Climate change is no longer in the distant future, but is increasingly in the here and now. Scientists tell us there is little time left, at most 6 years to avoid the worst of catastrophic climate change, and the United States has an incoming president who believes climate change to be a hoax. What a painful and difficult time to be alive. The enormity of the climate crisis can be challenging to let in and still be able to function in day-to-day life, so many of us understandably compartmentalize or numb out… just at a time when the world needs our aliveness and responsiveness.
This Climate Change Support Circle will offer a kind and compassionate space to bring our overwhelm into the caring presence of others. Together we will read and process news stories covering climate disasters, national and international politics, or scientific news of environmental unraveling, in order to nurture our collective capacity to turn towards a world in crisis and find sustainable ways we can contribute to the healing needed in these times.
The circle will use the tools of the Work That Reconnects: connecting to that which supports us; speaking our truth and offering generous listening; calling on ancestors, future beings, and more-than-human beings for perspective; and building support for how we want to contribute to the Great Turning. We will also use somatic awareness tools, music, poetry, and heartening stories to support our time together.
This circle will meet weekly for four weeks. Please plan to attend at least 3 of the 4 sessions. This Support Circle is being offered on a sliding scale of $0-$80. Please contribute as generously as you are able to. Facilitated by Anne Goodwin and Aravinda Ananda.
Anne Goodwin was first privileged to work directly with Joanna Macy in 2012. She has since attended and led many Work That Reconnects programs, and completed a year long facilitator training through the Work That Reconnects Network. She has offered the work to groups including religious congregations, students at Harvard and Boston University, climate activists in Extinction Rebellion and the Sunrise Movement, at Rowe Conference Center, and in many community settings. She served for several years on the board of Interhelp, which supports the community of the Work That Reconnects in the Northeast. She is a singer and song leader with many years performing experience on the New England folk music scene, and she delights in weaving songs into her workshops. She recently retired as a leadership coach with Mothers Out Front, a grassroots movement organizing mothers and others for a livable future.
Aravinda Ananda (she/they) is a social ecologist whose life’s work is to support a Living rEvolution – a global movement of healing and transforming human relationships with life on Earth to be mutually enhancing. She has thirteen years of experience facilitating Work That Reconnects and other modes of experiential learning, all of which help integrate our intelligences and ignite our love and passion for healing the human-earth relationship. Since 2017 Aravinda has been one of the lead convenors of the Anti-Oppression Resource Group, a group of WTR facilitators supporting a collective liberation deepening in the Work That Reconnects. She is currently working on a book that updates the Work That Reconnects with a deeper collective liberation approach, and has also developed an anti-oppression foundations curriculum for WTR facilitators. She has a particular interest in supporting groups to build regenerative and transformative beloved communities. Each day she feels honored to increasingly live the rEvolution in her own life and support others to do the same.