What does it mean to be a human being alive on the planet right now? How can we make sense of our lives, knowing what we know about what is happening to our fellow beings?
These are big questions that can’t be answered easily - and I don’t pretend to have answers for you. In fact, if anyone claims that they can tell you what the future will look like - run. None of us have been there.
What I do know is that, time and time again, people leave spaces where they’ve been able to feel seen, heard and understood with a feeling of relief. In some ways, it can feel like breathing again after years of holding your breath. We have forgotten how to be in deep community with each other, to relate to each other with love, compassion and reverence - and when people get a glimpse of what is possible, their souls crave more.
Taking the name from Active Hope, made popular by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone through The Work that Reconnects, I am creating a series of Active Hope Community Gatherings. We will meet on the 2nd Wednesday of every month from 4:30-6:30pm UK time.
The aim is to build a community of purpose and practice, so I ask you to sign up for at least six months ahead of time so that we can really get to know each other and really “get” something from our time together.
“Active Hope is not wishful thinking. Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued by some savior.
Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life on whose behalf we can act.
We belong to this world. The web of life is calling us forth at this time.
We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part. With Active Hope we realize that there are adventures in store, strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with. Active Hope is a readiness to discover the strengths in ourselves and in others; a readiness to discover the reasons for hope and the occasions for love.
A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts, our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose, our own authority, our love for life, the liveliness of our curiosity, the unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence, the keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead.
None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk.”
― Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone
For a long time, those who have come along to my workshops and attended my courses have expressed a desire for something more intimate, regular, and deep. That’s why I am creating an Active Hope Community - a space where we can come together to share what’s on our hearts, to check in, and to learn from each other.
What are we meeting for?
Some of the aims of our time together might be:
*To develop a deep, authentic and loving relationship to ourselves - cultivating gratitude and self-love, releasing ourselves from the cultural programming of “not enoughness” that has caused us to extract from the earth and each other;
*To look at and heal trauma - personal and collective - in order to fully see each other for who we are, and not the projections and shadows we cast onto one another;
*To remember who we really are and reawakening to our interconnectedness with all life;
*To deprogramme the messages given to us by Capitalism and Colonialism - this means being open to decolonisation work and deconstructing your ideas of race, gender, nationality, etc;
*To relearn things our ancestors took for granted - such as the cycles of nature, how to live in harmony with the earth, and how to keep ourselves alive;
*To reconnect to lost traditions that nurture the spirit, such as revering the ancestors and benefitting from their wisdom;
*To share stories, poetry, art and songs and nurture the collective
These are only my aims - when we join together, we will see what else emerges from the collective intelligence of the group.
What will our time together look like?
I take my learning from several places - the Work that Reconnects, We Heal for All Healing Circles, The Good Grief Network’s 10-Step programme, Circling, Climate Cafés and many others. This means that our meetings will be open and spacious, with a lot of time for reflecting, exploring and deep listening. However, I can’t deny my “left brain” need for tangibility, which is why I will also be offering a variety of resources and exploratory exercises between sessions. I will also invite guests to join us from time to time - co-facilitators that I have already worked with before, who might be able to offer a unique insight or flavour into our time together.
What is the cost?
I will be upfront with you - I want my work to be as accessible as possible, but I also have to eat. That’s why I offer this membership at what feels like a reasonable price of £20 a month, which you can pay upfront or monthly. As always, I am open to offering free spaces to those who are full-time activists, carers, on low incomes, in the Global South or from historically marginalised groups. All you need to do is email me and let me know who you are and why you’d like to join - as a rule of thumb, I can afford to offer 10 to 20% of spaces for free.
On the other hand, my work and that of others who do this kind of work from the heart thrives when there are individuals who can afford to pay more. Therefore, if you feel that you would like to pay more than £20 a month so that I can offer more free spots, I would be very happy to hear from you. My email address is connect@gwynethjones.coach.
So that we can create an intimate space where we can get to know each other, I will cap the number at 14 people - and I will close entry after the first two sessions so that we can create a space that feels as safe and comfortable as possible. That means I am asking you to sign up by the 30th of June 2023.
