By Mary Oak

Recorded by author

Despite the deep throb of our shattered world –the hottest year on record, old and new wars raging– we gathered, each of us stepping away from business as usual into the Gaian Gathering. We gathered in gratitude to our beloved Gaia, to honor Joanna, and to participate in generous offerings constellated around her work. We gathered from many time zones and from numerous countries. We gathered to network and connect and reconnect with the Work That Reconnects, to navigate the Great Unravelling we find ourselves in. We gathered in grief and found strength through solidarity in acknowledging the many breaches and ruptures we are called to suture. 

In gathering, we were renewed by drawing from a deep source of living teachings and practices. We were invited to open our hearts and eyes to new and ancient ways of seeing, listening and being. Each of us was encouraged to discover ways to re-envision and reimagine our broken world. We found sustenance through “…a mycelium of soul” in the words of Hector Aristizábal.  Each of us, as newcomers, experienced participants or emerging facilitators, became invigorated and inspired. 

I attended the gathering out of a desire to find others engaged in Joanna’s work. Thirty years ago, I trained with her in the Council of All Beings and it deeply influenced my engagement with sacred ecology. Through the years, I have led councils in a variety of settings and have brought Joanna’s work into my teaching in the undergraduate program at Antioch University, Seattle. Now, turning towards elderhood, I was curious to find out more about the Work That Reconnects (WTR), beyond the peripheral awareness I had of the organization.

What a beautiful community I found! — a harmonious nonhierarchical organism, encompassing a number of ways to deepen into the Work That Reconnects. I had a visceral sense of cooperation, each person bringing their particular gifts through ceremony, conversation, and presentation. We participants were warmly welcomed. I engaged wholeheartedly at my own pace as I attended a number of sessions over the five days, moving through the Spiral. I appreciated the range of creative and ceremonial activities as well as opportunities for conversation.

Of course, a highlight was having Joanna present in some of the sessions and to be able to honor her. Her joy was palpable and contagious. What a gift to have an opportunity to express our gratitude to her for all she has given, and for her to see how her work has grown so gracefully and is flourishing. 

I appreciated discovering that there is not one set training to take to become a WTR facilitator, no required rules or stern imposition of structure, but rather a consortium, as it were: a choice of trainings to go deeper into what, for me, is sacred work. This choice of offerings is in accord with finding new sustainable structures as we usher in what Sean Kelly calls the Gaianthropocene[1]. I am thankful for having found a sense of sangha, of kindred spirits. As a result of this gathering, I’ve become a member of the Work That Reconnects WTR Network and look forward to deepening connections ignited here. I am still taking advantage of the recordings to follow up since the gathering  (and these will soon to be available on the Work That Reconnects website). So for me, as I imagine it is for others, our Gaian Gathering continues. 

[1]Kelly gives us the name Gaianthropocene as an alternative to the geological epoch now called the Anthropocene — which connotes a solely human focus. The invitation embedded in includes awakening, “to our deeper nature as living members of Gaia, the living Earth in and through whom we have our being.” (Sean Kelly, Deep Times Journal) 

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Mary Oak is a senior lecturer at Antioch University, Seattle, and teaches classes at her Pegasus and Sisters Writing Studio in Seattle and online. She is especially passionate about her course offering, Nature Writing in the Time of the Great Turning. She is author of Heart’s Oratorio: One Woman’s Journey through Love, Death and Modern Medicine (Goldenstone Press, 2013). Mary holds degrees in Mythopoetics and Sacred Ecology and an MFA in Creative Writing–both from Antioch University. She has a background in Psychosynthesis, Pastoral Counseling and Deep Ecology. Find more about her here. {www.MaryOak.com}