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
Beth Remmes – Richmond Hill, Georgia, USA
Beth is a facilitator for The Work That Reconnects and Gaia Education, Coastal Outreach and Climate Resiliency Coordinator for Georgia Interfaith Power and Light, and a member of the Unity Worldwide Ministry Earth Care Team. Beth has a Master of Science in Biomimicry from Arizona State University. She has participated in Pachamama Alliance’s Awakening the Dreamer Facilitator Training Program and Game Changer Intensive, the Sustainable World Coalition’s Emergence to Action course, Environmental Working Group for Environmental Educators and White Awake Study Group. Beth completed a year long international on-line Work That Reconnects Facilitator Development Program and earned a Certificate in Ecopsychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute.
Beth has been a volunteer on the Facilitator Support Committee since January 2024 and joined the Weaver team in January 2026.
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 has been a Weaver since September 2021 and serves on the Webinar and Conversation Cafe Program Committee.
Kathleen Rude – Chicago, Illinois, 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 has been a Weaver since May 2019 and serves on the Facilitator Support Committee.
Siobhán Friel — She/her; Tangata Tiriti; Éire—UK—Te Waipounamu, Aotearoa / New Zealand
I’m a sister, friend, daughter, a wanderer of mountains, a gentle stalker of neighbourhood birds, and I’m pretty sure I was a lavender plant in a previous life.
I work with those who are feeling the weight of this weird & wild moment we find ourselves in. Those who are waking up to the ecological, social, and political unravelling happening around (and within) us, and aren’t quite sure how to make sense of it.
My journey has led me to the Work That Reconnects & Deep Ecology as a way to explore grief, resilience, creativity and belonging in these astonishing times. It’s an honour to contribute to this growing community as we remember our connection to each other and the web of life.
I live in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and alongside my role for a climate justice charity, I offer regular spaces to practice the Work That Reconnects: inviting us back into conversation with our living world.
When I’m not doing that, I’m almost certainly leaning against a kindly silver beech tree, catching my breath, while hiking in the mesmerising backcountry of Te Waipounamu / the South Island.
Siobhán has been a volunteer on the Communications Committee since January 2025 and joined the Weaver team in January 2026.
Staff Weavers
Frieda Nixdorf, Co-director – Nevada City, California, USA
My commitment is to drawing community into transformational experiences to remember our belonging, our interdependence, and our kinship with the more-than-human world. Amongst many other things, I have studied art, religion, psychology, yoga and the intricacies of the beautiful and broken world. I’ve taught Eastern and Western Psychology at the community college level, and Soul Purpose at the graduate level, and have been incorporating WTR practices into everything I do since I first met Joanna in graduate school in 2002. I live in northern California on the unceded land of the Nisenan people.
Frieda has been a Weaver since February 2019 and serves on the Communications Committee and the Webinar and Conversation Cafe Program Committee.
Jo delAmor, Co-director – Coolville, Ohio, 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 has been a Weaver since February 2019 and serves on the Regenerative Resource Committee and the Webinar and Conversation Cafe Program Committee.
Shayontoni Rhea Ghosh, Co-director – 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 has been a Weaver since April 2022 and serves on the Facilitator Support Committee, the Gaian Gathering Committee and the Social Justice Committee.
Administrative Support Staff
Silvia Di Blasio – Surrey, British Columbia, 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 an administrator 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 for 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 served as a Staff Weaver from February 2018 through December 2025 and continues to support the Facilitator Support Committee and the Deep Times Journal Committee.
Former Weavers
Constance Washburn (founding Weaver) – Lagunitas, California, 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 served as a Weaver from December 2015 – June 2026 and remains on the Regenerative Resource Committee.
Mutima Imani – Oakland, California, USA
Mutima is a Keynote Speaker, Coach, Facilitator, and Trainer with a Masters Degree in Public Administration. Her areas of expertise are in organizational development, diversity training and trauma informed healing circles. The mission of Mutima’s work is to improve the quality of training and educational models for transformation and change. She has three decades of experience in providing socially relevant, culturally competent training and facilitation while using 21st Century tools for transformation.Mutima has attended many intensives with Joanna Macy and works with Molly Brown and Constance Washburn in the Spiral Journey: a Facilitator Development Program. Mutima served as a Weaver from July 2022 – February 2025.
Carmen Rumbaut – San Marcos, Texas, USA
Carmen entered WTR via 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. Carmen has been a political and climate activist, attended and facilitated in Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership and has been aware since Jimmy Carter was president. Carmen is a child immigrant, retired social worker and attorney, and is bilingual in Spanish/English. Meditating, studying mystics, painting, drawing, writing songs, playing guitar, singing in a Unitarian Universalist choir, publishing poetry and stories, visiting granddaughters and emailing her five siblings brings Carmen joy. Carmen served as a Weaver from August 2023 – November 2024.
Paula Hendrick – Leicester, Massachusetts, 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 served as a Weaver from January 2020 – August 2023. Paula continues to serve on the Communications Committee.
Molly Brown, founding Weaver – Mt Shasta, California, USA
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 served as a Weaver from December 2015 – November 2022. Molly continues to serve on the Deep Times Journal Committee.
Aravinda Ananda, founding Weaver – Watertown, Massachusetts, USA
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. Aravinda served as a Weaver from December 2015 – January 2020.
Emily Ryan, founding Weaver – San Francisco, California, USA
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. 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. Emily served as a Weaver from December 2015 – April 2019.
Werner Brandt, founding Weaver – Salem, Oregon, USA
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. Werner served as a Weaver from December 2015 – February 2019.