Empowering Ourselves for the Great Turning

a one-day retreat to empower our full human brilliance during this precious and precarious time on planet Earth

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

– excerpts from the Hopi Prophecy

Joanna Macy calls this “hour” that we’re living in the Great Turning*… a time of radical revolution and restructuring that will allow us to transition from this Industrial Growth Society to a Life Sustaining Society.

She calls it “the vast and necessary adventure of our time”.

Vast because it will include every aspect of life as we know it…from our core beliefs to our economy, from our families to our food production.

Necessary because only through this radical restructuring will we have any chance of providing a habitable planet to our future generations. 

Adventure because this is a time of unprecedented learning and creativity…because we are being called to step up and live into our brilliance as human beings…we are being called back to LIFE!

The Great Turning is already happening in many ways, but there is no guarantee that it will succeed. It needs our attention and our dedicated action. Each and every one of us is being called at this time to step up… to stand up for life and act on behalf of our future generations.

Empowering Ourselves for the Great Turning is a one-day retreat designed to activate our power for contributing to this radical transformation with integrity and enthusiasm…co-creating a future where our children and grandchildren can thrive.

“The future belongs to the most compelling story…”

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get discouraged and overwhelmed when I hear the story that the mass media tells.

Another school shooting, another natural disaster, another corporate bailout, another bombing, another oil spill, another bill passed against our right to live happy and free on this planet. All this mixed in with the constant stream of advertisements for things we don’t need and the pressure to buy more and want more. It can be downright paralyzing to take it all in like this. It’s a crazy story.

If we have kids (or care about kids) it’s even more confusing and scary. It’s easy to feel powerless as we watch the major multi-national corporations take over our food supply, devastate what’s left of the wilderness and rainforest on their quest for more gas and oil, pollute the water supply and buy up what’s left of the drinkable water.

But this is not the only story…

And it’s certainly not the most beautiful or the most compelling.

The new story that is rising up from the rubble of all of this destruction and confusion is the story of humanity’s sacred right and responsibility to take care of the Earth.

For many thousands of years, humans lived with loving respect for the Earth that gave them life, and lived in harmony with all other life forms. We also took great care to protect and preserve the well-being of our future generations. This was the natural way. It was our sacred responsibility.

During the last 7 generations of imperialism and industry, we have lost sight of this sacred responsibility as a global culture.  Now, as we face the uncertain future of the next 7 generations, we are being called to remember.

We are being called to reawaken the brilliant human spirit that resides in each and every one of us to serve the wellbeing of the world and the ones yet to be. 

This spirit can get bogged down and discouraged by overwhelm and the stress of modern life, but it suffers mostly from disconnection. Without a deep sense of connection with the Earth and all other forms of life, we are lost.

Empowering Ourselves for the Great Turning is an opportunity to come together and create some “time out of time” to rekindle our connection with all LIFE and rewrite the story of our future.

During this retreat you’ll discover that…

• This culture of violence and destruction is already phasing itself out. That although we may be called to block and resist its advances, we don’t have to fight it or take it down, and that we can no longer continue to cling to it.

• The story of the tenacity of life and human creativity is MUCH more compelling than the story we hear on the news. It’s like wild flowers pushing up through the concrete… it’s LIFE taking over once again… and it’s beautiful!

• Great power and liberation can come from facing your fears honestly with loving support. As you unload your burden of personal grief, fear and trepidation in the safe container of group ritual, you’ll understand through your whole being that you are not alone and that you are part of the unstoppable and glorious lineage of LIFE.

• There is a powerful movement happening all over the planet, and YOU are an essential part of it! You’ll clearly see the role you are meant to play in the healing of our world and discover the wealth of skills and resources you already have at your fingertips.

“Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world.”

Joanna Macy

What we’ll do together…

During our time together we’ll use several groundbreaking group practices created by Joanna Macy, along with shared rituals and sacred songs to journey through a rich and meaningful four-part process that will leave you feeling empowered and excited about living at this very special time on planet Earth.

The terrain we’ll cover includes:

• Feeling into our Gratitude

• Honoring Our Pain for the World

• Seeing with New Eyes

• Growing Forth with Empowered Action

As we take a break from the busy-ness of daily life, we will honestly and courageously turn toward this precious and precarious time on planet Earth…with all its suffering and all its opportunity…with all its beauty and all its fear…to discover our personal and collective power for creating a life sustaining society for future generations to live into.

“This experience helped to clarify my own desires and set goals and actions. I felt through the grief! Letting the emotions flow was big!!

Thank you for creating a safe space.”

– Galaxy Dancer

“After this workshop I feel so much love and gratitude, healing and heart openness. I have more awareness and perspective of what it means to be alive during this time of Great Turning and of what my own responsibilities are.

This is an amazing workshop…so powerful and relationship building.

Thank you so much!”

– Orca Ross

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There are currently no upcoming dates for this retreat.

If you are interested in participating in or hosting a retreat please email me at jodelamor@gmail.com

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Reclaiming our Humanity

What do you do when you hear about another… School shooting? Oil spill? Monsanto win? Corporate bailout? Nuclear disaster? Hate crime?

Do you let it get you down or do you ignore it? Do you turn off the news and walk away? Do you try to think positively and just focus on your own family? Do you start panicking? Do you stuff down your emotions with food or mindless entertainment? Do you helplessly worry about your children and their futures?

These are all common responses to the horrifying realities we’re presented with every day.

But they all show the same disconnection that is the signature of our modern society and has robbed us of our humanity.

After thousands of years of experiencing the trauma of wars, massacres, injustice, slavery, imperialism and industrial destruction, we have been conditioned to shut down.

But all that pain is still stored inside of us and it’s weighing us down. Now, at this time of great change, we are being called to release this backlog of pain so we can be freed up to reconnect with life and reclaim our humanity.

This work is about healing. It’s about being honest about all of that trauma and releasing it. It’s about reconnecting the places that have been disconnected. This is big work and we are the generation to do it…we are the ones we’ve been waiting for (quite literally).

“This workshop allowed me to pull my grief up and out, ground me into my mission and gave me permission to be human.”

– Anthony Aquiles

This group experience reconnects us… with each other and with ourselves. It opens the channels of feeling grief, praise, gratitude and compassion so we can stand in solidarity with our world. It imbues us with courage to live our lives as gifts to the future generations.

It gives us permission to grieve all that has been and is being lost. In this work we get to let loose some of this grief that has been backlogged over generations of stifling. We get to let go of some of that burden we carry when we’re trying to “keep it together.”

“These kinds of stories are the memory that causes us to remember ourselves back into human form.”

– Martin Prechtel

During this experience, we’re going to take a break from “keeping it all together,” and we’re going to get real… we’re going to open up our perceptions, reconnect, pay attention and let ourselves feel these feelings… then we’ll set our creative souls to work on stepping into our future with empowered, inspired action. 

“This workshop tuned me into what I love and value so deeply about life on Earth. It was a beautiful space of diving into the heart with good focus on how to integrate all that feeling and compassion into our life’s work.

-Vesper Gers

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There are currently no upcoming dates for this program.

If you are interested in joining a group or have a group of 8-12 people who would like to initiate a new round of Activate please email me at jodelamor@gmail.com

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When asked… “How could this experience be improved?”

One participant wrote, “I don’t know… We are ALL part of this tremendous shift. I guess it would be improved by many more people participating in it and co-creating!”

You know this experience is for you if…

• You love the Earth and enjoy spending time in nature…walking in the woods, listening to the birds, playing at the beach.

• You care about your children, grandchildren and future generations and want them to have good, long, healthy lives.

• You feel a passion for being part of the great change that is happening now.

• You feel overwhelmed and powerless about whether we can make the changes necessary.

• You want to see things come ‘round right… to see humans treat each other with respect and learn to live in harmony with the Earth.

If you’re a parent or grandparent, a young adult or teen, a social justice activist or environmentalist this work is most definitely for you!

* This term “the Great Turning” and much of the work we’ll do together during this one-day retreat is attributed to Joanna Macy and her dedicated work in supporting people through this dangerous and exciting time on planet Earth. She is a true elder and I am deeply grateful to her for her valuable work in this lifetime.