Dear Interhelpers and friends,

You are invited! Interhelp’s annual Day of Conversation will take place on Sunday, February 3, in Cambridge, MA. Read more below.

At this fall’s weekend workshop/Gathering, we practiced telling our own truths – as well as listening to the truths of others – in many different ways. This newsletter closes with the Welcome and Thank You to All Beings that opened our weekend, followed by a poem by Rumi on the truth-telling theme. Here’s a link to some photos.

Next year’s Gathering will again be the third weekend of October. See below for upcoming events in MA and CT.

There’s still time to apply for a grant through our 2018 Seed Funding – Micro-grant program. See below.

Joanna Macy’s new website distills her legacy beautifully. She still teaches, but only in the area near Berkeley, CA, where she lives. Workthatreconnects.org is the go-to site for connection and events. Click here to download a recent podcast with John Seed, co-author with Joanna Macy of Thinking Like a Mountain: Toward a Council of All Beings.

Finally, I hope you will read the latest issue of Deep Times. With each issue I deepen my understanding of both the theory and practice of the Work That Reconnects. I recommend subscribing (no cost) at the “sign-up” link on the journal’s home page.

Wishing each of you an ever-deepening experience of our human expression as part of the wondrous web of life.

Paula Hendrick

Interhelp Day of Conversation

February 3rd, 2019, 9:30-4:30
Cambridge, MA
(donations welcome)

As we enter our 34^th year, the Interhelp Council offers this annual day of conversation for the wider network. Together we will participate in several Work That Reconnects practices and also have an opportunity to share stories of challenge and connection.

At a time where connection often seems elusive in our society, we will focus on being present with each other, listening and sharing mindfully. We will also engage in a listening-with-resonance process that was popular at October’s Interhelp weekend.

We will journey through practices in the morning and share our personal stories in small groups in the afternoon. Come and join us!

Please fill out the simple form here or contact us here. Upon registration you will receive a welcome email with logistics.

In peace and solidarity,

Rosalie Anders, Joseph Rotella and Carol Harley for the Interhelp Council

Seed Funding for WTR Offerings

Apply before the end of 2018! Seed funding is available to support the development of Work That Reconnects projects and workshops in the northeast US. We are especially seeking programs that touch on or emphasize:

• offering events in areas not previously served
• engaging young people
• de-centering whiteness
• developing a Community of Practice
• creating a “bridge” with another group

Inquiries and applications are welcome. Click here.

Upcoming Events

Boston area Community of Practice Get-Together
December 14, 6:30 p.m. in Cambridge, MA
Please reply to Rosalie Anders.
Open to anyone who’s done any kind of Work That Reconnects workshop.

The Work That Reconnects:
Restoring ourselves, our ecology and our interbeing
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Bolton, CT
Facilitators: Karina Lutz and Jim Tull.
Details here.

Annual Interhelp Day of Conversation
Sunday, February 3, 2019, 9:30-4:00
Cambridge, MA
Details above.

Alive in the Web: A Weekend Immersion in the Work That Reconnects
March 22-24, 2019
Voluntown, CT, Still Waters Retreat Center
Facilitator: Kirstin Edelglass
Learn more here. Registration opens in mid-December.

Interhelp’s annual weekend workshop/Gathering
October 18-20, 2019
Woolman Hill, Deerfield, MA
Mark your calendars now!

Welcome and Thank You to All Beings

(Script of the opening of Interhelp Gathering 2018)

We will begin by offering an adaptation of a welcome ritual created at Canticle Farm, a community near San Francisco that is a hub of Work That Reconnects development. Then we will honor and thank the beings of this place in a manner inspired by the Haudenosaunee people, who are also referred to, by European Americans, as the Iroquois Confederacy. 

To those of you who have been here many times and those who are here for the first time. To those who feel happily reunited with a familiar community and those who are now opening yourselves to new people and new experiences. We say “WELCOME.”

People on all parts of the continuum of gender identity and expression. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, heterosexual, transgender, cisgender [those identifying as the gender they were assigned at birth], queer folks, the sexually active and the celibate, and everyone for whom those labels don’t apply. We say “WELCOME.”

People of African descent, of Asian descent, of European descent, of First Nations’ descent in this land and abroad, and people of mixed and multiple descents and speakers of all of the languages spoken here. We say“WELCOME.”

People of all ages. People whose bodies are of all shapes and sizes, of all abilities and challenges. Those living with a chronic medical condition, visible or invisible. We say “WELCOME.”

People who identify as activists and those who don’t. Mystics, believers, non-believers, seekers of all kinds. Those who practice the Old Ways, the ancient and enduring Earth-honoring traditions. We say “WELCOME.”

Your emotions: joy, fear, grief, contentment, disappointment, surprise, outrage, anger and all else that flows through you. We say “WELCOME.”

[pause]

We honor all the beings of this place. The plants: the grasses and herbs, the apple trees and the sycamore. The plants’ wonderful companions, the fungi that hold your soil and decompose your bodies to enrich Earth. To you we say “THANK YOU.”

We honor the animal beings of this place: raven and robin, earthworm, deer and mouse. The walkers and crawlers and flyers and burrowers.  To you we say “THANK YOU.”

We honor the stone beings, the wind and the rain, the air and the sun, the mud and the sparkle of the dew. All spirits and energies of this place. To you we say “THANK YOU.”

We honor the ancestors, all beings who came before, and the beings to come in the future. We invite you to inspire and guide us this weekend. To you we say “THANK YOU.”

And finally, we acknowledge and honor in particular the people who have lived on and loved this land for millennia; you are known to us as the Pocomtucks. To you we say “THANK YOU.”