrooij, Maria Moonlion. And Corien Botman for making scholarships available. I am connected to groups that support The Great Turning so not especially WTR groups, but these hubs support WTR. Like Root to Rise, a women’s group in which we support each other to grow in our own unique ways. The New Compass, a groundbreaking initiative within the Central Government to support decision making and innovation with inclusion of the Voice of Place and the undercurrent. The Earth Holders sangha, In Action For Mother Earth, with its origin in Thich Nhat Hanh’s legacy.

This year a Facilitators Development Training starts in the Netherlands, which I will offer together with Lian Kasper. We do this with the blessings of Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone. The training has filled up in no time and we have a long waiting list. Lian, like me, is really invested in this work and people who come to our workshops have asked us to offer the FDP. We choose to do a 6 month In Person Training and we start in November. The interest shows how WTR is really inspiring people here in the Netherlands. There are more facilitators and WTR weavers in The Netherlands. Like Marjorie Lumet, Maaike Boumans, Rob van Maanen, Paula Hendrikx, Salina Berentsen, they offer Active Hope groups, Spiritual Ecology workshops and work with XR and GEN.

WTR Network: Do you have any upcoming events you’d like to share?

Manon: I am excited about the first FDP starting in The Netherlands. And I love to offer Full Spiral Journeys about every 6 weeks. More and more I work with artists, like in the New Compass with Nynke Laverman and Sytze Pruiksma, wonderful songwriters, musicians and visionaries.In this we combined their music with the Widening Voices practice and it was such a journey.

WTR Network: Are you available for mentoring others?

Manon: This will become a stronger element in my work with WTR. The FDP will be a great way to do that. And I invite people interested in being mentored and growing more confident in sharing this work to help me in workshops.I realize that it is very valuable to grow experience, since every group is different and to trust that you can be with what arises, comes from doing the work.

WTR Network: How can people starting in their facilitating path connect with you for mentoring?

Manon: They can contact me through my email and website.

WTR Network: Tell us a bit about yourself, how did you become involved in the WTR and what role does it have in your life?

Manon: I first heard of Joanna Macy in the community around Thich Nhat Hanh. He is one of my beloved mentors in this life. Then I encountered her work again in Findhorn, that was in 2014. In 2015 there was an opportunity to do an Facilitator Development Program with Joanna in California. It was a very powerful experience. Almost half of the group were young people of color. It was a gift to understand more about white privilege.  And to come together in the wounding that still needs to be acknowledged and healed. There were great healers present, we mourned, we saw eye to eye. It was one of those deep shifting experiences in life. I will not forget the people I met, they will be with me throughout my life.

When I found this work, I was seeking ways to be better equipped to work with groups and combine both my sociological and environmental work. I wasn’t necessarily looking for tools to love Earth more, or to strengthen my interbeing. That aspect of my life is quite firmly rooted. I guess I searched for tools to heal my connection with humans. To see our potential and to support the awakening of that. 

I have studied Environmental Management and Sociology. Worked as a sociologist at the Free University in Amsterdam with young people, active citizenship, inclusiveness and empowerment. I did research for my environmental thesis on pastoral changes in Mongolia, after the shift from a collective pastoral system to a free market system. I was fortunate that I could save some money and volunteer in wild nature places in Peru, Mongolia, Indonesia, exploring oceans, forests and the wide plains. Inventories of bird species in the Peruvian Amazon, hands-on work with displaced wildlife from deforestation areas in Indonesia.I still do a lot with birds, now in The Netherlands, creating educational tools for primary schools. It was for my sanity really, I need the wild places. Witnessing what happened there, extinction, deforestation, cyanide and dynamite fishing, starvation on eroding plains, climate change, pollution, was very hard. I connected with groups & organizations trying to work with the challenges and at the same time struggling to keep a healthy dynamic between themselves. 

So, I was mainly active in changing actions and holding actions. What was harder to do was finding tools to widen our identity and consciousness, to internalize deep ecology, deep time. And when I read Joanna’s work it fitted like a glove. It was like coming home. And I felt I wanted to work with this. And so, it became. A tremendous gift. While sharing WTR, it quenches a deep need in me, that is to have more hope for our species, for who we are and what our potential is. Hearing humans speak about their love for this world and their deep longing and courage to support life, is incredibly healing.

WTR Network: What are you grateful for in the WTR world?

Manon: I am really grateful for the people who have taught me this work, showed me their way, Joanna Macy, Anne Seymens Bucher, Della Duncan, Looby MacNamara to name a few. And for the enormous network of weavers and facilitators. I love attending seminars from The Great Turning at Findhorn and the school for the Great Turning with Lydia Violet and others, the Conversation Cafe’s and Chris Johnstone’s Active Hope offerings. I had the absolute honor to talk with Joanna recently and it was so tangible that we are held in this great web of wider knowing. I felt I heard just what I need now to stay present and fresh in The Great Turning. I deeply honor Joanna Macy in how I work with WTR and stay close to the source. There is always a picture of Joanna on our altar. As our sister, part of our courage to gather and with gratitude and blessings for her and the WTR world!

I am grateful that this work holds up a mirror for me, you can only do WTR if you walk the talk. If you are willing to be vulnerable and understand that we serve this work and it doesn’t serve us. I mean this in the way of growing much more sovereign and letting the Old Paradigm behind us. Not to let values dictate us that weaken the web of life.  

I feel that when we gather for WTR, life around us knows and is aware that people come in peace. We come in peace because we want to grow, to understand about interbeing and compassion, to open ourselves, be honest. And I feel Earth’s intelligence is aware and supports us. Life responds and gathers for an act of peace. I laugh when I write this down, maybe it sounds presumptuous, maybe vague, but I so love what Anna Breytenbach teaches us that it is by affirming our ability to witness the communications of the web of life that we awaken and strengthen this potential in us. So yes I speak about what I am aware of. 

WTR Network: What challenges and struggles have you experienced as a facilitator of the WTR?

Manon: It has taken persistence to make it happen. At first people did not come easily to workshops, understandably reluctant to connect with their pain for the world. It almost seemed to come and go in waves. The documentary Widening Circles has been on Dutch Television several times, it features WTR, and gives such a wonderful entry to this work.

It is quite different now, I have seen hundreds of people. People come through word of mouth. In a way I have loved working kind of in the undercurrent in the first years as facilitator. More often now I find myself in larger gatherings. I reflect on that to keep the balance. Since in our efforts to turn the tide we can start to gallop and to me so much of the real understanding and growing lies in the ability to stop, listen, to digest all that we open for, the widening of our hearts, minds and bodies. So that is something to explore, what is the balance. A lot of people burn out, and subtlety, the quietest voices are lost when we only hear the wind in our ears cause we are running. Fear makes us run harder too. For me personally it was challenging to step up and to become more visible. It was a result from my own trauma, lacking feelings of worthiness and confidence. Presenting myself as a facilitator, organizing and structuring a journey with a group of people gave me the shivers. I often thought what am I getting myself into? And I still have some anxiety. But facilitating is a gift, it has helped me to live fully and see how lessons learnt from my past now are the threads that hold me. I trust that I can show up, honest, open, loving and caring. People often tell me they find in me vulnerability and strength and it seems that it is helpful to others.

WTR Network: What has been the most difficult moment in your journey through the WTR?

Manon: In the beginning I noticed that some people around me labeled honoring and working with our pain as a negative step, also activism. That confused me, made me feel lonely and misunderstood. I believe so much in grief tending. It is not the end station, but a necessary step, the wounds and trauma in us are enormous and centuries old. I can feel it in the land, I can feel it in my ancestral heritage, and it is evident in how we live.

WTR Network: What has emerged for you since you started facilitating the WTR?

Manon: I feel more human. So what does that say? That was a deep wounding in me, being absolutely baffled and saddened with how my species is creating such pain, for humanity, for all beings. This work shows in such a precious way the love and courage that resides in us. Selflessness, too. I find my belonging again in the human family. We have so much untapped potential. I can’t wait to see that unfold. All beings need to belong, we too.Just look around you and see how many people are deeply lonely and struggle with their will to live. In WTR you really engage with our shared humanity. 

It is very important I feel, our relationship with our own species is a major factor in changing our predicament. Human fears human. It is very problematic. This history of violence and how to feel safe with human is a big one for us all to learn. With the loss of our human diversity we have lost the fabric of who we are as people. I am so grateful for the voices that are sounding and represent diversity and color.

WTR Network: What are your next steps in this Work?

Manon: A lot is unfolding like the FDP, the Full Spiral Journeys that regularly fill up and co-creations. In me there is a strong creative energy, I would love to bring more of this in my life and this Work. I have been gently working away and now I am maturing in this role, an invitation. Joanna and I spoke about Trust, Vertrouwen in Dutch and that that is key, Trust in that we belong, deeply belong. These times make us look for a light in the darkness, and this work is one of those lights. Do we dare to sink into the layers of the history of all beings, recorded and unrecorded, the layers that are in the Earth?

I continue to deepen my understanding by accepting the invitation. At the moment I am enrolled in Animate Earth and Shamanic Training Programmes to experience ways people offer. Also to help myself navigate through these times. I walk with Elders where I can, and mind you Elders can also be young people. In my belief we can not abstain from what Earth is telling us. Information that comes from the whispers in the wind, from the soil, the sea, the Universe. I experience that Earth is so available for communication with us. It is a very open and active channel. How do we understand what she is saying? We have lost many Elders, lost our own path to Elderhood. How do we flow with living systems, replace the ones that we constructed and are destructive to life? And my life is in service of all beings, not only our own species. 

WTR Network: What would you say to someone who is new to the WTR?

Manon: Celebrate that you have found this work, it is profound and wise. Made up from many years of experience and many hearts and minds are coming together in this. I really honor Joanna for that ground-breaking work, her bright mind, courageous heart, together with her kindred and her husband. Tools like these are brought to the surface by diligence, love, commitment and deep faith in who we are as human beings, who we can be.

WTR Network: What recommendations do you have for new facilitators?

Manon: I prepare a workshop well, and I also realize it is a living way of facilitating. In the presence of our collective wisdom.That is so wonderful that every time we gather we all deepen our experience and understanding. Be open and flexible, trust the group process. I often remind myself of what Joanna says that you can trust this work, trust the spiral. It has what it takes to move us through a deep journey and hold us while we do that. 

WTR Network: Do you have a favorite practice?

Manon: To be honest I love the Full Spiral, whether it is in an hour, a weekend or longer. I love that movement that happens when we go through it. 

I also love the 7th generation practice. Especially the compassion it fuels for our predicament. We connect with our beliefs about the future in this practice and our beliefs are widened. We return to the present moment with a deeper understanding about the support we need to break away from habits that are so ingrained in our societies and lives. I have often seen people moved to tears and at the same time filled with hope. It is a really empowering practice, a doorway to compassion and healing.

WTR Network: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

Manon: In the last few years I notice an increase in fear and fatigue in people and I bring in elements of protection in our gatherings.I ask people to clay a symbol that represents something they want to hold close to their hearts in these times. We bring our awareness to what matters most to us now, and let the symbol help us remember. So we can build a practice around that. We are all protectors, and it is lovely to tenderly connect with that ability in us. We do this ritual after the Truth Mandala. Share our symbols and place them in the Mandala. I love the energetic shift this opens, we are reweaving the web.

Manon can be contacted via her profile page, her email and website where you can also find all her upcoming offerings.