Emergence and Active Hope - Summer 2014

Recently, I've become compelled to resume blogging. Since the last time I blogged, two or three years ago, I've been mainly private, centered on private practice at Soul Focus where I've been seeing clients, providing psychotherapy, or spiritual direction or spiritual healing touch - a form of energy healing. As world, national and local events continue to unfold, it has become clear to me that this is a time for reaching out to others beyond the one-to-one relationships on which I've concentrated for the last two years.

What I'm hoping to do here on this blog is reflect on some of the reading I've been doing, personal and group practices I participate in, and conversations I've been having. There will also be reports on projects and collaborations that have to do with being a loving, grounded presence in the midst of the challenges of seeing how our human activity increasingly affects the entire world's ecology, causing global climate change, thousands of species to go extinct each week. In turn, these consequences intensify pressures on the human population of the planet, create economic and climate refugees, and lead to increasingly militarized competition for fossil fuel and water resources.

This fall I will offer a weekend workshop/retreat on Active Hope. It will be based in the ideas and exercises offered by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnston in their book, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're In Without Going Crazy. The workshop will incorporate informational material from the book, supplemented by other materials; facilitated discussion of thoughts and feelings regarding our current situation; and experiential exercises designed to create a sense of discovery of wonder and awe, and love and connection with other participants, community and our earth. Participants will have a chance to touch deeply into their values, their strengths and vision as we support each other in finding our power to support a long term engagement of loving presence and active commitment in meeting the challenges of our times.

Part of what will appear on this blog over the next weeks and months will be my explorations of the information, reports on my experiences with the practices, reflections on a search for collaborators and recounting some of my conversations with people along the way.

For many years, I've had a strong sense that only a very centered, loving and spiritually grounded approach to all these issues will be of real use in the growing multiple crises that are occurring and may well intensify. Recently, I have come across the term used by Andrew Harvey, "sacred activism," which resonates deeply with me. He is speaking near Madison next month, and my husband and I will attend his Friday night and Saturday workshop there. This is another strand in the interweaving of the networks of ideas, beliefs, emotions and people that contribute to active hope, compassionate connection and sacred activism.