Hello Friends,
I’m excited to tell you about a year-long learning community program which Kathleen Macferran and I are launching in January, 2011.
Over the past 7 years I have cherished co-creating living-learning communities of various kinds, from week-long retreats to semester-long college study programs in Auroville, India, and at the Findhorn Community in Scotland. Recently I have felt a deep calling to co-create a learning community program that offers a more profound container for cultivating the joyful & supportive connection, deep personal transformation, and consciousness & skills I believe are being called for on planet Earth at this time.
What follows is an invitation to join such a learning community. I invite you to read it and notice what speaks to you. I welcome dialogue about how your passions and needs may engage with this vision. Also, please feel free to share this invitation with others whom you believe this program might serve.
Namaste,
Karl Steyaert
A Path of Compassion & Empowerment
“Discovering your unique gift to bring to your community is your greatest opportunity and challenge. The offering of that gift – your true self – is the most you can do to love and serve the world.” ~ Bill Plotkin
“The path of the warrior is a lot more daring: you are cultivating a fearless heart, a heart that doesn’t close down in any circumstances; it is always open, so that you could be touched by anything.” ~ Pema Chodron
- Do you love to live passionately?
- Are you excited to integrate your body, heart, mind, and spirit, while also powerfully engaging with & serving your community and planet Earth?
- Do you long to find your tribe – a community of people dedicated to fiery authenticity, deep compassion & presence, joy & play, and global service?
- Are you seeking an enlivening blend of nurturing and challenge?
- Do you dream of sharing your gifts powerfully in the world?
A Path of Compassion & Empowerment is a powerful, year-long transformative learning community program supporting people to play a conscious and engaged role in co-creating a thriving, sustainable world. It consists of integrated and community-supported training in various practices and principles of nonviolence, sustainability, community, creativity, and consciousness.
An embodied and free-spirited expression of Nonviolent Communication and an Integral Approach (integrating body, mind, & spirit, and self, culture, & nature) offer the foundation for the learning community, and will serve as consistent themes throughout the year. In addition, we will explore a range of both ancient and leading-edge tools for individual and community well-being. Major learning themes will include the theory and practice of:
- Nonviolent Communication
- The Integral Approach
- Permaculture
- Conflict Facilitation: Restorative Circles & Mediation
- Collaborative Decision-Making & Governance: Sociocracy & Holacracy
- Meditation & Yoga
- Art, Music, Dance & Play
- Co-Creative Leadership
- Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects
- Ecovillage Design & The Transition Movement
- Focusing & The Presence Process
- Interplay
- Eight Shields Model
Over the course of 2011, the program will consist of:
- Four 5-day intensive learning retreats (held in the Seattle, WA area; see dates below)
- A supportive & open-hearted learning community of like-minded journeyers
- Regular peer support & mentoring calls
- Multiple apprenticeship and experiential learning opportunities, in areas such as teaching & education, sustainable community building, permaculture, social change, restorative justice, leadership & facilitation
- Consistent personal feedback on strengths & learning edges, offered from multiple perspectives
In addition, participants may also choose to receive:
- Mentoring toward Certification as a Trainer of Nonviolent Communication
- Systematic support in designing & completing a self-selected personal project, from starting a business to writing a book
2011 Retreats:
Winter Retreat: January 8th – 12th
Spring Retreat: April 16th – 20th
Summer Retreat: July 16th – 20th
Autumn Retreat: October 22nd – 26th
Faculty:
For these retreats, we will be bringing together an exceptional team (see their biographical information below), including CNVC Certified Trainers Alan Seid, Kathleen Macferran, and Karl Steyaert, as well as educators and transformational practitioners Abigail Lynam, David McNamara, and others.
Requested contribution:
We are dedicated to making this opportunity available to everyone whose life path and passions align with this program, regardless of their financial situation. At the same time, to support administration, professional training services, facilitation, and mentoring for the entire year, including the four retreats, we request a sliding scale financial contribution of $3,600 – $1,200 for the year. There are a limited number of work-exchange opportunities available. Please contact Karl Steyaert at (ksteyaert “at” gmail “dot” com) to dialogue about financial questions.
Applying:
To support mutual discernment as to whether this learning community is a match for you at this time, we invite you to complete an application form and to dialogue with us. To request an application form or to ask any questions about the program, please contact Karl Steyaert at (ksteyaert “at” gmail “dot” com).
Submission Deadline:
December 15th, 2010 is the deadline for submitting application materials for the 2011 program.
We hope you can join us!
Karl Steyaert & Kathleen Macferran
Co-Facilitators, A Path of Compassion & Empowermnt
CNVC Certified Trainers
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Karl Steyaert
MS, MA, University of MichiganBA, Dartmouth College, Certified Trainer, Center for Nonviolent Communication
Karl Steyaert is a catalyst and visionary, passionate about co-creating learning experiences and communities that contribute to peace, justice, and sustainability. With over 20 years of experience teaching and facilitating groups, he has taught and helped create community in settings ranging from university classrooms and corporate boardrooms, to ecovillages and urban gardens.
Since 1998, Karl has directed, designed and taught university courses and programs interweaving the themes of sustainability, community, and consciousness, through the University of Michigan, the University of Massachusetts, the Findhorn Community in Scotland, and Auroville ecovillage in India. Also, as a Certified Trainer in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) he has led trainings in conflict resolution and communication for corporate, non-profit, and intentional community clients in North America, Europe, and Asia since 2003. In addition, since 2009 he has been facilitating Restorative Circles, an approach to restorative justice grounded in NVC.
Beyond his academic training in Anthropology and Environmental Policy, Karl has also spent years dedicated to the study and teaching of aikido (a nonviolent Japanese martial art), Buddhist meditation, yoga, sustainable community design, and integral theory. While still occasionally traveling globally, Karl is currently based in the Pacific Northwest, teaching courses, providing organizational consulting, facilitating groups, and coaching individuals.
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Kathleen Macferran
MMus in Conducting, Western Washington University BA, Whitworth College, Certified Trainer, Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC)
Kathleen offers trainings in concrete skills of nonviolence, leading to reconciliation with ourselves, our loved ones and the community. In service to this mission, she offers Nonviolent Communication (NVC) training to schools, community groups, churches, hospitals, families, correctional officers, and prison inmates. In addition, as an Assessor for CNVC, she supports candidates through the process to become CNVC Certified Trainers.
Kathleen is also one of the trainers for the Freedom Project, an affiliate organization of CNVC that strengthens community safety through supporting the transformation of prisoners into peacemakers. Beyond her extensive work with nonviolence education, her other professional experience includes public school teaching and serving as the Music Director of the Rainier Chamber Winds for 19 years.
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Abigail Lynam
Abigail Lynam, M.S., teaches in the field of experiential and expeditionary learning, environmental and natural history studies, leadership development and transformative adult education. She is faculty for Lesley University’s Ecological Teaching and Learning MS degree program for educators www.lesley.edu. Abigail also taught for the Audubon Expedition Institute and UMASS’s Integral Sustainability in India program for many years. Abigail brings an integral framework to these programs, in particular incorporating research on human development, curriculum to support the inclusion and development of interiors and drawing on the latest research in integral ecology.
Through her twelve years of teaching for the Audubon Expedition and Living Routes, Abigail has extensive experience guiding expeditions both overseas and in wilderness settings and facilitating sacred solos. She is passionate about sharing her love of the natural world with others, supporting personal development and leadership skill and capacity building in the context of diverse cultures and wilderness settings.
She is a director of Next Step Integral www.nextstepintegral.org where she collaborates with a team of educators to offer seminars on integral education, integral ecology and leadership development for young adults. She is also a graduate mentor of Pacific Integral’s Generating Transformative Change leadership development program.
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Alan Seid
Certified Trainer, Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC)
Alan Seid is a seminar leader, facilitator, coach, special events speaker, and author of the forthcoming book Take It To The Next Level: a toolbox for positive change agents and cultural creatives. Alan has immersed himself in learning, practicing, and teaching powerful sustainability tools for 20 years. Alan’s recent clients include the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ForestEthics, and Transition Whatcom. He lives with his family in the foothills of Washington’s North Cascade mountain range. Alan is known as a fun, knowledgeable, and engaging presenter.
“Alan has a unique ability to understand and teach some of the most important ideas and practices of sustainability. He is a visionary as well as a grounded, clear and engaging educator as well as walking the talk with real poise and integrity. If you want a powerful set of conceptual and practical tools to make your commitment to a sustainable future effective, I highly recommend his courses.” ~ Vicki Robin, Coauthor, Your Money or Your Life, Cofounder, New Road Map Foundation, Conversation Cafe Board of Directors, Transition US
