Beverly Frederick

I met Joanna Macy at a book signing at River Reader for Coming Back to Life in 1998. I had been facilitating & teaching with Starhawk for about a decade then & had just released my first CD of the chants & songs we were using, Through the Darkness.I was deeply moved by Joanna's person & perspective that day & perhaps even more moved by the practices I read about in Coming Back to Life, which became my Bible. Before even finishing the book I began using “breathing through”, “the web of life” & “milling” in different forms to deepen the work I was already doing facilitating workshops, intensives, & ongoing circles with women & men. More than any specific exercise, the largeness & deep sanity of the book's perspective has informed my life & the flavors of my leadership in many varied settings, from intimate circles to large direct actions.I have released 3 more CDs since then, In the Arms of the Wild (dedicated to Julia Butterfly & Luna), Yoga Therapy(an instructional CD) & Sea Sutras . I moved to the Big Island of Hawaii & founded the WisdomWay Center in 2003 and in 2012 fulfilled the long term goal of actually attending an intensive with Joanna herself facilitating. A year ago I could not walk. I had no cartilage in my right hip & no health insurance. Miraculously within a month, the web of life connected me with an expert surgeon in Chennai, INDIA and I am walking and dancing (pain free) again. Through out my personal challenges I have managed to hold on to the 94 year old church that has been the WisdomWay Center (no easy feat in these times), as well as provide rituals of renewal & recharge for our community's holding actions against toxic Geothermal Industrialization here on Big Island.