Saturday, Feb 17, 2024 10:00am - 2:00pm pst
Online Facilitator Development Day

Cultural Integrity for Work that Reconnects Facilitators

Cultural integrity is essential for WTR facilitators, yet many of us feel disoriented around how to relate to the cultural influences of our practices and teachings, and even to our own personal cultural heritages. Lydia Violet, seasoned facilitator, 15-year student of Joanna Macy, and co-creator of the Tending the Bones program, is committed to the work of cultural integrity. In this workshop, she will support facilitators of any identities in finding their own way toward right relationship.

Cultural integrity isn’t a destination, but a compass

that helps us move in a way that cultivates right relationship. Based on the curriculum of the Tending the Bones program, this workshop will share a system for understanding and locating ourselves within the terrain of cultural interaction.

We will discuss:

  • cultural inspiration

  • cultural exchange

  • cultural resonance

  • cultural appropriation

  • and cultural erasure

in a compassionate space where questions are welcome, and we can work together as we find our way.

The Work that Reconnects is a body of work informed by multivalent cultural practices.

In leading WTR workshops, facilitators are in positions of privilege and power. It’s important for us to find and use our influence in a positive way in the conversation around cultural relationship.

It’s also important for us to understand:

  • the roots of our teachings and practices,

  • how we decide whether or not to facilitate them,

  • how to facilitate them in right relationship

  • and how to support our participants in orienting to cultural integrity

In this workshop, we’ll discuss some specific WTR practices, such as:

  • the Three Stories of Our Time teaching

  • the Truth Mandala practice

  • the 7 Generations practice

  • and the Four Abodes (Milling) practice

About your facilitator, Lydia Violet Harutoonian…

Lydia is a cis woman who grew up in the Iranian-Armenian-American diaspora. She is dedicated to navigating her own ever-evolving relationship with cultural integrity. She is working to tend to this aspect of cultural healing, relational healing, and inter-community healing.

Lydia is always joyously committed to sharing the Work that Reconnects with others, conjuring integrity and deep emotional resources for our time. She serves as a dedicated keeper and steward of the lineage of deep ecology elder and wisdom keeper Joanna Macy. After fifteen years of sustained study, mentorship, and co-facilitation of WTR workshops with Macy, as well as immersion in anti-oppression education and adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy, Lydia is excited to empower the next generation of WTR facilitators.

“

I left feeling so energized and uplifted.

I found there to be a collective honesty and authenticity. I loved Lydia's emphasis on song and music, the somatic practices that supported us, the sense of community that got woven so organically and easily. I see this workshop as me giving myself permission to step into facilitating the WTR with a little more confidence and trusting that it's a medicine, both for others and myself.

”

Esmé McAvoy

Mindfulness and Ecology Workshop Facilitator,
Cali, Colombia

FAQs

  • This day is for new and experienced facilitators of the Work that Reconnects, who want to cultivate their orientation toward cultural integrity. This workshop will serve facilitators with years of experience as well as new facilitators.

  • This event will be held online via Zoom, on Saturday, February 17, from 10:00am - 2:00pm PST.

  • Enrollment is $100 U.S. Partial scholarships are available for financial need. Click here to apply for a scholarship.

  • Parts of this event will be recorded. We’ll record all teaching and Q&A, but we will not record the Work that Reconnects practices or the time dedicated to facilitators connecting with each other. If you can’t join us live, you can sign up for access to the recording of the teaching and Q&A.

“

I left feeling hopeful and inspired…

…with a renewed respect for the activities I learned and this incredible program.

I am very excited to integrate it into my climate resilience community organizing work.

”

“

Thank you for creating space for such a life giving experience.

Lydia, you are a gifted and authentic facilitator. Your warmth, joy and music are a true inspiration. Thank you for being an example of how showing up as your authentic self gives space for others to find that within themselves. The entire experience filled me up and is giving me strength to find my authentic path with this work.”

”

Susan Silber

Community Resilience Consultant, Ohlone Land, Berkeley, California

Erin M.

Garden Artist and Facilitator, Cold Spring, New York (Lenni-Lenape Territory)