Dear Ones,

Before the dancing with redwoods story an update. I continue to work with the Conscious Elders Network (CEN) to offer workshops, develop a curriculum for a Foundations Course, create workshops for the upcoming CEN National Gathering Sept 18-21, and plan our next Work That Reconnects retreat. I also continue volunteering my time to grow the Work That Reconnects Network of facilitators around the world. It was great fun this past month to design events and tours for the Bolinas Museum show Bounty: Fine Food Production in Coastal Marin - 1834 to the 21st Century and reconnect to the Marin agricultural community.

I recently spent 3 days dancing with the redwoods, singing with a creek, and improvising with my fellow humans at a Body Tales camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  As some of you may know my life before California and children was running educational theatre companies, teaching acting, improvisation, and movement. I have been missing that work and have wanted to re-energize my creative juices as well as find ways to integrate more theatre into my current work. As I danced with the redwoods my heart felt both the joy of these amazing trees and the grief that so many have been cut down.

Theatre to me has always been a tool for self-discovery and social change. It gives us the opportunity to step more deeply into our own bodies, minds, and emotions. It also allows us to step into another person's shoes and see the world with new eyes. Using our imaginations we can take on the role of a Muslim mother fleeing wars and trying to keep her children safe in an over-crowded refugee camp. We can imagine being a young black man in American always needing to be on guard and constantly judged by the color of his skin. We can open our hearts and allow ourselves to feel their feelings; the fear, the rage, the despair, and the shame. Can we feel their humanity and our own heart break and be inspired to make a difference?

I have just finished creating a 7 session Foundations Course for the Conscious Elders Network. It has been a wonderful process of working with an awesome team to design a program that takes participants through deep explorations of what it means to be conscious, to be an elder, and to be a network coming together for positive change. The course is highly interactive and uses the Work That Reconnect's  interactive practices, mindfulness, deep listening, as well as presentations on a variety of topics ranging from climate change to sacred activism. At the end of the Course participants are asked to listen deeply to what is calling them to action and then they will have the opportunity to form Elder Circles, Climate Action Groups, or other community action groups. If you are interested in taking the course or offering it in your community let me know. constancewashburn@gmail.com.
 
The Work That Reconnects (WRT) Stewards Group is continuing to work on growing a nationwide support network of facilitators so that this valuable work can be used more broadly and reach more people. Molly Young Brown, co-author with Joanna Macy of Coming Back to Life, has been editing the WTR Network’s Deep Times Journal and the second issue is about to come out. Check on www.workthatreconnects.org so find a link to the Journal and learn more about the Work. We are planning to host a gathering of facilitators in the Bay Area in April.