Feb 8 - Jul 12
Work that Reconnects
Facilitator Development Program
In this comprehensive 6-month online program, seasoned facilitators Lydia Violet Harutoonian and Adrián Villaseñor Galarza will lead an in-depth introduction to facilitating the “Work that Reconnects (WTR).”
SOLD OUT
The work of Joanna Macy
Developed by Joanna Macy, the "Work That Reconnects" is a transformative practice that uses group activities, a unique synthesis of therapeutic teachings, and experiential learning to help us reconnect with ourselves, our communities, and the Earth. It’s about finding clarity, courage, and connection during life’s challenges—and discovering tools to inspire others to do the same. This Work, commonly referred as the “Work That Reconnects (WTR)”, maps ways into our innate vitality and determination to take part in the self-healing of our world.
In this
comprehensive
6-month program:
Seasoned facilitators Lydia Violet Harutoonian and Adrián Villaseñor Galarza will lead an in-depth training for facilitating the “Work that Reconnects (WTR),” 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.
This program will give you the tools to guide others through the WTR framework while also deepening your personal growth. Whether you’re an experienced facilitator or just beginning, this course will help you build confidence, develop practical skills, and create a personal roadmap for leading this work.
You’ll learn how to:
Facilitate WTR practices like gratitude, eco-grief, and intergenerational envisioning of a hopeful future.
Strengthen your ability to lead groups with compassion and confidence.
Connect social justice work with ecological healing.
See how to integrate other modalities like somatics, music, and storytelling to create meaningful experiences for others.
Understand and navigate group dynamics, including conflict and power dynamics.
Cohort will be capped at 40 participants.
Program Roadmap
The program travels around the WTR Spiral, a life-affirming, transformative structure that serves as a roadmap and provides psycho-emotional resourcing in challenging times. Being core to the skills and teachings the Facilitator Development Program offers, the process of the Spiral will allow Lydia, Adrián, and amazing guest teachers to cover essential aspects of this invaluable Work, while exploring complementary and contemporary gifts and challenges for facilitators and practitioners.
Who is it for?
For therapists, educators, organizers, leaders, and people in therapeutic work of all kinds… this work will help you support people, one-on-one and in groups, to metabolize their pain for the world. More and more people are being affected deeply by things like election anxiety, fear about climate change, and hopelessness or isolation. The Work that Reconnects has been reliably addressing these needs for over 50 years. It has been applied in diverse settings worldwide, and it’s relevancy only grows with time.
Within the program, the Spiral intersects with Four Pillars that deepen the experience and understanding of the Work, namely:
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Teachings:
Develop an understanding of foundational WTR concepts, Joanna Macy and her story, Deep Ecology, Systems Theory, Engaged Buddhism, and Ecopsychological and Eco-spiritual insights.
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Facilitation Skills:
Strengthen the skills needed for effective, confident, compassionate group facilitation and teaching.
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Practices:
Become familiar with a variety of WTR practices and confidence in their facilitation. Explore complementary modalities and experiment in a compassionate, skillful learning community.
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Eco-Cultural Identities:
This curriculum will engage an ecologically situated praxis of identity and justice work, inspired by the work of author-activist adrienne maree brown, queer nature founders Pinar and So Sinopoulos-Lloyd, and Weaving Earth’s bronte velez.
Our time together will cover foundational concepts and frameworks alongside more specialized approaches regarding WTR interventions and future developments. The program will feature pre-recorded videos from Joanna Macy from her time engaging facilitator training dialogues at School for the Great Turning. Paired with each module, these videos will allow us to hear about critical WTR topics from Joanna’s perspective.
Materials and audiovisual resources will be provided before class sessions.
Structure & Curriculum
The Facilitator Development Program spans 6 months and is organized into 6 modules, beginning in January and ending in June, allowing for a deepening of the Four Pillars (above) and harvesting the innate wisdom brought forth by the WTR Spiral.
Our first session will be Saturday, Feb 8th from 10 am - 2 pm Pacific, with the rest of our live sessions being from 10 am - 1 pm Pacific. This first session is mandatory to attend, as Lydia and Adrian will guide participants through a full spiral WTR experiential workshop.
🔍 Feb 8, 22
Foundations
& Her Story
The first module covers the paradigmatic and theoretical foundations of Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, as well as Macy’s own history and core experiences that influenced her synthesis of this Work. It also includes a WTR experiential workshop for participants to be able to experience the WTR first-hand, facilitated by Lydia and Adrian.
🙏🏽 Mar 8, 22
Gratitude & Reciprocity
The second module addresses core practices and teachings of the “Gratitude” part of the spiral. We’ll assess the facilitation skills we already embody, and the ancestral relations and stories that can ground us as we explore eco-cultural identity.
🌎 Apr 5, 19
Despair & Eco-grief: Honoring Our Pain for the World
The third module covers primary practices and teachings of the “Honoring Our Pain” part of the spiral, supported by teachings from living systems and deep ecology that accompany us in this work. We will also cover strategiesfor addressing group conflict, and how to assess and consciously hold power dynamics and privilege as the facilitator in the room.
👀 May 3, 17
Clear Vision: Seeing with New/Ancient Eyes
This fourth module will cover primary practices and teachings of the “Seeing With New/Ancient Eyes” part of the spiral. We will also cover a living systems application to group work facilitation, as well as justice and identity rooted in a deep ecological lens.
⚖️ Jun 28, Jul 12
Ancestors’ Dreams: Deep Time
This fifth module will cover primary practices and teachings that are part of “Deep Time” work. We will also cover designing a workshop for different venues/time lengths, the influence of anti-nuclear activism and Tibetan teachings on this pillar, and integrity of cultural relationship to facilitation.
⏳ May 31, Jun 14
Integration & Embodiment: Going Forth
This sixth module will cover culminate with practices and teachings from the “Going Forth” part of the Spiral, including empowering purpose amidst uncertainty, teachings on sustaining compassionate action, and the future of your unique vision as a facilitator.
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Core Resources
Macy, J. & Brown, M. (2014). Coming Back to Life: The updated guide to the Work That Reconnects. New World Library.
Macy, J. (2021). World As Lover, World As Self: Courage for global justice and planetary awakening. (30th anniversary edition). Parallax Press.
Kaza, S. (2020). A Wild Love For the World: Joanna Macy and the work of our time. Shambhala. pp. 165-173.
Brown, a. m. (2021). Holding Change: The way of emergent strategy facilitation and mediation. AK Press.
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Prerequisites
Although this is a Facilitator Development Program, our program is tailored to accommodate a wide spectrum of experience with the Work That Reconnects and associated modalities.
All students must be available to attend our first meeting live on Feb 8th from 10am-2pm Pacific, where we will offer an experiential “Work That Reconnects” workshop through the whole Spiral.
This will ensure that all participants have experienced the WTR as we begin our facilitation studies!
Meet the Facilitators
Lydia Violet Harutoonian
Lydia Violet is always joyously committed to sharing this work with others, conjuring integrity and deep emotional resources for our time. Lydia serves as a dedicated keeper and steward of the lineage of deep ecology elder and wisdom keeper Joanna Macy.
After fourteen years of sustained study and mentorship 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.
Adrián Villaseñor Galarza
Adrián is an integral ecopsychologist, international facilitator, contemplative teacher, author, and ritualist whose work interweaves the psychospiritual study of the human-Earth relation, animistic principles, and contemplative wisdom.
He is an associate professor in the Department of East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, an adjunct professor at Naropa University and Antioch University, and founder of the Bioalchemy Institute and The Work That Reconnects Latin America. For close to 20 years, Adrián has been sharing the reconnective knowledge of the planetary grandmother, Joanna Macy, by integrating it with his own experience and that of his collaborators.
Guest Teachers
John Seed
Movement elder John Seed is the founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia, which has engaged in the protection of rainforests worldwide. Since 1979, he has been involved in direct actions, which have resulted in the protection of the Australian rainforests. In addition, he is an accomplished songwriter, filmmaker, and author, writing and lecturing extensively on deep ecology and conducting re-Earthing workshops for the past 25 years. John co-authored Thinking Like a Mountain – Towards a Council of All Beings with Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess. His most recent project with the Rainforest Information Centre focuses on the protection of Ecuador’s rainforests in the Los Cedros Biological Reserve.
brontë velez
brontë’s work and rest is guided by the cosmology and promise of sabbath for black people and the land. as a black-latine transdisciplinary artist, trickster, educator, jíbare and wakeworker, their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking, abolitionist theologies, environmental regeneration, death doulaship, and the levity of absurdity.
the prayer of their life is to support safe and hilarious passage through climate collapse. they embody this commitment of attending to black health/imagination, commemorative justice (Free Egunfemi) and hospicing the shit that hurts black folks and the earth through serving as creative director for Lead to Life design collective and ecological educator for ancestral arts skills and nature-connection school Weaving Earth.
Rebekah Hart
Rebekah is a psychotherapist, couple and family therapist and creative arts therapist, practicing in Montreal, Quebec. She has been a WTR Facilitator since 2002, upon starting her direct studies and mentorship with Joanna Macy. In Montreal, as well as more widely, she offers community workshops and mentors emerging facilitators in this work. In these uncertain times, her interest is specifically in facilitating supportive processes to prevent burnout, and to contribute to building vibrant social movements of solidarity and resilience.
Root Teacher Joanna Macy
Joanna Macy, Ph.D., is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. A respected voice in the movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with five decades of activism. The author of more than twelve books, her wide-ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and contemporary science.
Join the
Work That Reconnects Facilitator Development Program
