The CEW programme is now significantly underway, with all seventeen participants back in their home places undergoing the wonderfully dynamic challenge of integrating what they experienced during the residential intensive into their personal and professional lives.
One of the most exciting aspects of the programme for me as a facilitator has been the opportunity to support this learning community in finding their authentic expression of how they wanted to work together during the post course study circle period. The building of the structure of the four month global study circle was a thoughtful, emergent process; it arose organically out of the two weeks of being together through creative group discussion and consensus and will therefore be successful.
This post intensive period of the Global Study Circle will last for four months, with a call, or online community gathering, happening once each month as originally planned. The first and third calls will include guest community members, while the second and fourth will be reserved for the group to check in about how they are doing with their unique process and with the progress of the group itself. The final call will overlap with the next community of CEW participants, all of them joining together on one Skype call, half of them at Schumacher and the other half all around the world.
For the first call, we invited Stephan Harding and Philip Frances| to join, as the group wanted a chance to reflect on how they might apply some of the science they learned at Schumacher to their everyday lives. The theme for the call was Resilience. Drawing from resources like Places to Intervene in a System, by Donella Meadows, 1999, and Resilience Thinking, Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World, by Brian Walker and David Salt, 2006, participants were invited to get to know the socio-economic systems they are a part of by identifying the key mechanisms and characteristics of them, and considering the various roles of diversity which make the system work. Despite some initial technical issues, it was an inspiring and re-invigorating conversation for everyone.
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We are now approaching the second of five Study Circle calls. Each participant has identified a central inquiry for themselves, to act as a compass point or thru line for their journey within the programme. They will have an opportunity to share with one another where they are at, what triumphs they have had, the challenges they face, and what inspires them to stay committed to being in action.
They will also have a chance to ask for support and to suggest ways they might evolve their system of community to work more effectively now that they have had some time to practice.
The next call will have Satish Kumar as an invited guest, and though the theme has not been revealed, my intuition tells me it will have to do with how one stays strong, focused, and connected through this heavily textured landscape we all find ourselves in during this time, and also, with the sacred process of learning how to fully embody a new ecologically literate worldview. But we’ll see…
Until next time,
Emily
