Ellen Serfatyretired--volunteer with numerous organizations

I was first called to deepen my connection with the Work That Reconnects as a result of several incidents that occurred when we moved to our new home by the sea, in northern Israel. With a move like this--after spending over 30 years in Jerusalem, waiting several years for our community to be created and completion of our building and apartment, the perfection of this area reached gigantic fantasy proportions. After we moved I began to see, as Bayo Akomalafe has taught us, the “cracks”--plastic and other garbage on the beach, illegal fishing in an area that is dedicated as a marine reserve, the destruction of the nature reserve that surrounds our house without consideration to transitioning and transformation and preservation.
Prior to COVID I had investigated participating in WTR workshops in person, but we were thwarted in my attempts to travel due to my husband’s health. So for the most part I was an armchair WTR enthusiast (reading and studying books) as well as an armchair environmental activist.
I recall vividly the day I encountered a dead sea turtle, a gorgeous creature, so large, it boggled my mind, something I had only seen in documentaries. With a quick investigation, I reported the death to the appropriate authority, and we learned that the turtle swallowed plastic bags, mistaking them for jellyfish, one of their favorite foods, since the movement of a plastic bag in water looks much like the jelly. I recall being stunned, shocked, blocked to explore my feelings and what to do about them, despite my many decades of meditation practice.
And it happened again!
As COVID hit, WTR turned to online in a moment when I really needed help. Through the Spiral, I learned how to transform those feelings of pain and suffering over these sentient beings, see the reality of how humans are mistreating our planet, and do something about it. Again, as Mr. Akomalafe says, the crack becomes an opportunity….indeed!
But I always come from a place of gratitude for this beautiful world, for my being alive and well enough to enjoy it and do something about it. I was attracted to this aspect because I am basically an optimist, and have learned over many decades of public service work that if there is a problem, there must be a solution, and I am one who has learned to guide others to finding it.
I also am a trainer and guide by nature, training many different professional and volunteers communities from the legal field--lawyers, judges, legislators and their aids; medical and social work and criminal justice professionals in the criminal and juvenile justice fields, as well as child abuse and neglect; and eventually in the educational communities here in Israel, working with students of all ages with special educational needs, as well as training their teachers to work with them, also in the use of adaptive technology.
So having adopted WTR Spiral practices into my daily life, I knew that I wanted to learn how to share these with others.
This work led me to converting from a closet/armchair environmental activist into a very active physical one--first becoming a volunteer with the Nature Authority to rise at dawn to find turtle nests for transfer to the farm, then protecting them at night, and eventually recruiting and coordinating two communities of volunteers to look for nests, as well as assisting the management of those that protected the farm at night, and visiting the nests during the day, and helping the rangers open nests for the public.
And I found an answer to the heartbreak of people throwing garbage on our beautiful lagoons and beaches--I started our community’s beach and sea protection group, connected with the regional and national groups, and we began cleaning the beaches every week, first with a very small group, which eventually grew. We became the emergency core for cleaning tar for several months that hit our beaches as a result of a terrible oil spill, and sponsored a big cleanup where hundreds of families in our neighborhood and from around the country went on tours of our lagoons to learn about sea life, and to clean our beaches. From there, our group has become a springboard for environmental action, speaking up against the building of a marina, illegal fishing, and recruiting volunteers to do citizen research about the climate crisis as well as become part of Nature Authority turtle protection efforts.

What I appreciate most about the Work That Reconnects is the way that it can become a practice for each of us, in our daily lives, not a set of theories and concepts to be consulted occasionally, and then placed on a shelf. In this respect, it is like my meditation practice, something that becomes part of our lives, informs our daily living and especially, helps us to move forward with concern and care through the crisis in which we are living.An excellent adjunct to my Bodhisattva vow.
I suspect that the Great Unraveling appeals to my sense of truth--I have always believed that we can’t move forward in our lives and the world, unless we understand where we are (the mess we are in!) and especially how we got there. Thus it is no surprise that one of my minors in college was history, with specializing in pre-Holocaust Germany and world events that led to it. I also suspect that as someone who has never bought into working with corporate America (as many of my law school classmates and colleagues did), and preserved my inclinations to serve underrepresented and helpless communities, the Great Unraveling provides a different perspective on what appears to be a massive takeover by profit interests of our world, its resources, and a form of enslavement to all our people that work for them, or buy from them. I don’t think I explored this side of nature to the extent that was necessary until I began to connect Joanna Macy’s writings to the practical exploration of her theories within a workshop setting, and eventually in our communities. So in my 60s, I settled down to question more and more of what I experienced in my life, and what I learned about the times before I was born, to answer some of the pressing questions I have had about how we ended up in this deplorable mess in our world!
And obviously, the Great Turning is the path of hope, of creativity. It allows any of us who are of a nature to solve a problem that we encounter in our lives or the lives of others with a solution.
This is a huge problem we are facing! It will not “unravel” easily. And it will take the concerted actions of thousands, if not millions of people. The Great Turning is a way to connect the actions of each person and group and community that are moving toward loving and protecting and repairing our earth--connect them to one another, into a movement, one that will begin to reverse the trend of destruction. Or at least, hold it at bay, or minimize its effects.

Environmental workers and activists, teachers, lawyers, judges, lobbyists, volunteers, students with special educational needs, meditators, academics