Despair and Discovery Circle

From the planetary to the personal, all despair is interconnected.

If you feel despairing, depressed, fearful, anxious, angry or any other strong emotional responses to the abuse of our Mother Earth, each other, and All Our Relations, then this Circle is for you…

Discover deep sharing. Discover deep listening. Discover deep connecting.

Discover a community that deeply feels our pain in this time of global crisis. Discover what you are capable of when your despair is lovingly witnessed, held, and felt by others.

Facilitated by Betti Lambro and Virginia Metcalf.

Since January of 2019, this has been an ongoing opportunity on the 4th Saturday of each month (January through October), for people who love and grieve for the Earth, to share, listen, and connect in ways that promote growth, balance, healing, transformation and empowerment!

This offering is an outgrowth of the Active Hope Workshop series facilitated in Ithaca by Betti Lambro and colleagues. We wish to credit Joanna Macy, developer of the Work That Reconnects, for the ongoing transformation that this work brings into our lives. (The Work That Reconnects is also known as Active Hope after Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone published a book by that title.)

Wailing Circle Workshop:

the Art and Practice of Ritual Lamentation

A weekend workshop where you learn to release Grief and Despair through Ritual, Sound, and Movement.

To Wail: 1. To utter a prolonged, inarticulate, mournful cry, as in grief or suffering: to wail with pain. 2. To make mournful sounds, as music or the wind. 3. To lament or mourn bitterly. (source: dictionary.com)

In reclaiming this practice of processing grief and despair in community and in connection with the Earth, we highlight that these emotions can encompass the personal to the planetary and WE WELCOME IT ALL.

In this weekend workshop you will :

Build trust in the individuals and group
Connect with the Earth
Learn to ground, center, and shield/ root yourself
Experiment with sound and movement to help in processing grief
Identify where grief lives in your body
Create a mask or tool for use in group wailing ritual
Experience a Wailing Ritual where we dive into the wailing well within
Process the Wailing Ritual in our safe space
Discuss ways to develop a personal ritual for processing grief
Be invited to join in the ongoing (once every two months) opportunity to participate in a Community Wailing Circle

Date and Time: To Be Announced, for 2023

Location: Braided Root Waters Healing Sanctuary, Trumansburg, NY

Investment Options:

Investment: $250

Donations to scholarships are welcome!

Please contact us if you need a scholarship

Work That Reconnects Workshops

(None currently scheduled)

The Work That Reconnects is about helping us process and move through our feelings of despair, anger, grief, shock and disbelief about the state of our planet. It helps us end the cycle of feeling paralyzed or ineffective due to our natural and normal feelings of hopelessness in the face of interconnected, daunting global crises such as climate change, political chaos, social injustice, abuse of our environment, the drug addiction epidemic, etc.

The Work That Reconnects is a unique and effective framework based on transformational group and interpersonal activities that help us dig deep within ourselves in order to connect deeply with others, find our own inner truths and powers, and greet our interconnectedness with all life on Earth. This process helps engender individual and community empowerment.
Active Hope Spiral
Experience the transformational Spiral of the Work That Reconnects (Rooting in Gratitude, Honoring Our Pain, Seeing with New Eyes, and Going Forth).

By rooting ourselves in Gratitude we create a solid foundation from which to dive into feeling and Honoring Our Pain for the world. Much of functioning in this society requires of us that we hide and suppress our emotions. Feeling our emotions, allowing ourselves to cry, express anger, laugh, or simply get in touch with our numbness, can be supremely healing.

Once we have felt and honored the fullness of our pain, we can begin to See With New Eyes by allowing ourselves to envision our hoped-for futures for life on Planet Earth. We then prepare ourselves to Go Forth and be in the world in new ways. Through deep reconnection with others, we each find our own resilience, creativity, and empowerment.

The Work That Reconnects (WTR) has been developed and honed by Joanna Macy and her colleagues since 1978. These workshops will be based on “Coming Back To Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects” (2014, by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown). “Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy” (2012, by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone) is recommended reading.

Facilitator Bios

Betti Rooted Lionheart (Lambro)

I was 7 years old when my environmental awareness was activated by learning that the Ocelot might some day become extinct. My awareness of and concern for the health of our planet grew steadily from then on, as did my despair. I earned a B.A. In Environmental Studies (2000) and an M.A. in Geography, with an emphasis on Global Food Systems Studies (2005). I trained as an organic farmer (2002-03), farmed, wrote, became a mother, and settled in Trumansburg, NY in 2010 with the dream of creating a farm-based intentional community that would be self-sufficient and resilient enough to allow us to survive the collapse of the systems we rely upon and society as we know it. Although this dream did not manifest, it led us to where we were meant to be and to me finding my true life purpose.

Encountering the Work That Reconnects at the end of 2015 was a turning point in my life. I lived for 30 years (from ages 7 to 37) in the state of despair that Joanna Macy describes so well in her book “World as Lover, World as Self.” Participating in the Work That Reconnects and now facilitating workshops myself has helped me transform my despair into empowered action.

In beautiful synchronicity, I also found my Spiritual Teacher, Bekki Shining Bearheart, at the end of 2015. In finding my Spiritual rootedness I have also learned why I am on this planet at this time. I am here to help others process their despair so that they too can move through it to find empowered action. I became a Shamanic Healer in 2019, and a Minister of the Church of Earth Healing in 2022.

As a Shamanic Healer I help people heal and Re-Connect to Spirit, to the Earth, to Themselves, to Beauty, to Purpose, to Truth, to Fire, to Ritual, to Being in Circle With Each Other. I have my own Shamanic healing practice called Moon Wise Earth Walks Healing (moonwiseearthwalks.org). I am also in the process of manifesting Braided Root Waters Healing Sanctuary at Braided Root Waters, the land that my family and I love and steward in Trumansburg, NY.

Virginia Metcalf

I’ve lived in the Ithaca area for almost 20 years, raised my two children here, and now live in Trumansburg. In my work life, I am a paralegal for LawNY, a nonprofit organization providing free legal help to people in poverty. I also have a private practice as an advocate for individuals who have been denied Social Security disability benefits.

Like many people, I have felt overwhelmed and in deep despair for many years about all of the seemingly unsolvable problems we are facing as human beings. I found myself denying my real feelings about the future as a way to function in my daily life. In recent years, I have felt paralyzed and unable to face even one of these global problems, so I’ve carried on behaving as if nothing was wrong in my daily life. I was (and still am) confused by the little opportunity that I find to talk openly about the crises that I see clearly happening around me.

A fews years ago, I read the book “Active Hope” written by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, and soon after was pleased to find that a local workshop was available based on Joanna Macy’s work. I attended two workshops where I was able to speak freely about what I see happening, and my struggles in figuring out how to keep living and working in our current reality. Connecting with others around this is healing, and has helped me move forward and realize that I’m not alone in needing to speak openly about our fears and confusion. I am immensely grateful to have the Work That Reconnects as a framework to bring people together and create time to be with each other as we all face the future together.

Anna DiPilla

I am a Licensed Massage Therapist, certified TraumaWise® embodied yoga guide, Usui Shiki Ryoho teacher in the lineage of Beth Grey, shamanic healer in the lineage of the Church of Earth Healing’s Spirit-Led Shamanism developed by Bekki Shining Bearheart & Crow Swimsaway, and a circle facilitator through the Walking In Balance program led by Elder Strong Oak Lefebvre of Visioning B.E.A.R. I guide people into the waters of their emotions. and support them as they explore the messages in their bodies, alchemize the wisdom they unearth, and unravel liberated expressions of self.

Despair and Discovery Circle 2023 dates and details

Registration:

This offering is based on a Suggested Donation of $10 – 25 to Braided Root Waters Healing Sanctuary. All are welcome, with or without donation. Contact us for location and information.

Facilitators:

Betti Lambro and
Virginia Metcalf

Scroll down for bios

Contact us:

e.a.Lambro(at)gmail.com

Dates and time:

Ongoing

4th Saturday of every month

January through October

2-4:30 pm

Cost:
Suggested donation of $10 – $25

Location:

Braided Root Waters Healing Sanctuary, Trumansburg, NY. Contact us for address and info.

Work That Reconnects Workshops

(None currently scheduled)

Registration:

Registration is required at least three days prior to the workshop date. Due to the highly interactive nature of the activities, and the rental cost of the space, we require a five participant minimum to hold the workshop.

To register email us at:
braidingtruth(at)gmail.com

Cancellation Policy: If you register and we have to cancel, you will be notified at least one day in advance of the workshop date and will receive a full refund. If you need to cancel your registration, please let us know at least three days in advance of the workshop date; you will receive a full refund

Dates

None currently scheduled

Cost

Location