how we will learn together
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
~Hellen Keller
Our practices...
are rooted in methodologies that support, growth, connection, authenticity and a consciousness in evolution. We believe that leadership, when anchored in these things, is naturally inclusive, better informed, and more productive. These qualities move us from being leaders to being wise leaders. We have a need for wise leadership today.
Practices include but are not limited to:
- Being The Circle Way - Circle is a primary form for turning to one another, for restoring listening, for reclaiming the importance of witnessing each other. It is a primary form for animating imagination, kindness and intelligence together to reveal belonging. We bring together various circle traditions including, indigenous wisdom from Native American and African traditions, and circle practices from The Circle Way.
- Story - In re-authoring our stories we get a chance to re-member what has been forgotten, re-store what has been lost, re-connect what has been broken, and re-convey what is true, and then step more fully into who we were always meant to be. When we can share our stories (have someone hear our stories in the way our hearts felt them) and not just tell our stories (details of what happen) there is a connection with head and heart that is transformative for all involved.
- Art of Hosting (Methods and Orientations for Community Engagement) - The Art of hosting helps us to build essential facilitation skills for organizational learning and community engagement. A great blend of art and science the Art of Hosting allows us to root the journey in methodologies that support learning and growth while surrendering to the art of emergence.
- Life Coaching - When we are being coached we are paying close attention to what is happening around us and can be more intentional in our choices which help us to own our own power. Coaching grows perspective. Greater perspective means greater choice. Greater choice means more personal power.
- Presentations of Learnings - Presentations of Learnings invite space for us to be reflective and learn from our past experiences. It moves our focus from what we did to what we learned to support us in the return to community that is initation
Our orientation...
is that it is a time to change the way we grow ourselves. It is time to change the way we grow our leaders. Many of us grow older without ever growing up. Fire & Water is about growing up leaders and therefore changing the face of leadership as we know it. We do this by weaving together all we have learned about developing strong leadership and weaving it with ancient wisdom practices around the importance and process of initiation.
Our orientations include:
- The Hero’s/Heroine's Journey & Initiation - Even though we will be walking together, we will be walking our own individual journeys of growth and development. Embracing the fact that we might at times be by ourselves but we are never alone. We will answer The Call and step into our own Departure from Norms, Face Our Own Ordeals surrendering to whatever life brings us, and Return with Recognized Gifts and new knowledge about our own unique genius in the world.
- Dagara Medicine Wheel - The wheel teaches that we all have a place in the world. It invites awareness of purpose, gift, and belonging. The Dagara Medicine was adapted for the west by Malidoma Some, based on the spirit medicine from the people of West Africa in Burkina Faso
- Radical Presencing - The practice of presence is a most central core-competency for leaders in times such as these. It includes the surrender to working with what life wants -- found in stillness, courage, embodiment, and joy -- rather than expending all of our energy in trying to control people and things that aren't meant to be controlled.
- Living Systems, Emergence & Self-Organization - For several centuries, much of the scientific world has taught us to mechanize are orientation to working with people. It has taught us to dissect, command, and control. Humans are not machines. Humans are living systems. Living systems have capacity to self-organize, to evolve naturally to higher order and meaning. What if we learned more about how life organizes itself to impact the ways that we try to organize human endeavor?
- Grief Matters - We are a country that doesn’t know how to grieve. We think we can grieve alone but grief requires community. Because we think we will drown we will never go all the way to the bottom of our grief unless we have someone holding space for us. We tell the story that we all grieve differently, we don’t believe this is true, we believe that we all avoid grief differently and this story allows us to do that. The grieve is just the release, it’s the same for all of us. Until we release what no longer serves us there is no room for what does.
Your shared wisdom continues to be an invitation for me to know myself deeper and therefore know the world deeper. Like the best teachers, you lead us back to ourselves and the remembering of who we are meant to be as divine spirits and as humans. Together, you both unearth the gems I didn’t know I was looking for— mindful in your craft and masterful with your gifts.
Jennifer LoPiccolo, Evaluator at Become
2019-2020 Cohort Participant
Jennifer LoPiccolo, Evaluator at Become
2019-2020 Cohort Participant
Inner Change...
Initiation is about meeting yourself. This meeting allows you to step into more of who you really are, more of who you were always meant to be. This meeting connects you with your own unique genius. It starts to reveal to you what you can do that no one else can. This journey integrates the inner and outer and supports you in being a wise leader in the world.
- Soul Meeting Soul
- Stepping into Wise & Soul-Full Leadership
- Integrating the Inner and Outer, Subjective and Objective of Leadership
Spiritual Guides & Community Witnesses...
Some journeys should be taken alone. This is not one of them. On this journey, guides and community matters. Being connected matters. This process is designed as a cohort. Participants will develop deep relationship with others across sectors, race, age, gender, and geographical locations. Fire & Water is for a unique set of people ready to take significant journey into the internal and the external of leadership. It is not for everyone. It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s not for those locked in knowing, trying to do more of the same, more tenaciously.
You will walk away with...
Fire & Water is an experiential process that weaves together leadership methodologies and indigenous wisdom. This is a journey to wholeness. It is a journey to reclaiming the parts of ourselves that we hold in exile. We have lived too long with this false premise that we are compartmentalized human-beings, that we can take our professional selves to work and leave our personal selves at home. We are in a time that calls for all of us to bring all of who we are to the work that we do and the lives that we live. This journey is design for you to meet yourself and connect with your unique genius, learn new skills that integrate leadership and wisdom, and bring them back in service to your community.
You have, together and as individuals, parted the layers of curtains called 'false narrative,' giving me my first glances of Reality. This revealing was done in such a way that I never felt fear in the reveal - I felt joy, awe, delight, and affirmation.
Emilia Halstead, Pastor at First Congregational Church, UCC
2019-2020 Cohort Participant
Emilia Halstead, Pastor at First Congregational Church, UCC
2019-2020 Cohort Participant
