Process on deep ecology

Cosmic Walk Introduction (John Seed, August 2023)

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Transcript of John Seed’s spoken introduction to a live Cosmic Walk, August 2023. Companion piece to The Cosmic Spiral, the ritual script itself.

This process was devised by Sister Miriam Therese McGillis, a Catholic nun from a community called Genesis Farm in New Jersey, who was a colleague, devotee and perhaps disciple of the late Father Thomas Berry, the most respected, progressive Catholic theologian of the second half of the 20th century.

Three Stories of Our Time

Sun, 24 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Rather than offering its own analysis of causes and solutions for the crises of our time, the Work That Reconnects invites us to take a fresh look at what we see happening around us. The model of “Three Stories of Our Time” helps us do this. Each of these stories reveals a profoundly different lens through which people understand the world we all live in. Taken as a whole, they help us make sense of what we see and experience, and choose how we want to live our own lives and engage in the work of change.

Earth as Peppercorn (The Thousand-Yard Model)

Sat, 23 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

“The Thousand-Yard Model, or The Earth as a Peppercorn” — © 1989 Guy Ottewell, published by Universal Workshop. Reproduced here with attribution, following the same practice used by educational and outreach organisations worldwide — including NOIRLab and the Rainforest Information Centre, where John Seed has used it for many years as part of the Deep Ecology workshops. Guy Ottewell has continued to write and publish astronomical guides through Universal Workshop — his shop is worth a visit if this exercise is useful to you.

Letter from Gaia

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A “going forth” exercise for the very end of a workshop. Source: rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/letter from gaia.htm.

This is a great “going forth” exercise for the very end of the workshop.

Ask participants to get their journal, or a pen and paper, and give the following instructions:

Begin by writing “Dear [your name]” at the top of the page. Wait until everyone has done so before continuing.

Now write: “This is a letter from your Mother Gaia.” (Or “Father Gaia,” if preferred.) Wait until everyone has done so before continuing.

Corbett Process - Strengthening Our Intentions

Fri, 25 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

From Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy & Molly Brown (2nd ed., 2014, Chapter 10). Full instructions and further resources at the Work That Reconnects Network — the primary home for Joanna’s work online. “Corbett” is a place name — a town in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon, where the practice was first workshopped — not a person. Please acknowledge the source when you use this practice.

The Work That Reconnects recognizes the intrinsic organizing power of intention. This practice amplifies a personal intention by testing it against several perspectives at once — roughly 45–60 minutes.

Gratitude as a Revolutionary Act (training video)

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Gratitude as a Revolutionary Act (Joanna Macy, 2006) is a training video made as a companion to Coming Back to Life, for facilitators — both those new to this work and those more experienced — wanting to ground a group in gratitude before moving into the harder stages of the spiral. See also the accompanying teaching points drawn from the same chapter.

Watch it via the Work That Reconnects Network — the primary home for Joanna’s work online (may require free registration).

Coming from Gratitude: Teaching Points

Sun, 20 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Paraphrased summary of Chapter 6 of Coming Back to Life (Joanna Macy & Molly Brown, 2nd ed., 2014). Full teaching points at the Work That Reconnects Network — the primary home for Joanna’s work online. See also the companion training video.

The spiral of the Work That Reconnects begins with gratitude, not because the world’s condition doesn’t warrant grief and anger — those come next — but because gratitude is what grounds everything that follows.

Breathing With Trees

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Breathing With Trees asks a simple thing: sit or stand with a plant, and breathe deliberately, attending to the literal exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide passing between you. In a workshop flow, this process can function as a linking and grounding piece between an Honouring Pain for the World process (such as the Truth mandala or Cairn of Mourning) and “seeing with New Eyes. It can also be a regular personal practice - connecting :seeing with new eyes” to basic breath awareness practices

The Shambhala Warriors — A Prophecy

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

From World as Lover, World as Self (Joanna Macy, Parallax Press, 1991). For more of Joanna’s own telling and context, see the Work That Reconnects Network’s page on this prophecy — the primary home for her work online, and the first place to look for anything of hers referenced on this site.

I often tell this story in workshops, for it describes the work we aim to do and the training we engage in. It is from a prophecy that arose in Tibetan Buddhism over twelve centuries ago. I learned of it from my Tibetan friends in India when, in 1980, I heard many of them speaking of this ancient prophecy as coming true in our time. The signs it foretold, they said, are recognisable now, in our generation. Since this prophecy speaks of a time of great danger — of apocalypse — I was, as you can imagine, very interested to find out about it.

The Council of All Beings Workshop Manual (complete)

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The full text of the Council of All Beings Workshop Manual, prepared by Eshana (Elizabeth Bragg, PhD) in January 1998 with updates through February 2001 by Ruth Rosenhek, published on John Seed’s Rainforest Information Centre site. Its stated aim: “to provide potential facilitators with enough material to facilitate a weekend length Council of All Beings with no previous experience or additional resources.” Reproduced in full here, section by section, so that individual practices already ported to this site — The Milling, The Cairn of Mourning — can link back to their original, complete context, and so nothing in the manual is lost to link-rot on the source site. As the manual itself says: “facilitators should by no means limit themselves to the processes outlined here” — different versions of this workshop exist all over the world, including the Work That Reconnects Network’s own page on the practice Macy and Seed developed together.

Breathing Through (training video)

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This is Joanna Macy’s own version of tonglen, the Tibetan Buddhist practice of breathing in suffering and breathing out ease. In her written instructions for it, she describes the exercise as “adapted from an ancient Buddhist meditation for developing compassion.” Here she teaches it directly, in a training recorded in 2005.

See also Macy’s written instructions for this practice, and our own guided recording of it.

The Council of All Beings Instructions

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Below is a script and set of instructions in brief for the Council of All Beings process, excerpted from the facilitator’s manual and John Seed’s full workshop-introduction transcript. See also Joanna Macy’s own history and reflections on the practice she and Seed invented together, and the Work That Reconnects Network’s own page on it.

Soon we will enter one of the central practices of this work together: the Council of All Beings.

In our ordinary lives, we humans speak almost endlessly. We explain, debate, argue, analyse, persuade. We have become very practiced at occupying the centre of the conversation. In the Council, however, we experiment with something different. We step quietly to one side and make room for the voices of the more-than-human world.

The Truth Mandala

Sun, 06 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Joanna Macy’s Truth Mandala, reproduced from Coming Back to Life (Macy & Brown, 1998). The dominant “Honouring Our Pain for the World” practice in current use — see also The Cairn of Mourning and The Role of Hope in the Truth Mandala as companion pieces, and the Work That Reconnects Network’s own introduction to this stage of the spiral for the wider context. Full source page: rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/truthm.htm.

Purpose & Background

This ritual exercise provides a simple, respectful, whole-group structure for owning and honoring our pain for the world, and for recognizing its authority and the solidarity it can bring. The practice emerged in 1992 amidst a large, tension-filled workshop in Frankfurt, on the day of reunification between East and West Germany; since then it has spread to many lands. To many participants it has been the most significant experience in a workshop, if not in their lives.

The Milling

Sat, 05 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A facilitation script by John Seed, shared with permission as part of the Council of All Beings process he developed with Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming and others. Usually run as an opening/bonding sequence before the deeper stages of the work — the Truth Mandala and the Council of All Beings ceremony typically follow. Full manual context: Milling section of the complete Workshop Manual.

This is a series of exercises designed to create group bonding, and to focus our whole attention (heart, body, mind) on the subject of the workshop: our relationship with the rest of the natural world. Feel free to be creative with this series of exercises — any group-bonding and trust-creating activities will be effective.

John Seed's Introductions to the Council of All Beings Workshop (full transcripts)

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Transcribed by Chris Lehman from the Council of All Beings workshop at Northern Pines Lodge, Maine, USA, 24–25 October 1992, and reproduced here as the numbered sequence in which John gives them over the course of a workshop (I–VI), to be read in conjunction with the full workshop manual. Reproduced with permission as part of John Seed’s shared process materials — the first section is the fuller companion to the excerpt already published in Despair and Empowerment: Joanna Macy’s Foundational Work and to John’s own essay referencing the same Hopi encounter. Sections II–VI are reproduced with only obvious transcription typos corrected; John’s live, spoken register — asides, digressions, the parenthetical notes he added afterward — is otherwise left as he gave it.

The Cairn of Mourning

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A facilitation note by John Seed, drawing directly on Joanna Macy’s Despair and Empowerment work. These days the Truth Mandala, is usually used, but the Carin of Mourning can be a useful replacement in a shorter process, or in contexts where the intensity of the Truth Mandala may be difficult to present safely or deeply. See also hope’s place in that process. Full manual context: Mourning section of the complete Council of All Beings Workshop Manual.

The Cosmic Walk — Ritual Script (John Seed's version)

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This is the ritual script John Seed has used since 2012, adapted with thanks to Sister Miriam Therese McGillis (Genesis Farm, New Jersey) and Ruth Rosenhek. For the illustrated, browsable version of this same story, see our Cosmic Walk timeline; this page is the spoken ritual text itself, meant to be read aloud while walking a lit spiral. For why this story is told at all — Thomas Berry’s case for one shared creation story — see John’s own introduction.