Does your heart hurt in these volatile times? Do you feel stuck, helpless, despair in the face of it all? This introductory workshop, designed for participants aged 16 and up, will help with your heartache, stuckness, worry and despair by grounding and nourishing you in the teachings of the “The Spiral Journey of Active Hope: The Work That Reconnects.” Together, we’ll explore the Spiral as a practice for getting into our flow, staying in it and living the highest version of ourselves.
The “Work That Reconnects” (WTR) is the distillation of 50+ years of environmental and social justice organizing work developed by Joanna Macy, PhD and others. Grounded in the fields of Deep Ecology, Buddhist teachings and general systems theory, it brings us back into relationship, reflecting the interconnectedness of all beings including the more than human world. Together, we’ll explore the Spiral Journey of the WTR as a daily practice for getting into our flow, staying in it and living the highest version of ourselves. The Spiral provides a framework for cultivating gratitude, compassion, curiosity and courage, transmuting stuckness, despair and overwhelm into inspired, individual and collaborative action. In a series of brief presentations, small group discussions, experiential exercises and collective reflection, we will journey through the 4 movements of the Spiral: Coming from Gratitude, Honoring Our Pain, Seeing with New and Ancient Eyes and Going Forth. As we finish our time together, we will be supported in reflecting on what emerged through our shared experience and what will be most helpful for each of us moving forward in new and unimagined ways.
This workshop is appropriate for all levels or abilities.
Roberta Cassidy, PhD, RN, FNTP, CNFTG is a highly experienced Nursing leader who has served in a variety of healthcare capacities. She is also certified as a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, Relational Nature and Forest Therapy Guide and Work That Reconnects facilitator. As the founder of Nufound Wellness, Roberta currently works as a facilitator, guide and consultant using a variety of holistic, relationship- and nature-centered approaches to wellbeing. Her true passion and path in life is in service to the journey of personal and professional healing and its role in community, organizational and planetary health. Roberta seeks to inspire healing within to transform ourselves and our communities in service to the greater good of the whole.
Learn more about her: LinkedIn
Beth Cleary is Professor Emerita of Theater at Macalester College. Her work as a theater director and teacher includes 40 years of yoga practice and a certification in Global Somatics, a Body-Mind Centering-based method. Beth has developed and taught “Yoga and Active Hope” in St. Paul. She is now a full-time writer, yoga teacher and WTR facilitator and practitioner. Beth holds a Ph.D from UC-Berkeley.
