Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
We are so delighted to be welcoming Lydia Violet and Te Martin who will lead an online program based on The Work That Reconnects, created by Joanna Macy, on Tuesdays from October 21st – November 11th. This work is so vital in our challenging times, offering us a pathway to be able to name our gratitude, process our grief, be inspired, and offer ourselves in service.
The following is an excerpt from Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects:
The Spiral of the Work
Over the years, we have come to see the Work That Reconnects as occurring in a spiral, mapping a journey through four successive stages: Coming from Gratitude, Honoring our Pain for the World, Seeing with New Eyes, and Going Forth. These four stages support one another, and work best in sequence.
The Spiral begins with gratitude, because that quiets the mind and brings us back to source, stimulating our empathy and confidence. Expressing our love for life on Earth, in brief and concrete terms, helps us to be more fully present and grounded for acknowledging the pain we carry for our world.
In honoring our pain, and daring to experience it, we learn the true meaning of compassion: to suffer with. We begin to know the immensity of our heart/mind. What had isolated us in private anguish now opens outward and delivers us into the wider reaches of our collective existence.
Sensing the larger life within us lets us see with new eyes. At this turning point of the work, we know more genuinely our relatedness to all that is. We taste our own power to change and feel the texture of our living connections with past and future generations, as well as with our brother/sister species.
Then, ever again, we go forth into the actions that call each of us, in keeping with our situation and gifts. We explore the synergistic power available to us as open systems and apply these understandings to our work for social change. We don’t wait for a blueprint or fail-proof scheme, for each step will bring new perspectives and opportunities. Even when we don’t succeed in a given venture, we can be grateful for the chance we took and the lessons we learned.
And the Spiral begins again. In the face of devastation and tragedy, gratitude will hold us steady, especially when we’re scared or tired.
The nature of the Spiral is fractal. The sequence can repeat itself even within a particular stage of the Spiral. For example, the Seeing with New Eyes stage may reveal to us with greater clarity the horrors being inflicted on the Earth community, bringing up fresh grief and outrage. We may need to honor that pain with a practice or ritual before moving on.
The lens of the Spiral can reveal patterns of growth in our own understanding and capacity. The Spiral can be discerned over the span of a lifetime or a project, and it can also happen in a day or an hour.
Excerpt from Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown (permission from New Society Publishers).
Please join Lydia Violet and Te Martin for what promises to be a very rich retreat time of soulful inspiration and connection. Lydia and Te are both gifted musicians and storytellers so this will be a time of deep reflection and practical guidance.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
Image Paid License from Canva
