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Hank Obermayer

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Working primarily in the East Bay and Sonoma County in California, I work as a group process facilitator as well as a one-on-one spiritual and somatic counselor, focusing on the relationships with self, with community, and with the planet. I have deep roots in intentional communities and group decision making as well as in using theater and ritual to support social change, embodied mindfulness and personal growth. I’ve taught, trained and facilitated most of these practices since the early 90s. In groups my primary paradigm is the Work That Reconnects, mixing in my theater, group process, nature awareness and counseling backgrounds.

Much of my work involves helping people harvest from expanded consciousness work, whether individual or group experiences, in order to make lasting change. As part of this I use the Work That Reconnects to support groups in the integration process.

Why I am called to facilitate the Work

I appreciate that it helps people find their way through their pain to finding a path toward engaging in our world. I facilitate in order to help people do that, using community as a core piece of the work.

How I see the Work serving the Great Turning

In short, move people from jadedness, skepticism, despair, etc to community engagement.

Audiences I work with

Therapy clients
People who professionally work with expanded consciousness work and it's integration.

Background & Training

Other relevant skills & experiences

I've mostly lived in intentional communities and ecovillages since 1987, being the sole founder of a thriving community in Oakland that I lived in for 18 years. I mentioned my theater and counseling background above, but I was in many performance ensembles in the 90s. I'm also deeply involved in German Jewish healing work and speak German. I could probably manage to facilitate in German.

Experience facilitating other events & workshops

I've facilitated little bits of WTR in many shamanic retreats and gatherings, using it at the beginning to set the tone for a whole weekend.

In these workshops, what WTR practices have you used and how?
Where do I start? Many many millings and open sentence practices. Truth mandalas, 7 generations, gifts of the ancestors, something I can't remember the name of based on Indra's net, dance to dismember the ego, multiple gratitude practices, storytellers convention, letters to ourselves in the future... Um... I could go to old notes and look, but lots and lots and lots of different practices

Describe how you use WTR in other work that you do.
I think I explained it all above already.

What year did you begin facilitating the Work That Reconnects?
I don't have any videos of me facilitating.

Please summarize the number and types of workshops, retreats and presentations of the Work that Reconnects that you have facilitated.
Did a couple simple series in 2010 out of my home and my synagogue.
I facilitated practices at CIIS several times when I was a student there
Facilitated classes (2-3 hours each) in CIIS' psychedelic therapy program 4 times.
My favorite work was collaborating with Kari Stettler and Gary Pace a couple times on an 8 week series integrating shamanic work with WTR.

Are you helping others to explore the depths of the Work That Reconnects?
I'm sometimes able to use these practices in 1-on-1 shamanic work with clients.
I also integrate WTR into every group therapy retreat I run (5?).
I'm beginning collaborations with others doing similar counseling work to work with groups together. focused on our ecological challenges (not all of my colleagues have background in WTR, so that's not always the exact framing).