Dear Work That Reconnects Network Family and Friends,

We have much to share about what’s happening behind the scenes at the Work That Reconnects Network. We value transparency, and the trust and sense of belonging that transparency can create, so letting you know what we’re working on behind the scenes is always meaningful for us. 

Since the Network first formed in 2016, we have been working in an informal and organic way, building a non-hierarchical organization, using a “circle governance” model. We are now moving toward fully embracing and implementing a Workers Self-Directed Nonprofit (WSDN) structure. 

In support of this process, we have embarked on a 12-month shared learning journey, Collaborate to Co-liberate, facilitated by the Nonprofit Democracy Network. Along with participants from other innovative organizations, we are learning new ways to think about, and engage in, areas such as facilitation, decision-making and leadership.

In addition we are continuing our work on the creation of a new, engaging and more functional website. We’ll keep you posted. 

Our team of volunteers has been growing beautifully over this past year, and all of us are busy with the work of our committee projects, getting to know our fellow committee members in the process. We’ve created opportunities for the full team to connect with each other on a regular basis beyond the busy-ness of our projects. The entire WTR Network team gathers six times a year, alternating between Council sessions and Full Spiral WTR experiences. 

Learn more about what’s happening in the Network here and read on for additional opportunities to engage. 

Yours in the Great Turning,

🌀 WTR Network Weavers Team
Constance, Frieda, Helen, Jo, Kathleen, Mutima, Paula, Shayontoni and Silvia

Join us tomorrow
 Ecological Civilization: Humanity’s Transformational Alternative, a Work That Reconnects Network Webinar
with Della Duncan and David Korten

Saturday, October 1
12 – 2pm PDT (UTC -7)

A choice making species of extraordinary potential, a false religion devoted to the worship of money has put us on a path to self-extinction. Join our next webinar with David Korten, global visionary activist and bestselling author, and Della Duncan, Renegade Economist and host of the Upstream Podcast for the most important conversation of our time. An exploration of the epic opportunity created by our existential crisis. This conversation will be both expansive and deep, touching on themes including science, spirituality, systems thinking, and economics. It will also be participatory, for the way forward must be collaborative.

Register Today
Conducting Effective Work That Reconnects
Rituals and Ceremonies 
a Work That Reconnects Network Webinar with Kathleen Rude

Saturday, October 8
9 – 11am PDT (UTC-7)

Rituals and ceremonies are some of the most powerful, transformative experiences in the Work That Reconnects spiral, especially when they are done well. Leading powerful ritual requires a set of skills and understanding that you can’t find in the WTR texts. In this webinar, you will learn how to conduct truly inspiring rituals with experienced WTR facilitator and ceremonial leader Kathleen Rude. She will give you insights and techniques about how to set intention and establish boundaries, how to lead with confidence in the power of ritual, how to open and close rituals and how to bring your unique gifts and wisdom into the process.

Save the Date for upcoming Webinar and Conversation Café offerings

October 22 Conversation Cafe: Processing Postactivism, Transraciality and Decoloniality (REGISTER HERE)
November 9 Webinar: Love, Rage, Rebel: Climate Activism and the Great Turning with Margo van Greta and Tom Deacon (REGISTER HERE)
November 19 Webinar: Liberation for All: Bringing Tenderness to Conversations about Power and Privilege with Miki Kashtan (REGISTER HERE)
December 3 Webinar: Systems Thinking, Systems Doing, Systems Being with Felicia Chavez
January 28 Webinar: Resilience for the Great Unraveling with Richard Heinberg

Call for Submissions: For the next issue of Deep Times, to be published at the March 2023 Equinox, the editorial team has unanimously decided to have an open theme. We have many submissions on hand from past issues (which didn’t quite fit previous themes) that we’d like to share. Moreover, some of you may have responses to articles and poems in previous issues, or the themes of previous issues, that you would like to submit. So please do! For the first few issues of our journal, we didn’t have themes, although one nearly always emerged. So that may happen this time, too.

We really enjoyed the bi-lingual submissions we received for the September 2022 issue and welcome submissions from around the world in your mother tongue as well as in English translation. We especially want to feature People of the Global Majority and youth writers and artists.

What Has Been Strengthened in Me

Work That Reconnects Facilitator, Kathleen Rude, developed “What Has Been Strengthened in Me” as a practice to offer as a way to support the transition from the often raw vulnerability of honoring pain into a sense of expanded strength and capacity. This practice helps to reinforce the transformation taking place when we allow our grief, rage, fear and overwhelm to move through us: our expanded capacity to embrace the partner emotions of love, passion for justice, courage and emergent possibilities.

De-escalating Patterns of Harm in White Dominant Spaces
Thursday, October 6 at 10 am PT, led by Mutima Imani

This practice group will focus on offering repair and amends after harm has happened, with an exploration of collective liberation and the role reparations can play in that. Sponsored by the Anti-Oppression Resource Group. Contact Mutima if you have questions.

New Book by Work That Reconnects Network
Facilitator, Deborah Eden Tull

Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown offers wisdom for personal and collective awakening as we navigate global uncertainty. Darkness is deeply misunderstood in today’s world; yet it offers powerful medicine, serenity, strength, healing, and regeneration. All insight, vision, creativity, and revelation arise from darkness. It is through learning to stay present and meet the dark with curiosity rather than judgment that we connect to an unwavering light within and access our innate capacity for compassion, collective healing, and visionary activism.
 
Dharma teacher, shamanic practitioner, deep ecologist, and Work That Reconnects facilitator Deborah Eden Tull examines the spiritual, ecological, psychological, and interpersonal ramifications of our bias towards light, ranging from spiritual bypassing to the tendency to turn away from collective shadows. She acknowledges the restorative medicine of darkness — physical and symbolic — inviting us to release hierarchical perception and learn to see clearly with the heart.