The Great TurningWe offer peer support for coordinators of north London Transition Initiatives, as well as leaders of other environmental groups, using Joanna Macy's body of work, particularly The Work That Reconnects. We also sometimes do constellation work.
As activist leaders we understand the challenges we each face; the feelings of being overwhelmed, inadequate and ineffective. We want to give people the opportunity to express these, and other, negative emotions and reconnect with the positive energies that prompted them into activism in the first place. Our group is a safe and supporting environment for people who have a particular, and mutually understood, set of circumstances. The space is held by local resident, Debbie Warrener (Catalysing Change Agents), but some participants are developing this skill by running short exercises. We pay Debbie a small amount for helping us. Please use the contact form if this is something you want to get involved in or learn more about.
Back row in the (completely unposed) picture L-R: Anna O'Brien (Transition Network), Jo Homan (Transition Finsbury Park), Alexis Rowell (Transition Belsize), Debbie Warrener (Catalysing Change Agents)
Front row: Doro Marden (Transition Primrose Hill), Rebecca (Transition Crouch End), Wendy Keenan (SusTottenham), Kate Allardyce (Meadows Orchard Project, Muswell Hill N10Ergy)
Shape of Time
You aren’t better than anyone.
You aren’t worse than anyone.
You have been given the world.
See what there is to see.
Debbie facilitating, September 2011Protect what there is around you,
hold who is there beside you.
All creatures in there own way
Are funny -
And fragile.
The question isn’t
How to be in style
But
How to live in truth
In the face of all the winds?
Rebecca running a visioning exercise, December 2010With mindfulness, courage,
Patience, sympathy-
How to remain brave
When the spirit fails?
Idleness is often empowering,
Recreating onseself-
Just as the moon gradually
Grows full once again,
A battery surely and steadily recharges,
So everything, everyone
Must have time for the self-
For mirth and laziness
Time to be human.
by Doris Kareva, translated from Estonian by Tiina Aleman
Poem from Bloodaxe Books anthology 'Being Human'
Chosen by Doro
