The Work That Reconnects Network is an ever-evolving web of collaborators in the work of the Great Turning. Our work together is rooted in mutual care and a valuing of each interdependent relationship.
The stable and responsive functioning of the WTR Network is maintained by a core team of Weavers. They are supported by our growing team of committee volunteers and coordinate with each other through an organizational design modeled after sociocracy.
The WTR Network Weavers
The Weavers team is composed of a few paid staff Weavers and several volunteer Weavers from around the world. The volunteer Weavers and staff Weavers share equally in visioning processes, decision making and stewardship of the organization. Each Weaver serves on at least one committee in addition to the Weavers team.
We welcome new Weavers from different parts of the world and from diverse backgrounds and cultures. We encourage those interested in becoming a Weaver to volunteer for a committee before applying to become a Weaver so they can get to know how the organization works.
Volunteer Weavers
Carmen Rumbaut – San Marcos, TX, USA
I entered WTR via my friends in Buddhism in 2017 while living in the Seattle area, and quickly began to facilitate gatherings (both live and online), attend the beginnings of the Anti-Oppression Resource Group, and serve as a member of the editing team for Deep Times Journal. Political and climate activist, attended and facilitated in Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership, aware since Jimmy Carter was president. Child immigrant, retired social worker and attorney, bilingual Spanish/English. What brings me joy: meditating, studying mystics, painting, drawing, writing songs, playing guitar, singing in a Unitarian Universalist choir, publishing poetry and stories, visiting my granddaughters and emailing my 5 siblings.
Carmen serves on the Deep Times Journal Committee.
Constance Washburn – Lagunitas, CA, USA
I am an activist, educator, director and a facilitator of the Work That Reconnects living in California. Since 1994 I have attended many intensives with Joanna Macy. Along with Molly Brown and Mutima Imani, I have been leading WTR retreats and workshops in Northern California. In 2017 we started the Spiral Journey: a Facilitator Development Program.
I am one of the founding Weavers of the WTR Network. I’m also a founding member of the Conscious Elders Network and lead workshops and retreats for Elders in the WTR. I’ve been a Buddhist practitioner since 1968, a yoga teacher and a Community Dharma Leader. I have an MA in Theatre and Education with studies in psychodrama and sociodrama, and spent years teaching and directing theater. For 20 years I engaged in land-based work, working in farmland preservation and education on behalf of organic local sustainable food systems.
Constance serves on the Regenerative Finance Committee and the Gaian Gathering Committee.
Helen Sui – Shanghai, China
I’m a full time coach, trainer and facilitator, focused on areas of self-knowledge & discovery, consciousness transformation & evolution, and life awakening & sustainability. My life purpose is to live life in a full and holistic manner. The moment I got to know Active Hope, the Work That Reconnects, I fell in love with it immediately. The work is not widely and well known in China yet meanwhile it’s moving forward gradually and non-stop. It feels like the heartbeat, which is not always noticeable but always there. I believe the web is vibrating and the ripples are passing on and on. I look forward to getting deeply immersed and involved in the work. I look forward to getting to know and meeting more Shambhala warriors, as well.
Helen serves on the Webinar and Conversation Cafe Program Committee.
Kathleen Rude – Chicago, IL, USA
I am a WTR facilitator and mentor, a shamanic practitioner and an author living near Chicago. I fell in love with the natural world as a child and found my voice for environmental activism at age 11. I have a BS in Wildlife Ecology and an MS in Natural Resources. I began my career as an environmental writer, a profession I embraced for 18 years. I’ve had the great privilege to be mentored by Indigenous elders and have received their blessings to conduct ceremony. Their wisdom informs my healing practice.
Yearning to combine spirituality and environment causes, I knew I’d come home when I found the Work That Reconnects and Joanna Macy over 15 years ago. I’ve been mentored by Joanna, co-facilitated with her and have worked closely with her and others to help envision and support the future of the Work. I facilitate workshops both online and in person. I published a novel, The Redemption of Red Fire Woman and am currently writing How to Become An Every Day Difference Maker.
I serve on the board of Nuclear Energy Information Service, an organization opposing nuclear power and promoting sustainable renewable energy. I recharge my spirit by restoring native habitats, savoring beauty and singing in celebration of life.
Kathleen serves on the Facilitator Support Committee and the Website Committee.
Mutima Imani – Oakland, CA, USA
I am a Keynote Speaker, Coach, Facilitator, and Trainer with a Masters Degree in Public Administration. My areas of expertise are in organizational development, diversity training and trauma informed healing circles. The mission of my work is to improve the quality of training and educational models for transformation and change. I have three decades of experience in providing socially relevant, culturally competent training and facilitation while using 21st Century tools for transformation.
I have attended many intensives with Joanna Macy. I work with Molly Brown and Constance Washburn in the Spiral Journey: a Facilitator Development Program. I am long time member of the Anti-Oppression Resource Group.
Mutima serves on the Social Justice Committee.
Staff Weavers
Frieda Nixdorf – Nevada City, CA, USA
The thread that underscores all my work is the recognition of the healing and regenerative powers of nature. I am committed to serving the planet and contributing to the cultural shift of the Great Turning by offering my gifts as a facilitator, guide, mentor and teacher. I work with those who recognize the new paradigm humanity has entered, who are becoming aware of the choices they have in their own transformation and who feel a longing to live from a place of greater connection to Soul.
I have a background in psychology, education and non-profit environmental work and am currently an adjunct faculty at National University. I have taught Eastern and Western Psychology and Professional Identity through Purpose. I earned a BA in Religion and Visual Culture from UC Santa Cruz and an MA in Psychology from Meridian University and completed the Spiral Journey WTR Facilitator Development Program and Purpose Guide training in 2019. I live in northern California on the unceded land of the Nisenan people.
Frieda serves on the Communications Committee, the Webinar and Conversation Cafe Program Committee, the Gaian Gathering Committee and the Website Committee.
Jo delAmor – Coolville, OH, USA
I am grateful and honored to be able to serve the WTR Network. I have been facilitating personal and cultural transformation for planetary healing since 2007, in private coaching programs and experiential group work. My work is deeply holistic, incorporating reconnection to self, all our relations, the Earth and the Divine across Deep Time, in service of the ones yet to be. I present the WTR in the context of understanding the roles that oppression and colonization have played in creating our current circumstances, and with a strong commitment to actively undoing oppression. I completed the global Spiral Journey WTR Facilitator Development Program in 2018 and worked as an administrator on the Spiral Journey team from June 2018-March 2022.
My WTR offerings focus largely on supporting parents and children in these challenging times. I am the author of Raising Children in the Midst of Global Crisis: A Compassionate Guidebook for Parenting in Turbulent Times and the facilitator of the Parenting in Tumultuous Times program – a WTR experience for parents. I live on traditional Shawnee land in what is now known as Ohio in the eastern USA.
Jo serves on the Regenerative Finance Committee, the Webinar and Conversation Cafe Program Committee, the Gaian Gathering Committee and the Website Committee.
Shayontoni Rhea Ghosh – Hyderabad, India
I am a writer, a theatre-maker and a facilitator of spaces of inner work, creative self-expression and community-care.
I completed the global Spiral Journey Facilitator Development Program in 2020, and have been offering WTR workshops online ever since. I started volunteering with the Network in the spring of 2022, and joyously joined the staff in the autumn. My intention for serving on the Network is to provide a larger global context to various aspects of the work, to immerse myself in empowering and holistic teachings and to contribute to the legacy of activism, dissent and social change in India and South-East Asia.
Shayontoni serves on the Facilitator Support Committee, the Gaian Gathering Committee and the Social Justice Committee.
Silvia Di Blasio – Surrey, BC, Canada
I consider myself a facilitator for regenerative design and social change. As such, I am committed to the co-creation of spaces and practices that are truly inclusive, compassionate and non-oppressive. Among other things, I am a lifelong student and practitioner of permaculture, ecopsychology and the WTR.
I provide support to the WTR Network as a co-coordinator and as part of my “regenerative livelihood garden”, I create, approve, oversee and occasionally facilitate courses at Gaia Education and provide eLearning support to the Capra Course. I have also co-created and co-facilitate an annual course: Cultivating regenerative livelihoods” with Della Duncan.
My vision as a coordinator of the WTR Network is to bring the evolving edge of the Work to all who need it. I support the growth of an ever-evolving network of practitioners and facilitators who act as both hospice workers of a collapsing and tremendously broken system and doulas for what’s to come. I am originally from Argentina and now live in Canada near Vancouver, British Columbia.
Silvia serves on the Facilitator Support Committee, the Deep Times Journal Committee and the Website Committee.
Founding Weavers (now retired)
Paula Hendrick – Leicester, MA, USA
I first encountered Despair and Empowerment work in a 1981 workshop in Massachusetts (USA), and this evolving body of analysis and practice has been foundational to my life ever since. While living in Seattle, WA I attended many workshops with Joanna Macy, including Seeds for the Future, a month-long intensive with Joanna and her husband Fran. I co-facilitated the Spiral a number of times during these years, and co-founded Great Turning Northwest. I also volunteered as Director of Publications with the New Road Map Foundation, in support of the Voluntary Simplicity Movement.
After returning to my home state of Massachusetts, I worked with the regional Interhelp (WTR) Network for many years. I’m grateful to be able to volunteer with the WTR Network and to participate with the Anti-Oppression Resource Group. My partner Carol Harley and I met at a workshop with Joanna in 2005. We live in rural Massachusetts.
Paula continues to serve on the Communications Committee.
Molly Brown
I’ve been involved in the Work That Reconnects for 30 years and had the great joy of co-authoring Coming Back to Life with Joanna Macy. I offer workshops and retreats in the Work That Reconnects, edit Deep Times: A Journal of the Work That Reconnects, and co-facilitate Spiral Journey: a WTR Facilitator Development Program. I also coach and mentor people by phone, teach on-line courses, and write books and essays on ecopsychology, sustainability, and psychosynthesis. My other books include Growing Whole: Self-realization for the Great Turning, and Lighting a Candle: Collected Reflections on a Spiritual Life.
Molly continues to serve on the Deep Times Journal Committee.
Emily Ryan
I integrate the Work That Reconnects, the Goethean Method, living systems theory, and regenerative design into my work as an educator and facilitator. I hold a BA in Philosophy and Religion from San Francisco State University (CA, USA) and an MSc in Holistic Science from Schumacher College (Totnes, UK). I began training with Joanna in 2007 and served as a founding member of the Weavers team from 2018-2019. Being a part of the global network of facilitators of the WTR is something that brings me great joy and satisfaction. I am deeply grateful for how the Weavers team has brought our network to life.
Aravinda Ananda
I am a social ecologist living and working on Massachusett land. I call my life’s work Living rEvolution, which is about helping to shift human-Earth relations to be more life sustaining and affirming. I have been facilitating the Work That Reconnects since 2011, including as a co-facilitator of five Earth Leadership Cohorts, an immersion in the Work That Reconnects for people ages 18-30. I was honored to be a guest editor of the August 2017 special edition of Deep Times Journal focused on the impact of race and culture on the Work That Reconnects, and have been a lead convener of the Anti-Oppression Resource Group, which focuses on integrating anti-oppressive approaches into Work That Reconnects facilitation.
Werner Brandt
I am committed to the mindful use of technology to foster social justice and ecological equality for all species. I have been involved with The Work That Reconnects for many years, and have facilitated the work for men. I also had the opportunity to present the work in China. I am a lover of the earth and hold the intention that our great great grandchildren will be able to look back at our time and see that our work contributed to the Great Turning.