Being Change

I have the wonderful opportunity to bring Jan Phillips – an amazing visionary, author, artist, and teacher, to Ithaca, New York to lead a seminar during the weekend of October 23rd (Friday evening through Sunday noon.) This seminar is entitled “Facilitator Training – Turning Your Life into a Living” and is an intensive, hands-on small-group weekend seminar for people who are ready to harvest the wisdom of their life experiences and share what they have learned with others. It prepares you to become a facilitator of whatever kind of groups you care to facilitate, with a thorough exploration of content development, finding and reaching your audience, clarifying your mission and message, and using the media to promote your work. (While this seminar is full of practical tools, her approach is holistic and spiritually grounded. It’s not just about marketing! Jan shows people how to access their wisdom, activate their creativity, and communicate with clarity and compassion.) She will empower us in:

• how to transform your knowledge and skills into a teachable format
• what to call your workshop/training
• how to describe it in 2-3 paragraphs
• what to say in your publicity so people know what’s in it for them
• how much you should charge
• how to find the people who are looking for you
• where, when, and how to advertise
• how to get free publicity and make the most of it

The cost would be around $525 depending on what food will be provided. You will also receive a couple of her books and a CD of head shots to use in your PR materials.
See her web site at www.janphillips.com
It should be a lot of fun. Space is limited to only SIX people and I’m one of them, so if you’re interested let me know soon.

Joanna Macy

At the next BeingChange Circle, on June 11th, I will be showing the short video of Joanna Macy’s talk at the 2009 Bioneers conference. You can see it on the home page of her web site at www.joannamacy.net.

After viewing the film, we will call the circle and share what comes up for us around her topic: “The Five Gifts of Uncertainty.” Perhaps you’d like to call your own circle and send me your responses to this moving and timely message. Here’s a sneak preview of the five gifts:

The gift of the present moment
The gift of fresh recognition of the power of intention
The gift of befriending our pain
The gift of our solidarity with all our relations
The gift of an immensity of time

Joanna is truly a remarkable woman. Her compassion and energy are boundless. I hope you enjoy the video! An opportunity to be in her presence, even a virtual presence, is not to be missed.

….or the Great Work, The Shift, Conscious Evolution, Transition….I decided to post a few quotes to try to convey the essence of these concepts. I hope you will take it upon yourself to dig deeper. This is the essential spiritual path of our times:

David Korten: The term “The Great Turning” has come into widespread use to describe the awakening of a higher level of human consciousness and a human turn from an era of violence against people and nature to a new era of peace, justice and environmental restoration. Most people are not aware that this awakening is underway, because positive change rarely reaches the level of front page – or even back-page – news!

Joanna Macy: The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world-we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.

Bill Plotkin Will the twenty-first century turn out to be the Great Ending or the Great Turning? It’s up to us…you and me and all others who are waking up to the extraordinary challenge, opportunity, and imperative before us.

Thomas Berry: We might summarize our present human situation by the simple statement: that in the 20th century, the glory of the human has become the desolation of the Earth and now the desolation of the Earth is becoming the destiny of the human. From here on, the primary judgment of all human institutions, professions, programs and activities will be determined by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually enhancing human – Earth relationship.

Barbara Marx Hubbard: Those of us alive today are the first generation born with the choice of learning conscious, ethical evolution, or suffering devolution and the destruction of our life-support systems with unimaginably more tragedy than the world has yet experienced. We are the generation of the gap between “here”—a highly technological, over-populating, polluting, brilliant species on the brink of social and environmental chaos, and “there”—a compassionate, spiritually awakened humanity, capable of transcending the limits of our past human existence and moving toward the unknown. We do not have much time. Within the next 30 to 50 years, we must change our fundamental behavior to be more in alignment with our natural systems and our visions of a positive future. Never before has the human species had to change this quickly in order to survive.

Duane Elgin: The world is moving into a new era where the human community must work together if we are to realize a future of sustainable prosperity. This transition represents both a great challenge and an extraordinary opportunity. We are being called to make a shift toward green lifestyles, supported by a mature democracy, and guided by the collective wisdom of science and spirituality.

You may have noticed, if you’ve been visiting this blog, that I’ve recently dropped the word “women” from “Women Weaving the Great Turning Through Circles, Art, & Story.” While there will continue to be women-only circles and events, and special emphasis on empowering women’s vision and voice, it truly didn’t make any sense to exclude the invaluable contributions of weaving men. So, men of heart and soul, and spirit; men who love our Mother Earth and who care about the future generations: Welcome! I look forward to hearing your stories.

In the film about these transition times entitled “What a Way to Go,” Derrick Jensen tells the following story. During times of war, the native dog soldiers of the southwest would plant a stake, called a picket pin, in the battlefield and tie themselves to it. They were making a visual and visceral statement that they were taking a stand, that retreat was not an option, and that they would give their all – even in the face of death.

The film also explores how, even as we are awakening to the challenge of our global situation, there are powerful forces attempting to lull us back to sleep.

In the book “Sacred Demise,” by Carolyn Baker, Peter Senge says: “The power of creative tension results from seeing clearly where we want to be, our vision, and telling the truth about where we are, our current reality.” I would add the tension of staying awake – even in the face of death, both real and metaphorical.

All of this adds up to what I see as a spectrum, a very loopy, non-linear spectrum. On one end we are asleep or being lulled back to sleep. On the other end we are consciously and courageously planting our picket pins by confronting fears and limitations, by taking stands, and by envisioning possibilities.

The creative tensions are our thresholds. Which way are we going to choose in any day, in any moment, in any situation?

Our navigation of this spectrum, of these tensions, is what I have compared to the archetypal “hero’s journey.” The hero’s journey is a perfect template for what the initiation of transition and of transformation requires of us. We hear a call and we either refuse the call – go back to sleep – or step over that threshold into the dark mucky-muck of the unknown and search for that Grail, planting our picket pins over and over along the way, and bringing back what we learn as a gift to our people.

What lulls you back to sleep? Where are you along the spectrum of the hero’s journey in the context of the Great Turning? What is calling you? What picket pin would represent your next best response to that call? What would the Grail look like? Who will you meet along the way?

If you have a story, song, poem, or what have you, that speaks to these questions, please send them to me. I may post them to the BeingChange web site and they may become a part of the future anthology.

BeingChange circles are really twofold: having circles and collecting stories about our experiences of being in transition and our visions for the future. These stories can be expressed in any artistic genre: poetry, essays, songs, dance, photography, and the like. So, the stories are the end, the goal, and the circles are the means. One of the outcomes will be a book – an anthology of our work together. The challenge is how to record the stories generated within the circle while, at the same time, maintaining the safety and spiritual grounding of the circle.

My answer is to be explicit. I’m looking for people who are passionate about wanting to help create a better world, who have something to say about the condition of our planet and the future for all beings, and who have the courage to stretch beyond their comfort zones. I’m looking for people who are excited about being part of a collection of powerful voices, and about being the change we wish to see in the world. While every effort will be made to co-create a safe and spiritually grounded space, these circles will be recorded AND stories will never be shared without permission and can remain anonymous if requested.

Are you one of these people? Would you like to contribute in some way? There will be options for wherever you are. Please email me, leave comments, suggestions, become part of the BeingChange network!

Communing with friend in Otavalo, Ecuador

I want to introduce you to two amazing women – Jan Phillips and Vijali Hamilton.  These women are visionaries, artists, and activists PLUS they’ve both taken extraordinary trips around the world doing their art while promoting peace and nurturing relationships with diverse peoples.

Hearing their stories, and others like them, makes me just about want to bolt out my door and hit the road!  Indeed, my dream is to finds ways to travel, to do circles, to collect stories, to listen to people’s experiences, and to put it all together in ways that I might share it with you.  This would be nothing short of a pilgrimage for me – a sacred journey of communing with both place and people.

This world is so precious, there is so much to see and learn.  What stories would people in Latin American, or Africa, or the Middle East have to tell about The Great Turning?  How would they envision the future?  What insights would they have that we may not see from within our industrialized, consumeristic culture?  What art and beauty and community might be created?

This is no small undertaking, of course.  It will take some time to grapple with the logistics.  But my intention is to do everything in my power to find ways to fulfill this dream.  Any suggestions?  Please leave comments!

Phebe at Morey, sacred Incan site in the Andes of Peru

BeingChange has been a long time in the making and has gone through many evolutions before settling into “Weaving the Great Turning Through Circles, Art, & Story.”  Though I imagine the seeds were planted possibly before I was even born, it wasn’t until I was in graduate school that they began to take root.  I attended Antioch University in Seattle, majoring in Whole Systems Design.  This unique program encourages students to explore a question or an issue systemically and to design a response that, when implemented, can embody real change.

Suffice it to say that I brought a big – a HUGE – how can I save the world-type question and it took years of letting go and listening to my heart before a discernible path emerged.  Often this was agonizing.  While I strongly sensed I was on the right track, I couldn’t seem to “make anything of it.”  This led to many moments of despair and self-doubt.  More recently, part of my despair was from my perception that, at fifty-plus years old, time was running out if I ever wanted to “make something of myself.”  (More letting go….)

Looking back I can see that, of course, things were cooking.  I can see that when a person has a passion, then spirit is at work, and I need to trust that.  I learned that it’s important to not get TOO far ahead of myself and miss the insights and opportunities that are presenting themselves all along the way.  Luckily, if anything, I’m persistent.  I kept plugging away.  I took trainings, read voraciously, led various events and workshops, involved myself in various issues, went on a vision quest and traveled to South America, spent hours in nature, developed an eclectic spiritual practice, and so on.

Eventually, it became more and more clear what made my heart truly hum AND it was still unclear how to put all the pieces together in a way that “made sense.”  (Even more to let go of!)  What were the pieces?  ….the Great Turning, a new story, my love of indigenous peoples, wanderlust, spirit, nature, circles, poetry and writing…Eureka!  Now I’m getting somewhere!

Imagine: Gathering in circles, sharing stories, finding our voices, honoring our experiences, empowering each other on the journeys of our heart, envisioning a better world for our children and for all beings.  Imagine sharing ritual and ceremony to evoke our deepest imagination and creativity, and manifesting what emerges into a story, a poem, a dance, a song, a work of art.  Imagine weaving these works of art back into our world, into our psyche, and we begin turning….

The other piece of this puzzle is my crazy, unrelenting wanderlust.  I absolutely have to travel to learn about the world and to feed my soul.  This year I hope to travel by bicycle to points as yet unknown, doing circles and gathering stories along the way as well as spending deep time in wilderness.  Stay tuned.  I may occasionally need a couch and a shower!

All I know is I must follow all this and see where it leads.  Even as I still struggle with my fears and my uncertainties, it feels right.  It feels like home.