The Work that Reconnects - a series of 6 evening workshops with John Shiers.
Course Summary
Six evening workshops based on the work of Joanna Macy www.joannamacy.net to inspire and empower people who know the world needs to change but who feel tired, cynical or powerless in knowing what to do.
Few people are now in doubt that radical change is needed urgently in the way that we live, if we are to address the multiple challenges facing human beings and life on the planet. But there is widespread uncertainty about what change is needed as well as cynicism about politics and a sense of powerless in how to make change happen.
This series of evening workshops introduces participants to the work of Joanna Macy, who is a buddhist social activist. Her inspiring programme is aimed at unifying heart and head and in recognising our deep level of interconnectedness with one another and with the process of life. The programme does not give answers in the narrow sense, but it does provide a framework rooted in both the depth of inner experience and in systems theory. It has helped many thousands of people across the world to re-motivate themselves and to focus on being effective change agents in their lives.
Please get in touch with us if you would like to register your interest in taking part in The Work that Reconnects; the workshops will run when sufficient people have signed up, and we will check potential dates with you at the time.
The evening workshops are best taken as a series (£80 for 6) but they are also available for people who wish to come to single sessions at £15 per session. Contact us for details of concessions.
Workshop programme
Session 1: Choosing Life
The aim of the Work That Reconnects is to help us understand and take part in the major shift required in moving from a life-denying to a life-affirming civilisation. This first workshop explores the scale of the crisis currently facing us and the dimensions of change that we are required to make if we are to move to a life-affirming world
Session 2: Apathy: the deadening of the mind and the heart
Given the widespread suffering of our time, as well as the dangers confronting us, sorrow, fear and anger are frequent responses. “Pain for our world” is a normal, healthy response but cultural, political and psychological forces repress this pain at enormous cost. This workshop explores the nature of psychic numbing to pain in the world and how, through the work that reconnects, we can come to a different vision of the challenges facing us.
Session 3:
Affirmation: coming from gratitude for life itself
In this workshop we explore the first stage of the Work That Reconnects: our experience of the wonder of life and how often we numb out on the sense of awe and wonder that as children we held. We consider how a sense of gratitude for life is core to being effective change agents, and how important it is to stay connected with this sense of gratitude for life in the midst of the struggles that surround us.
Session 4
Despair work: empowering ourselves by owning and honouring our pain for the world
This stage of in the process is possibly the most politically subversive. Over this evening we will experience, express and explore what mainstream culture persistently denies: our inner responses to the suffering in our world. We explore as part of this the Truth Mandala, which is a ritual exercise structured to enable and to contain intense emotion around despair and hopelessness
Session 5
The Shift: seeing with new eyes
In this third stage of the Work That Reconnects we explore the concept of radical interconnectedness as the source of our capacity both to suffer with the world and to empower ourselves to act from a place of integrity and connection with the flow of evolutionary development.
Session 6
Taking our next steps
In this culminating stage we will consider together the insights and motivation we have gained over the months of the programme and consider how to apply them to our life situations. We consider any particular projects or roles that we feel drawn to take on or maintain and how we can play on ongoing part in supporting the Great Turning to a life-affirming world.
Note: Participants in these evenings will find it useful to obtain a copy of Coming Back To Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown (NSP Books) which will deepen the context for these workshops
Price
£15
Facilitators
Venue Travel Information
By Car
From the A34 turn into the A5145 (Wilmslow Road). Parswood Road is the second turning on the right along Wilmslow Road. The entrance to the Synthesise Centre is on the right as you turn right into Parswood Road.
By Public Transport
East Didsbury train station is across the road from the Synthesise Centre. Turn left at the bottom of the road leading down from the station and cross the road at the traffic light junction. Gaeia is at the traffic light junction on the opposite side of Wilmslow Road and The Synthesise Centre is above Gaeia with access via a purple door along the side that opens into Parswood Road.
If you are coming from Manchester on 42/142 bus the stop is opposite East Didsbury station railway bridge
Venue Parking
You can park on either side of Parswood Road or in the Tesco car park that is just by the East Didsbury station railway bridge.