2. Overview of Presentation
• Who am I?
• Global Context
• An Opportunity for Global Transformative Learning
• Relational Epistemology
• A Journey of Transformation
• Reconnection to Self
Reconnection to Nature
• Reconnection to the Village
• Engaging in the World
• What Becomes Possible?
• Potential Course Offerings
3. Overview of Presentation
• Who am I?
• Crisis on multiple levels
• Global
• Individual
• World
• Village
• Nature
• Self
• A journey of global transformation:
• An Opportunity for Global Transformative Learning (to address crisis?)
• Practices that cultivate transformation
• A Journey of individual transformation
• My journey to RDI
• Research Methodology
• Reconnection to Self
Reconnection to Nature
• Reconnection to the Village
• Engaging in the World
• What Becomes Possible?
So What – for the Great Turning? Back to the Global – connection
So what – for me?
• Who am I?...Now?
• Potential Course Offerings
6. • Indigenous Worldviews & Ways of Knowing
• Transformative Learning
• Global Studies/The Dynamics of Global Change
• Ecopyschology & Deep Nature Connection
• Spiritual & Transpersonal Psychology
• Participatory Education & Deep Education
• Rites of Passage/Initiation
• Consciousness Studies
• Divine Feminine & Masculine
• Social Movements
• Latin American Studies
• Intercultural, Interracial and Intergenerational Dialogue
• Qualitative Methodologies – participatory action
research, community-based, arts-informed, mixed
methods, Indigenous, relational, regenerative, transformative
• Engaged Praxis – Research & Teaching
Organize & Pare down
7.
8. Context/The Big Picture
Humanity is passing through a time of great transition, an
unprecedented convergence of immense global crisis and
opportunity.
9. A World in Crisis
Unprecedented levels of crisis currently facing our globalized community,
placing us at a threatening tipping point for economic, environmental, social,
political, psychological, and spiritual collapse (Earth Charter, 2000; Hawken,
2006; Homer-Dixon, 2006; Diamond, 2005; IPCC, 2007; Peterson, 2009; Gore,
2006; McKibben, 1999; Heinberg, 2007; NASA, 2010; Miller, 2001; Lerner,
2000)
• Environmental impact and climate change
• Diminishing availability of and increasing demand for energy resources,
food and clean water
• Population growth/migration
• Widening gaps in income distribution
• Violence, war, civil unrest, domestic abuse, gender violence
• An unjust justice system
• Clashes of ideology and faith
• 1/3rd of US public on anti-depressants/anti-anxiety meds, increasing
numbers of children on medication for ADD, ADHD, increasing prevalence
of autism
• Addictions – unhealthy use of food, materialism, drugs, alcohol, work, sex,
television, video games, internet, gambling, etc
10. A Global Disconnect Disorder
• People have become fundamentally disconnected from
• THEMSELVES (THEIR OWN HIGHER SELF/PURPOSE & MEANING)
• THE NATURAL WORLD
• ONE ANOTHER
• “The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter
tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have
less; we buy more but enjoy it less. We have bigger houses and smaller
families, more conveniences but less time; we have more degrees but less
sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more expenses but more problems;
more medicine but less wellness. We have multiplied our possessions but
reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom. and hate too often.
We’ve learned how to make a living but not a life; we've added years to life, not
life to years. We've been all way to the moon and back but have trouble
crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space
but not inner space... (student survivor of Columbine shootings, quoted in
Miller 2001: 2)
11. Opportunity for Global Transformative Learning
The possibility that the scope and impact of our growing global
ecological, economic, political, social, psychological and spiritual crises
could, rather than resulting in collapse, instead invite humanity into a
great global process of transformative learning that catalyzes us to
move into an ecologically regenerative, socially just and spiritually
connected world.
• “The Great Turning” (Macy and Brown, 1998; Korten, 2006)
• “The Shift”
• “The Fulfillment of Prophecy” (Leading Earth Woman/Longboat, 2009),
• “Catagenesis” (Homer-Dixon, 2006),
• “The sunset of an ecologically illiterate civilization” (Ausubel, 2010)
12. Transformative Learning
•Transformative learning involves experiencing a
deep, structural shift in the basic premises of
thought, feeling, and actions. It is a shift of consciousness
that dramatically and permanently alters our way of
being…Such a shift involves our understanding of
ourselves and our self-locations; our relationships with
other humans and with the natural world…and our sense
of the possibilities for social justice, peace and personal joy.
(O’Sullivan 2003: 11)
14. How to cross the great divide
• Foundational to this shift and critical to our survival and
prosperity as a global community will be the speed and
depth with which humanity is able to transform our ways of
relating with our selves, one another and the earth.
• My scholarship (teaching, research, and praxis) focuses on the
practices and pathways that support people to make this
great individual and collective transformation
16. • According to Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Lather’s chart of Postpositivist Inquiry
(1991) sets out various critiques of positivist science (e.g. post-modern,
emanicpatory, etc.), but “significantly absent are the organic and
indigenous approaches to research” (Smith, p. 167).
• Smith purports that most post-positivist approaches are regarded as
deriving from a Freirian pedagogy, and are therefore framed as relatively
recent; however, this denies the possibility that alternative research
frameworks could pre-date positivism and therefore also precede “post-
modern” approaches such as “participatory-action” research.
• The choice to frame my methodology from an indigenous-ecological
standpoint is therefore an explicit choice to centralize worldviews and
methods that come not from a Western paradigm, but rather from
ancient, earth-based ways of knowing and that arise from organic,
indigenous, natural, ecological, and intuitive standpoints.
17. Core Principles of Relational Epistemology
(Katia Sol)
• Knowledge is grounded in a particular location, community and natural
ecosystem
• Learning happens through observation, participation, intuition, and
mentoring
• Centralizes the importance of relationships and connections within a
community or eco-system
• Allows for the organic, natural unfoldment of processes and discovery
• Emphasizes the role of recovery, healing and regeneration in natural and
human systems
• Honors diversity and the individual stories of the diverse members of an
eco-system, as well as the collective story they come together to uniquely
tell
• Respect for all members of the community and ecosystem
• Responsibility to care for the land, for the community of which we are a
part, and for the knowledge and traditions that are entrusted to us
• Reciprocity (law of return) – giving back to the community and the ecosystem
18. • Lakota - Mitakuye Oyasin, or “All My Relations”, speaks to the
understanding that relationship is not defined as only our human
or blood relations but as our living relationships with all beings in
Creation, including mineral, plant and animal life.
• Maori- whanaungatanga, “the process of establishing meaningful,
reciprocal and familial relationships through culturally appropriate
ways, establishing connectedness and engagement and therefore a
deeper commitment to other people.” (Bishop, 1999).
• Requires that the researcher place the “interests, knowledge, and
experience” of the community as central to the research (Rigney
1999: 19).
• This means that the research aims to establish meaningful
connections and relationships with the community, organization,
and ecosystem being studied, which may carry beyond the scope of
the research into potentially “life-long” relationships and
commitments (Smith, 1992).
22. • “it was a longing or yearning for a deeper connection to just, kind of,
everything…at that time, I didn’t even know that that’s what I needed so
bad. It just felt like a longing for something more.”
• “I could tell that my ecologies were disconnected, not well nourished, not
regenerative.”
• “I felt like there was this really big disconnect…..I was really shut down,
and closed down and scared to be myself in the world.”
• “I was arriving…pretty depleted, pretty disillusioned, very frustrated…
because in some ways I was getting all of this affirmation for being so
great at what I was doing and getting more compensation financially than
I ever gotten in my life and yet I was not happy.”
• “I was at a really challenging moment in my life … I was just feeling
generally a lot of discontent with life. I just felt really stuck. I think
stagnant is the best word. But I simultaneously wasn’t feeling like I had
the motivation to change it either.....and I also was feeling really starved
for spiritual connection”
23. Ecological Transformation
• The response to this disconnect disorder must be holistic and
integral:
• By addressing the whole human being
• Body, heart, mind, spirit
• Somatic, vital, emotional, imaginal, intellectual, intuitive and
spiritual dimensions
• And ALSO by going beyond the isolated individual to cultivate
reconnection to:
• THE SELF (HIGHER SELF/PURPOSE & MEANING)
• NATURE
• THE INTERPERSONAL/VILLAGE
• CONTRIBUTION & MEANINGFUL ENGAGEMENT IN THE
WORLD
24. A Holistic/Integral Model for Transformation
Practices that Cultivate Connection to:
1. SELF
• Personal practice/personal growth work
• Individual psychological healing work
2. NATURE
• Eco-psychology
• Nature connection practices
3. INTERPERSONAL/VILLAGE
• Interpersonal healing
• Connection with village – growing, healing, collaborating, manifesting
TOGETHER
4. WORLD
• Engaged Application in the World
• Integration of self-nature-village practices through application and praxis
26. Creating a Fertile Field for Transformation
“Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field – I’ll
meet you there.” – Rumi
• Curiosity
• Non-judgment
• Observation
• Safe space for healing, vulnerability and authenticity
28. Practices for Connection with Self
• Gratitude practice
• Intention setting
• Stepping into Rumi’s Field
• Landscape Assessment
• Life Story
• Patterns Journalling
• Personal Healing Work
• Tree Model
• Inner Tracking & Ownership Process
• Creative Scenes
• Setting your North Star
29. TREE MODEL/ INNER
PERMACULTURE
• Model for
transformation from
the inside out
• What is in our roots
and soil is reflected
in our canopy
• Transformation on
an outer level begins
by transforming our
root systems and soil
• Process for inner
tracking and inner
healing
• Bringing curiosity &
loving to our root
systems
30. • “so what’s the little acorn that you’re decision to do something is
stemming from? You know … where is the need in your life to or
the need that you need to perceive is in the community that then
somehow meets a need that you have, and that need is not
encumbered by guilt or shame or regret or … you know, it’s just a
true, inspired, creative, centered place that you are moving towards
that thing, and then it becomes less like an extra limb that you’re
trying to grow or maintain, and more of, what you’re really here on
this Earth to do.”
32. Connection with Natural World
Sit spot practice – sitting still and observing the natural world for a minimum of
20-30 minutes a day – wherever you live – can be in the mission district of SF!
Aspects of Nature Connection:
• We are Nature
• Being Held by Nature
• Nature Connection & Holistic Human Development/Medicine Wheel
• Nature as Mirror
• Nature Connection and Mindfulness
• Nature Connection and Opening the Heart
• Nature as Mentor/Teacher
• Nature as Metaphor
• Nature Connection and Consciousness Transformation
• Exchange with Nature
• Natural Healing/Cyclical Healing
• Regenerating with Nature
33. Nature Connection & Holistic Human
Development/The Medicine Wheel
• Body – BODY KNOWING –resetting our selves to earth’s frequency
• Mind – slowing down, stillness– same benefits as meditation and
mindfulness practice
• Heart –opening into vulnerability and being literally held by the land – by
the big “mama”
• Spirit/Soul –feelings of belonging, oneness/connection with all things
34. Being Held by the Land
• “Yeah it’s feeling like I’m being very literally held by the land. Like having
that experience of being one part of a whole. And not in the way that you
can go inside to meditation, to stillness. There’s a clarity that comes
through that but its literally like laying down on this amazing bed of
comforting, um, like, mommy (Laughing). That’s what it feels like, it feels
like hanging out with Mom.
• “And around that time, as things were moving and maybe coming back to
part of my processes around self-love, I would go and I’d sit in this tree.
The tree was almost like a giraffe. It was a huge Cypress. I would straddle
one of the branches – a huge branch that went out like a dinosaur neck. I
would sit there and watch the valley, and the sun would be setting. I felt
loved by the landscape. I felt loved by that tree. I felt held… I felt like it
was an important part of that healing process to really feel learning how
to be loved by nature …allowing myself to connect with it…it felt like for
me, it was just getting to that place where I was able to feel loved by the
landscape and that for me, strengthened my ability to love myself. “
35. We are Nature
• “I was at a sit spot…and it just hit me. It was like this wave of
relaxation. It was like, you already... you’ve got it all right now. Stop
trying. Stop trying to outthink it and make it…you are it. It’s
present, it’s alive, it’s living. It allowed me to soften into myself and
tap into my own intelligence. And it just, it began this journey and
this wave of bliss that I’m still riding today. And it’s beautiful –my
universe is myself. The universe is within you. That divine baseline
presence in within all things. And you can touch it and feel it… And
that can be your guide, that connection …maybe there’s something
beyond that, but all these ancient teachings saying the same thing
is like, to me that’s it. It’s like letting nature do what it wants and
being conscious awareness of that. The power of nature that’s in
you.”
37. Aspects of Interpersonal/Village Connection
• Creating a safe container
• Collective Healing
• Being Witnessed
• Deep listening
• Vulnerability
• Authenticity
• Accountability
• Intimacy
• Healing the masculine/feminine
• Intergenerational healing
• Healing ancestral wounds & trauma
• Collective visioning and manifesting of possibilities
38. Additional elements of village life
• Magic
• Song
• Ceremony
• Creativity
• Synchronicity
• Physical contact/touch
• Sound healing
• Collective grieving
• Ritual
• Dance
• Celebration
• Play
• Improvisation
39. Vulnerability
• “I felt so safe and so held that I was able to really just allow all that to
come up. I mean you have 20 people holding empathetic space for you.
It’s really different energetically and much more powerful than just one
really amazing person holding a space for you. So all that
reflection, surrounded by all that love, and…letting myself be vulnerable
to just express all that was off the charts.”
• “it’s only possible through being in a safe environment where you feel
really secure and helped and loved and once those ingredients get mixed
together then it’s alright for everyone to be vulnerable. Then you see the
person next to you being vulnerable and its like “wow, it is okay”
• “The emotion and tears, of course laughter, but just the vulnerability and
the modeling of that vulnerability…the beauty of witnessing a group of
strangers–being so willing and courageous to share things that, in some
cases they may not have shared in their entire life. And to have that feel
safe is pretty special. It’s miraculous in some ways.”
40. Authenticity
• “I needed to be able to be who I was, not the story of who I think I am or the
story that I tell. I can’t heal a fiction. I can’t heal an illusion that I create.
Healing starts with what is actually real…”
• What I know is, after that experience, I was able to be much more
authentic…I would say that’s the biggest piece, because that’s the crux of it
all for me. Being authentic, which is then really rooted in self-love...
Something just relaxed in me and just allowed me to more fully express
myself.”
• “It was sort of like this community or circle where I was bringing this new
identity and I wasn’t trying to hide who I was. And in fact I was encouraged to
just show up as you are and bring your whole authentic self – whatever state
you’re in – into the circle. So it was really supportive and healing for me to be
in the circle and be witnessed by a group. And feel loved and supported for
who I was/am.”
• “What I found more and more was the more authentic I am, the more people
are drawn to that…when I have the courage to allow myself to be vulnerable
and authentic, it gives other people permission and it connects
people, because what you’re doing is tapping into something that is
essentially human, that we all share.”
41. Collective Support & Visioning
• “I remember writing to people just about what I was going through
and saying I was in a circle of support I didn’t dream was possible,
and then saying maybe I did dream it and that’s why it’s here and
I’m in it too, because it’s something we long for but didn’t know it
existed in that way. And now I have the capacity to create it so it’s
not that it only exists here, which is the beautiful thing about EOL.
Is that you’re gifted the tools to just build that everywhere you go,
just by being connected.”
42. Healing the Masculine & Feminine
• “one of the bigger things that impacted me…was separating into
men’s and women’s circles.... I remember standing in a small circle
with the women and the men surrounding us and singing an African
honouring song. It was so beautiful. I remember being on the inside
of the circle and just having an incredible healing moment and
crying and feeling like that was one of the moments that struck me
of intimacy, healing so part of me that was so deep and hidden and
so related to the masculine and the feminine, but now I see that it
was just this archetype of the masculine and the feminine being
healed, and it didn’t have to be in an intimate relationship to get to
that place. To actually be held by all the men in this community and
all the women standing together in this community, and all of us
feeling that. It was an Earth shattering, shaking moment for all of
us. One woman hit the ground, I remember; just fell to her knees
crying. That kind of healing happens there. So that’s magic. And
that started a journey. Wow, we can heal this kind of wound that
happens between masculine and feminine energy in relationships. It
doesn’t have to be man and woman. Just that intimacy in a
relationship.”
44. • “For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be
truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-
invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful
inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with
each other.” ― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
• Integration of the tools and teachings in one’s daily life is key to
lasting transformation
• These are not practices that can only be done in a yurt in Bolinas, or
in the middle of the woods – they by natural MUST be integrated
and practiced in our daily lives, wherever we are and wherever we
go
• Iterative process of praxis – planning, action, reflection and learning
• Regenerative Living and Leadership Pattern
46. The Ecology of Transformation
• It is the unique integration of these four aspects of transformation
– of cultivating connection with self, with the natural world, and
with one another – and then of integrating our learnings into our
engagement in the world – that has the power to cultivate lasting,
deep transformation
• Ultimately this is a process for reconnecting, reweaving,
remembering, regenerating, and recreating ourselves, in
RELATIONSHIP with one another and all creation – for a new day
and time
47. What becomes possible?
• “My project was around making Berkley a fair trade town. So I put
those wheels in motion in August of 2009, when I got back from
EOL. And we became a fair trade town in September of 2010.”
• “Well certainly it suddenly became possible that I could be a musical
person. That was big.”
• “A lot of fears are subsiding.…I just see tons of possibilities. I have
fifty people Monday night coming to hear me speak about a
community learning garden that we’re starting up next month”
• “The more I’m engaged into self love, the more accepting, loving
and open, compassionate I can be with others. And it’s
really…that’s what’s really transforming some of those key
relationships”
• “I’m a much more empathetic and compassionate person…In the
sense that I can walk through life now and judge a lot less…the
magic is walking through the mall and seeing this person that you
don’t know and seeing them as a divine human being.”
• “This whole integration piece has been amazing and continues and
it’s like a spiral, it just keeps getting deeper and deeper.”
48. • “I made the decision to leave my corporate career of 18 years and with
absolutely no idea of what I was going to do, but just trusting that this
was – that there was something more meaningful out there for me…now
I’m on staff at Transition U.S. and we support hundreds of local
community groups and grassroots organizers and leaders in the initiation
of their transition town groups and initiatives....For the last few years in
one weekend they were able to get over 1,200 1,500 particular actions in
one county on one particular weekend around this idea of growing food,
conserving water, saving energy and growing community.”
• “It’s almost the reverse for me to say what hasn’t changed for you. I can’t
think of any part that hasn’t shifted. When you’re doing all that root work,
all that soil work, how does it not shift the entire canopy, no matter
where you are? Just having more consciousness about how I intend to
show up. If I’m headed toward a meeting, if I’m with my mother-in-law,
wherever I’m at….I get to choose how I’m going to show up. It’s changed
everything. I don’t know that I can tell you all the ways, but I mean, when
you start showing up authentically in every part of your life, every
relationship has to shift, because you have shifted. Everything’s different.
It’s shinier; it’s brighter. It’s a lot more fun.”
51. Potential EWP-CIIS Course Offerings – Katia Sol
Transformative Learning & Global Studies
• Introduction to Transformative
Learning
• The Dynamics of Global Transformation
• Comparative World Perspectives on
Transformation
• The Ecology of Transformation
• Mapping the Great Turning
• Transformative Music & the Great
Turning
EcoPsychology
• Deep Nature Connection and
Consciousness Transformation (also
STP)
• Nature Connection and Holistic Human
Development using the Medicine Wheel
(also IWK)
• Nature Connection and Creativity
• Healing our Root Systems and Soil–
Transformation from the Inside Out
• Healing the Mother Wound – Nature as
Great Mother (also STP)
Spiritual & Transpersonal Psychology
Frameworks for Transformation in our
Daily Lives (also IWK)
• Living from the Heart – exploring
Vulnerability and Authenticity
• Cultivating Group Healing Spaces
• Interpersonal Dialogue & Healing
Indigenous Ways of Knowing
• Comparative Indigenous
Epistemologies
• Council as Transformative Practice
• Relational Epistemology
• Intergenerational Trauma and Ancestral
Healing
Qualitative Research Methodologies
• Participatory & Relational Research
• Regenerative Research
• Mixed-Methods Research
Breathe in – Take a few deep breathsAnd I’d like to ask you to connect – to what is it in our world right now – could be on a global scale – could be very local – that is of deepest concern for you? What is it that is breaking your heart?And once you have that clearly in your mind and heart, hold on to it – maybe place it in your right handAnd at the same time – I’d like you to connect to – what is it in the world right now that gives you the most hope? What is already happening, in your life, in your community, or in the world at large, that gives you great hope for the future?
Tell my story….dissertation research
Somatic, vital, emotional, imaginal and spiritual dimensions
