Nicholas first attended a Work that Reconnects workshop with Joanna in Monkton Wyld in Dorset in 2004 but began co-facilitating workshops in 2019 after talking the online Facilitators Development Program. He's especially hopeful about facilitating more Deep Time work.
In the meantime he has mostly been focused on trying to help save an endangered antelope species in Vietnam called the saola. He's acquired a Cambridge PhD (Geography) on top of a Masters in Applied Ecology and Conservation and a biology degree from Oxford but the saola isn't looking very saved for all that.
Why I am called to facilitate the Work
In 2004 I attended a workshop with Joanna in Monkton Wyld, Dorset. I had been looking for a professional career in wildlife conservation and that is more or less the path I followed since. I'm not sure it's worked very well. A recent survey of conservation professionals here: https://www.futureconservation.org/ classifies our views based on how much we are in favour of one or other of the following three things: "people-centred conservation", "science-led ecocentrism" and "conservation through capitalism". The pro-capitalism part isn't the biggest problem as many of us oppose that, the biggest problem is that the only views which don't put humans at the centre are 'science-led'. I hope that gives a quick idea why I'm dissatisfied with professional conservation at the moment.
Ultimately, I feel called to find some connection between the world of professional science-based conservation and the rich world accessible through honouring our emotional responses. That's ultimately why I am called to facilitate, though immediately I need practice in facilitating WTR workshops.
How I see the Work serving the Great Turning
I appreciate the focus on honouring our pain and I appreciate the acceptance of Deep Time as a mythically deep realm which can yield new perspectives.
I see the Work as having the power to counter our habits of 'just doing something' even if that thing doesn't really address the threats that face us and the powers behind them. It seems to me that we live in a society under the sway of an ideology where we're all pushed to activity of any kind because, at least when money changes hands, it's seen as good in its own right. We can easily get caught in activities which distract us from our pain and, provided those activities look like the kind of things someone might pay for, we feel encouraged to continue. So many people who have so much to offer the world are caught up in this nervous displacement activity. I think I'm one of them. So actually looking at our pain is the only way out.
Also I think we are often caught up in certain stories about what is happening and about what can happen that operate on timescales of decades or maybe centuries. Thinking what is possible on longer timescales can get us unstuck, so I'm interested in deep time work.
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