Work That Reconnects Network

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In 2015, as the Work That Reconnects root teacher Joanna Macy was moving toward retirement, a group of long-term facilitators and supporters wished to insure that the Work continued to develop and spread. Their hope was to encourage participation and collaboration among all interested in the Work. An exploration of how living systems function led them to the concept of networks, and the Work That Reconnects Network was born, with the aim of responding to the needs of both facilitators of the Work and interested members of the general public.

At the heart of the Network is everyone with an interest in the Work. All who find their way to this website, our facebook page, a workshop, or a book, article or video, are invited to explore this website and register as friends. Facilitators and supporters of the Work from around the world help make this Network possible. A core group of Network Weavers and staff maintain the infrastructure needed to keep the work available and evolving in response to the needs of these times. 

Our aim is to engage all interested community members in leadership, on the Core team of Network Weavers and/or in various projects of the Network. To explore how you can participate, click here and here. You’ll find the Mission, Vision and Values of the Network here. 

Network Weavers

The Core team of Network Weavers, all volunteer, meet monthly and make decisions by consensus. Each Weaver provides leadership to one or more of the projects and interest areas described throughout this website. The core team is supported by other volunteers and by a small team of dedicated paid staff.  We welcome new Weavers from around the world and from diverse backgrounds and cultures.

Constance Washburn, Facilitator

I am an activist, educator, director and a facilitator of the Work That Reconnects. Since 1994 I have attended many intensives with Joanna Macy.  Along with Molly Brown, co-author of Coming Back to Life: Guide to the Work That Reconnects, and Mutima Imani I have been leading WTR retreats and workshops in Northern California and in 2017 we started the Spiral Journey: a Facilitator Development Program. I am a founding member of the Conscious Elders Network and lead workshops and retreats for Elders in the WTR. I’m a Buddhist practitioner since 1968, a yoga teacher and  a Community Dharma Leader. I have an MA in Theatre and Education with studies in psychodrama and sociodrama and spent years teaching and directing theater. My land-based work was 20 year working in farmland preservation and education on behalf of organic local sustainable food systems. 

Hank Obermayer

Hank is a spiritual counselor and group process facilitator working on the relationship with self, with community, and with the planet. He helps individuals harvest from visionquests, psychedelic ritual, meditation retreats, and similar work in order to make lasting change using an emphasis on mindfulness and the body. With groups Hank focuses on ecological despair and empowerment, mixing in his theater, group process and counseling background. Hank has over 25 years of leadership related to ecovillages, intentional communities and housing cooperatives, including founding Mariposa Grove, his former home. Through his family he is also deeply involved in German-Jewish reconciliation work. Hank has worked extensively with Joanna Macy and is a Webweaver for the Work That Reconnects Network, is trained in Hakomi, and has an M.A. from CIIS in East-West Psychology.

Helen Sui

I’m a full time coach, trainer and facilitator. Before then I was working in an English language training organization for over 19 years. I enjoy teaching, coaching and leading training and workshops. I do training on the topics of management, leadership and self exploring, discovering and development. The day I got to know Active Hope, the work that reconnects, I fell in love with it. Covid-19 brought the online opportunity to bring the work to China in a much broader way and it supported thousands of people through the mess, which strengthens my determination to bring this work further and deeper in China. It’s not widely and well known in China yet meanwhile it’s moving forward gradually but non-stop. It feels like the heartbeat, which is not always noticeable but always there. I believe the web is vibrating and the ripples are passing on and on and on… I look forward to getting deeply immersed and involved in the work. I look forward to getting to know and meeting more Shambhala warriors as well.

Kathleen Rude, MS

I am a Work That Reconnects facilitator and mentor, a shamanic practitioner and an author. I fell in love with the natural world as a child and found my voice for environmental activism at age 11. I have a BS in Wildlife Ecology and an MS in Natural Resources. I began her career as an environmental writer, a profession I embraced for 18 years. I’ve had the great privilege to be mentored by elders in the Blackfoot, Northern Ute and Lakota traditions and in core shamanism and have received their blessings to conduct ceremony. Their wisdom informs my healing practice. Yearning for a path that combined spirituality and environment causes, I knew I’d come home when I first found the Work That Reconnects and Joanna Macy over 15 years ago. I’ve been mentored by Joanna, co-facilitated with her and have worked closely with her and others to help envision and support the future of the Work. I facilitate workshops both online and in person. I have published a novel, The Redemption of Red Fire Woman. I am currently working on a non-fiction book, How to Become An Every Day Difference Maker. Joanna opened my heart/mind to the dangers of nuclear power, so I now serve as a board member of Nuclear Energy Information Service, a nuclear power watchdog organization, opposing nuclear power and promoting sustainable renewable energy. I recharge my spirit by helping to restore native habitats, savoring beauty and singing in celebration of life.

Molly Brown, MA, MDiv, Facilitator

I’ve been involved in the Work That Reconnects for 30 years and had the great joy of co-authoring Coming Back to Life with Joanna Macy. I offer workshops and retreats in the Work That Reconnects, edit Deep Times: A Journal of the Work That Reconnects, and co-facilitate Spiral Journey: a WTR facilitator development program. I also coach and mentor people by phone, teach on-line courses, and write books and essays on ecopsychology, sustainability, and psychosynthesis. My other books include Growing Whole: Self-realization for the Great Turning, and Lighting a Candle: Collected Reflections on a Spiritual Life.

Paula Hendrick

Paula lives in rural Massachusetts. She volunteers for Interhelp, a WTR network serving the northeast US, where she edits the newsletter and serves on the Tending and Mending the Social Web Action Circle. She has practiced Despair and Empowerment work and the Work That Reconnects since 1981.

Our Support Team

Frieda Nixdorf, MA, WTR Network Community Coordinator and Graphic Designer

The thread that underscores all my work is the recognition of the healing and regenerative powers of nature and a commitment to serving the planet and growing the cultural shift of the Great Turning. I offer my gifts as a facilitator, a purpose guide, mentor and teacher. I work with those that recognize, or at least have a sense, of the new paradigm that we are entering and who are becoming aware of the choices they have in their own transformation. Those who seek my support may be experiencing resistance as they cling to those old ways, but are beginning to see the truth of who they really are and their longing for change is intensifying.

I have a background in psychology, education and non-profit environmental work and am currently an adjunct faculty at John F. Kennedy University and a staff mentor at Purpose Guides Institute. I have taught Eastern and Western Psychology with a focus on empowering students to connect with their true selves through the intersection of Psychology and the healing power of nature. I earned a BA in Religion and Visual Culture from UC Santa Cruz and an MA in Psychology from Meridian University. 

Jo delAmor, WTR Network Coordinator

I am grateful and honored to be able to provide administrative support to the WTR network and its Weavers. I have been facilitating personal and cultural transformation for planetary healing since 2007 in private coaching programs and experiential group work. My work is deeply holistic, incorporating reconnection to self, all our relations, the Earth and the Divine across Deep Time in service of the ones yet to be. I present the WTR in the context of understanding the roles that oppression and colonization have played in creating our current circumstances and with a strong commitment to actively undoing oppression. I completed the global Spiral Journey WTR Facilitator Development Program in 2018 facilitated by Molly Brown, Mutima Imani and Constance Washburn and have been on their administrative team ever since.

My WTR offerings focus largely on supporting parents and children in these challenging times. I am the author of the forthcoming book “Raising Children in the Midst of Global Crisis: A Compassionate Guidebook for Parenting in Turbulent Times”

Silvia Di Blasio, WTR Network Coordinator 

I consider myself a facilitator for regenerative design and social change. As such, I am committed to the co-creation of spaces and practices that are truly inclusive, compassionate and non-oppressive. Among other things, I am a lifelong student and practitioner of permaculture, ecopsychology and the WTR.

I provide support to the WTR Network and also work as Moodle course creator and eLearning assistant to the Spiral Journey of the WTR Facilitators Development Program run by Constance Washburn, Molly Young Brown and Mutima Imani. I am also the eLearning & Academic Coordinator for Gaia Education online courses, where I interact with hundreds of students and facilitators working towards a regenerative world (Great Turning).

My vision as a coordinator of the WTR Network is to bring the evolving edge of the Work to all who need it and support the growth of an ever-evolving network of practitioners and facilitators acting as both hospice workers of a collapsing and tremendously broken system and doulas for what’s to come….

Founding Members, now retired

Werner Brandt, Facilitator

I am committed to the mindful use of technology to foster social justice and ecological equality for all species. For over 15 years I have been involved with The Work That Reconnects, and have facilitated the work for men. More recently, I had the opportunity to present the work in China. I am a lover of the earth and hold the intention that our great great grandchildren will be able to look back at our time and see that our work contributed to the Great Turning.

The Work That Reconnects Network is a fiscally sponsored project of Inquiring Systems Inc., a tax-exempt 501 (c) (3) nonprofit corporation. EIN 94-2524840. All donations are tax-deductible.