You're Invited …
Whether you work in the "helping professions" or in regenerative practices involving land, language, ecology, or culture; whether you express your passion and creativity as an educator or artist or activist, or pouring your love and concern into your family, you are invited to participate and drink at the well of possibility, creativity, wisdom, and goodwill.
“Heart” - embodied, courageous, compassionate, pulsing and poetic – keeps us fully alive;
“Politics” - everything that the people, polis, do - either to each other or together.
When “solutions” and “problems” perpetuate each other, we are challenged to focus and see the previously unimaginable.
"Heart Politics" - relating in ways that draw together the best in us all, stretch us to notice all that we may be, point towards trust beyond hope, and surprise us with the simple, generative power to meet questions that we cannot hold alone.
Keynote Listeners
Molly Young Brown: Facilitator - Work that Reconnects; Author: Coming Back to Life; Psychosynthesis Guide + Author
Steffi Bednarek: Firekeeper - Work Ethics Forum; Author: Climate, Psychology and Change; Gestalt Therapist; Climate Leadership Advisor
Zhiwa Woodbury: Panpsychologist; Blogger (ThamZhiwa); Author: Towards a New Taxonomy of Traumatology; environmental Lawyer
We are delighted to welcome Molly, Steffi, and Zhiwa as the first of this Gathering Keynote Listeners.
As such, they are invited to participate with the group and reflect on what they have noticed in response to the day's events. They may choose offer something as part of the Open Space programme, but this is not necessary.
Get Inspired
Maybe the Keynote Listeners have inspired you. Maybe you're wondering what you could ask to learn at such a Gathering. Maybe you have something to share - a workshop, activity, conversation, inquiry or process - that may be useful to others. Maybe you want to lead a nature trail, birdwatch, or simply read poems in the long grass. Maybe you have some instruments or art or craft materials. Or something else entirely.
About Walker Creek Ranch
Walker Creek Ranch is a 1700 acre site, on Miwok lands in what is now Marin County. As well as being a beautiful place with a very welcoming team, it is ideal for the first Heart Politics in North America because Fran Peavey, author, comedian and activist, generously gifted the name of her book when HPx Gatherings began in Aotearoa/New Zealand in 1989.
Registration Information
Comfortable and affordable accommodation, ranging from campsites through to shared and private rooms private, and superb onsite catering will make the Gathering accessible for every pocket.
Gathering cost, including accommodation and all meals, ranges from: $573 - $1,136.
Have questions or scholarship inquiries?
Contact Mark Skelding at solidair@zoho.com or 250-537-6105.
For more details, inspiration, and information visit the Heart Politics website!
AUG. 16 - 20
Cost (including accommodations, food, and fees):
$573 - Camp/RV
$714 - Economy (dorm style)
$910 - Shared Lodge (twin)
$1,136 - Shared Lodge (single)
Hosts
Mark Skelding
For 25 years, Mark has been a psychotherapist, educator, and social change agent, yet profoundly curious and wonder-filled for a lifetime! All this has brought him to deep interest and excitement in regard our place in the Psychosphere at this evolutionary moment.
He was once involved in communications for wildlife conservation groups, and realised that the wildlife was OK - it was people that were endangering species, habitat and, ultimately, ourselves! This, and a need to do his own therapy, led to retraining in Psychosynthesis, a transpersonal practice.
Prior to arriving in Turtle Island in 2020, he taught Psychosynthesis, facilitated experiential ecopsychology work, convened a Transition Town initiative and was co-ordinator and trustee of Heart Politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand between 1998 and 2012.
Rebecca Hymen
Rebecca is a writer, a trauma therapist, and an educator. She has taught courses and trainings on subjects such as structural violence and oppression; gender, power and identity; critical thinking and radical pedagogy.
She writes "Individual growth alone won’t get us to the systems-wide change we need. Instead, I see personal work as preparation for change, so we can get our of our own way and “show-up,” as best we can, for social transformation."
Rebecca flourishes when collaborating with others, sharing the tools and embodied practices that can enhance personal and collective power.
You can read some of Rebecca's writing here on Substack.
Marianne Rowe
As a humane being, co-founding teacher of Monterey Bay Meditation Studio, and licensed marriage and family therapist, Marianne is dedicated to cultivating eco-systemic consciousness and living in-cahoots with Earth, Cosmos, and Life in all forms. Marianne’s insatiable love of learning has led her into certifications as a nature & forest therapy guide, eco-therapist, California naturalist, and Authentic Relating facilitator, along with certifications in eco-psychology, climate stewardship and climate psychology. She has been practicing meditation since the last century and teaching mindfulness meditation to children and adults since 2006.
Her sense of belonging and aliveness is sourced and deepened through walks, sits, and gazing with the Pacific Ocean, forest, night skies, along with evolutionary, envisioning conversations with beloved friends and colleagues. Read more
Cliff Berrien
Mycelial connections to the rhythms and music of the African continent have defined much of Cliff's journey as a drummer-percussionist, dj and music educator.
In his love of music, philosophy, psychology and cosmology Cliff brings playful focus to liberatory and educational practices of; music, movement, art and self-reflexive ways to develop creativity, cultural dexterity and somatic awareness.
An elder-in-training he can be found with his walking stick, accompanying his wife Danielle in lands below the magnificent Sandia mountains in the southwest of Turtle Island.
Stef Koehler
Stef facilitates an innovation mindset with organizations as they plan for a more sustainable and just future. A strategist, she asks critical questions to get at the function of behavior. As a designer and researcher, she co-creates solutions that put users at the center in context to the greater system. As a visual facilitator, she draws complex ideas in consumable, memorable, and sharable ways.
She says: "I view social problems as design challenges, using the art of design thinking to generate new and unimagined opportunities."