August 8-11 2024
Work that Reconnects
4-Day Immersion
with Lydia Violet Harutoonian
& Leilani Wong Navar
experience Joanna Macy’s pivotal work
at Whispertree Retreat Center
Boonville, California
In this four-day retreat, seasoned facilitator Lydia Violet Harutoonian, informed by her 15 years of dedicated study and co-facilitation with Joanna Macy, will lead an in-depth immersion in the “Work that Reconnects” (WTR).
WTR is Joanna Macy’s experiential group work that has helped thousands find clarity of vision and emotional sanctuary while living through this precious and precarious moment on our planet.
For the last five decades, Joanna’s work has offered inspiration and guidance for living courageously in uncertainty. It maps ways into our innate vitality and determination to take part in the self-healing of our world.
Retreat will be capped at 40 participants
Each day we face the news of…
…climate chaos, political warfare, species extinction, and ecological and social suffering, and we are asked to reconcile these collective traumas with all that is breaking in our hearts. It is natural in our time to feel despair, overwhelm, and grief. Come learn and experience tools for transforming our grief, anger, paralysis, and fear into compassionate connection with our world and communities, knowing our place in the web of life, and motivation to act on behalf of life on earth.
Climate anxiety and ecological despair are real. They are on behalf of a world desperate for our collaboration in remembering our dignity and grace. It is here that we grieve the ongoing devastation of our world, and nourish our compass for the times ahead.
Join us at the gorgeous Whispertree Retreat Center for this nourishing and powerful immersion into the Work That Reconnects to gain new tools in navigating the current crisis – on a personal and planetary level.
Over the course of the weekend:
Lydia and assistant facilitator Leilani Wong Navar will cover “The Spiral” of the Work that Reconnects: moving through Gratitude, Honoring our Pain, Perceiving in New & Ancient Ways, and Going Forth. This roadmap provides psychological resourcing in challenging times.
Lydia will integrate community singing in her facilitation. Music can be an excellent way to support participants in integrating their internal and relational experiences. For many millennia, music, and specifically music made together in community, has been a crucial way we bolster ourselves in hard times. Music can transform our exhaustion and help us feel more held as a part of the choir. Just as it feels good to act in the companionship of others on behalf of life, so too does the homecoming of singing together.
Leilani will offer somatic (body-based) practices throughout the retreat, in support of a physical, embodied experience of reconnection. We’ll get to know the ways our bodies are responding to the moment and these times. These practices help us relate to those responses in a health-promoting way, by releasing tension and stagnation, and cultivating presence, awareness, and capacity. We’ll also explore how our bodies are pathways toward healing, for ourselves and our world. The practices Leilani facilitates are drawn both from modern Western practices for somatic healing and nervous system regulation, and the deep well of traditional Chinese qigong, self-massage, and meditation.
For those interested in facilitating the Work that Reconnects:
The best way to learn how to facilitate the WTR is to be immersed in the WTR. To learn it from the inside.
This opportunity to participate in a 4-day workshop, moving continuously through the Spiral, is a powerful way to nourish yourself for skillful facilitation.
At this retreat, there will be an optional session for participants who are interested in facilitation, to offer some instruction and help you connect with one another. School for the Great Turning also offers ongoing online facilitator development workshops.
Your Facilitators
Lydia Violet Harutoonian
(she/her)
Lydia Violet is always joyously committed to sharing this work with others, conjuring integrity and deep emotional resources for our time. Lydia founded the School for the Great Turning, an online and in-person education organization that is dedicated to continuing the legacy 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 continues to facilitate workshops and help empower new facilitators. She is an Iranian-Armenian American dedicated to ancestral healing, reconciliation, and community liberation.
Leilani Wong Navar
(she/her)
Leilani is a mother, acupuncturist, herbalist, and dreamworker. She serves as Assistant Director at School for the Great Turning, and hosts Turning Season Podcast, a series of conversations with people around the world who are rising to their own unique roles in this adventure story. Born into Chinese and Jewish families, she carries on her ancestors' holistic, poetic medical science, and their dedication to asking big questions. Leilani earned her B.A. at Evergreen State College, where she studied Political Economy and Holistic Health, and her Masters of Science in Oriental Medicine from the National University of Natural Medicine. She has been studying and practicing traditional Chinese healing and movement arts for 20 years. Leilani is committed to tending the landscape of the body, and the body of the Earth.
Meals & Accommodations
Meals
Delicious, healthy, seasonal meals are included in this retreat. Dinner on Thursday; breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Friday and Saturday; and breakfast and lunch on Sunday will be served by Chef Eden Keller and her team.
Eden sources from local farms and purveyors with some of the finest ingredients in California. An experienced gardener and yoga teacher, Eden brings her knowledge of nutrition and the use of seasonal ingredients into every meal she prepares. She expresses her love for the earth's bounty by creating nourishing, beautiful, and delicious meals.
Most dishes will be vegetarian. Food allergies and dietary needs can be accommodated. If you have special dietary needs, please tell us your needs on the Registration Form after you sign up, and we will be in touch about what our caterer can accommodate. Dietary requests must be made no less than 14 days prior to the retreat.
Accommodations
Located in the heart of Anderson Valley, Whispertree Retreat offers a beautiful setting for the Work that Reconnects. Whispertree offers access to miles of trails and expansive, pristine views of the valley. A sub-watershed feeding Soda Creek and the larger Navarro River Watershed, the land supports fir forests and towering old oaks. The diversity and resilience of the land is palpable. Each of the oak trees, in both savannah and forest settings, host over two thousand species of more than human life. Whispertree Retreat hosts changemakers involved in reconnection and the creation of a more reverent and regenerative future.
Accommodation choices at our retreat include:
Platform Tent (Bell Tent or Cabin): 2 twin beds
Shared Indoor Room: 2-3 twin or bunk beds
Private Platform Tent (Bell Tent or Cabin)
Private Room
More details on these room types can be found below. We will ask about your access needs and roommate preferences in the Registration Form.
Covid/Illness Policy
Within our group we will have varied levels of risk and vulnerability to infection with covid-19 and other contagious illnesses. Let's take good care of each other!With this in mind, we request:
- please test yourself for covid-19 infection before coming, and only attend if you test negative for covid-19 and feel well
- consider wearing a mask to protect others if you know you've been exposed to anyone ill
- in the week leading up to the retreat, if you're taking public transportation/flying on an airplane, consider masking during your travels
During the retreat, we will make sure to have good air flow in our indoor meeting spaces. Masks will be optional.
Accessibility
Accessibility varies at different locations on the Whispertree Retreat property.
We will ask you to share any access needs you have on the Registration Form, and we will communicate with you about how we can accommodate those needs. You’re welcome to email us if you have specific questions.
“
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.”
— Esmé McAvoy, mindfulness and ecology workshop facilitator, Cali, Colombia
“
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.”
— Erin Muir, garden artist and facilitator, Cold Spring, New York, Lenni-Lenape Territory
Cost & Registration
We ask for your commitment to attend all 4 days, because this is a cohesive program meant to be experienced in full. We'll be moving around the Spiral of the Work that Reconnects over the course of 4 days.
Registration deadline: July 19, 2024
Registration includes the Work that Reconnects Immersion, plus all meals and lodging at the retreat center.
Choose your lodging option below. Rooms vary and the images below are examples.
Platform Tent
Bell Tent or Cabin with electricity and wifi
2 twin beds
shared with 1 roommate
short walk to restroom and showers
Pay In Full
$950
Payment Plan
$238
for 4 months
Private Platform Tent
Bell Tent or Cabin with electricity and wifi
short walk to restroom and showers
Shared Indoor Room
2-3 twin or bunk beds
shared with 1-2 roommates
shared indoor restroom and showers
Pay In Full
$1075
Payment Plan
$269
for 4 months
Private Room
Queen bed
indoor restroom and shower (may be in-room or in a common area)
Pay In Full
SOLD OUT
Payment Plan
SOLD OUT
Scholarships
We have 8 partial scholarships available for this retreat, as we would love to create as much access as possible. Priority will be offered to participants from systemically marginalized groups. All scholarships for this retreat have been awarded. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to the scholarship fund to make this possible!
Pay In Full
$1050
Payment Plan
$263
for 4 months
“
This is an exciting moment to be in partnership with Lydia as she brings her important work farther out into our world.
In these leaden times her artistry, energy, and wisdom ignite love for life in people of all ages and backgrounds.
JOANNA MACY, BERKELEY, CA
I have seen repeatedly how the visionary combining of her music with the Work The Reconnects (WTR), has released cultural creativity in vital response to the cultures of fear and ignorance spreading in our land. Here participants find honesty and strength, as well as spirited community, for facing our current crises head-on.
These qualities are the essence of what the WTR generates, and as root teacher of that work I rejoice that Lydia is an outstanding and trustworthy facilitator. With her understanding of its theoretical foundations and her skill in guiding practices, the music she interweaves serves to strengthen the Work, while weaving its own magic of joy, praise, and resiliency. Supported by the healing fortitude of music, everyone has a place in the choir.
I believe Lydia’s mission will serve to inspire positive change for years to come. Her near-decade of studying and co-leading workshops with me have forged her into an invaluable resource for our society. I love to think of all the lives that will be changed and communities enriched by the tours and programs she will provide.”
Schedule
Thursday
Aug 8th
4-6pm
Arrival at Whispertree
6-7pm
Dinner
7:15-9pm
Introductions to each other
Introduction to the Spiral of the Work That Reconnects
Friday
Aug 9th
8-9:15am
Breakfast
9:30am-12pm
Rooting in Gratitude, Resourcing in These Times
Teaching from the WTR - The 3 Stories of Our Time
Rooting in Gratitude Group Experiential
12:30pm-1:30pm
Lunch
2:30-5:30pm
Teaching from the WTR - Honoring Our Pain
Honoring Our Pain Group Experiential
Integration
6-7pm
Dinner
7:30-9pm
Community Song Circle (Optional)
Saturday
Aug 10th
8-9:15am
Breakfast
9:30am-12pm
Seeing With New/Ancient Eyes
Deep Ecology Teaching
Deep Ecology Group Experiential
12:30-1:30pm
Lunch
1:30-3pm
Free time/Nature Connection
3-5:30pm
Deep Time Teaching
Deep Time Experiential
6-7pm
Dinner
7:15-9:30pm
Group Arts & Music Share & Deep Ecological Celebration
Sunday
Aug 11th
8-9:15am
Breakfast
9:30am-12pm
Going Forth Teaching
Going Forth Experiential
Closing Circle
12:30-1:30pm
Lunch
OPTIONAL
2-4pm
WTR Facilitators Connection Session
