I find the Work That Reconnects to be the most comprehensive spiritual and psychological way to connect us to the source of life, and to each other.
For over 40 years, my work as a therapist was in helping families and individuals heal, and in community work around mental health services, women's equity issues and supporting youth in the LGBTQI realms. I've facilitated retreats, taught short classes, and written years of newsletters. I"m also a forever becoming artist. All of my efforts come from a deep love and joy in the world.
After retiring in 2019, I helped my Unitarian congregation as a core team leader to found our Climate Action Teams, and still serve as a leader there. I have given 5 Active Hope on-line groups, provided many brief on-line WTR events, and participated in many WTR workshops, and trained as a facilitator in WTR Spiral Journey Facilitator Development with Constance, Mutima and Molly.
I live in Virginia part-time, and in Maine the rest of the year.
Why I am called to facilitate the Work
After awakening to the state of the planet after the 2018 IPCC report, I felt bereft and helpless, and in need of spiritual guidance that I wasn’t finding in my life. I stumbled on Active Hope during an internet search, and after reading the book, set up a two day workshop at my local congregation, and then attended a Bioregions conference in 2019. This work has changed me, and given me a structure to understand the complexities of human history, the pickle we are in, a framework for the changed consciousness that humanity longs for, and many beloved companions in this journey. The more I do WTR, the more I love the work, my world and the beings I share it with.
How I see the Work serving the Great Turning
Naming the three stories of our time immediately lights up people’s faces and minds. WTR gives people a path from mourning and hopelessness (or numbing and denial) to actively loving the world, and so creating the possibility of a liveable future. Most of my experience in facilitating this work so far has been on-line, due to covid sequestering; and the depth of the need to connect to other people, and the longing for belonging have moved me deeply. This work fuels the change-makers, and comforts the disconnected by bringing them into relationship with others and with nature. The Spiral is now a way of living my life, and despite the challenges, I am often filled with joy; and when I don’t feel joy, I feel compassion.
I see the Work undoing the harms of dominance and disconnection, and tempering the human inclination towards hierarchies by developing cooperation, compassion, creativity and meaning. We are all in a threshold time, as Joanna Macy has said, and the Work creates a consciousness of the whole and of our place in it.
Audiences I work with
I have worked with inter-generational groups, climate activist groups, people retiring and finding their next chapter, and liberal religious groups, all of whom have found the work rewarding. Some had an “allergy” to the word hope before we began, and through WTR became engaged in spreading the work of reducing harm and creating a possibly sustainable world.
Recent Comments