Great Hoop of Life Gatherings: Our learning community is dedicated to living in peace within and with others.
We explore a medicine wheel for enabling learning and gathering wisdom shared by Paula Underwood, the Keeper of a 10,000-year-old oral history. We meet at 12:30 - 2 pm Central Time USA on the second Monday of the month through May, 2022. Each session stands independently on its own. You’ll be able to catch up on sessions you miss anytime on-line. This series is offered on a sliding scale to ensure its availability to all.
Reclaiming our Birthright to Peaceful Co-existence
April 11, 2022 12:30 - 2 pm Central Time USA
Climate change, social injustice, income inequality, the war in Ukraine, they are all flashing lights, calling our attention to the ultimate question of our time,
“How much peace are WE, as the human race, willing to work for?”
Our responses need to reflect the interconnected nature of current circumstances. When we understand that our futures are bound together, we’ll rise in solidarity to create a future that works for all beings.
Fortunately for us, Indigenous peoples hold blueprints for peaceful co-existence.
If we have listening ears, we can learn from their lived experience.
Let us resolve to reclaim our birthright to peace with joyous spirit, open hearts and discerning minds.
We’ll be in the North on the Great Hoop of Life as we explore possibilities.
As part of a supportive learning community, you will experience:
New Ways of Being
- Exploratory Listening: a practice that links you to the power of the Great Mystery
- Living with Uncertainty: a practice for reducing suffering by expanding your view of possibilities
New Ways of Learning
- Ways to benefit from diversity of thinking: a practice to test time-honored assumptions
- How to become a lifelong learner: Medicine wheels as a practice
New Ways of Doing
- Dynamic decision making: practices to bring all voices into the process
- A vision of real community: Three ways to weave community
.
We'll create a safe place to bring our gifts alive. You will have the opportunity to experience a sense of:
- Grace as you feel yourself surrounded by new resources
- Gratitude for the community's dedication to your success
- Joy as you master tools supporting your life-long learning journey
- Ethical presence that guides the wisdom of your choices
- Balance within yourself, others and your environment
"What is assuring about Paula’s wisdoms is that they keep you real and balanced. This insightful approach brings power, strength and tranquility into focus."
Jane Franke
"I value the work you are all doing to help us find peace and personal power in change."
Leia Francisco
Life and Executive Coach
"I now understand that life isn’t about being somebody. It’s all about being yourself."
Mildred Cuffaro
"You established an open and trusting environment for sharing our views and I was astonished at the clarity we achieved."
Barbara Ball
How our gatherings are designed
Our learning community creates your own personal laboratory. For the next nine months we’ll have a 90 minute zoom call where we share practical wisdoms and you’ll be able to experience them directly. You’ll be given the structure you need to apply the wisdoms to your unique situation.
We all want to make a difference. Yet none of us can do it alone. We’ll experience a dance between individuals and the community that Paula shared from her tradition. The community will hold responsibility for supporting the gifts and talents of each person. And each person will hold responsibility for the strength of our learning community as a whole. In this way, we'll weave new stories for each person and for our learning community - stories that will have powerful ripple effects into our communities across the world.
The world needs you.
No one else can bring your unique gifts!
We hope you’ll join us!
Contact Odette at [email protected] if you have any questions.
Meet your Guides
Stephanie Nestlerode
As a social worker and strategic planner, I’ve focused my 45 year career in the areas with most heart and meaning for me = healthcare, social services and education. For me, these arenas are essential for democracy.
No matter the setting, my goal is bringing all 'voices into the room’ to learn and make wise choices for our shared future. Organizations expand their capacity to serve the common good. Individuals expand their ability to shift with changing circumstances.
As a life-long learner indigenous wisdom expanded my worldview forever. My journey began with Paula Underwood over 20 years ago. At the very first break, I spoke to her and pledged to do my best to bring her practical wisdoms to ‘all listening ears.’ These wisdoms completely altered both my personal life and my consulting career.
As Chief Synthesizer for 7th Generation Labs, I’m joining with kindred spirits to gather a treasure trove of ways to learn what matters. At this moment, what matters above all else is creating a world that works for all beings.
Paula’s wisdoms are the foundation for peaceful co-existence. Odette and I look forward to sharing them and learning from each and every one of you!
Odette Bovenberg
Over many years I have collected listening and communication methods. It is a unique combination of old learning stories, modern listening methods and empathy-based consulting. They cover all the elements of achieving results as a group. They are easy to learn. People immediately feel and experience that it is useful and effective. I wish I had been taught those skills very early in life.
The listening/communication nuggets I offer are not original to me. I stand, respectfully, on the shoulders of those who initiated these ideas. One of my great inspirations is the work of Paula Underwood.
For close to ten years I slowly discovered the work of this Wisdom Keeper. What touches me is the language she uses. This is wisdom that uses words that reach me. Stimulate my Mind. Nourish me.
This is Wisdom that works. I liked trying out walking on one leg, then the other. Then on both and ask myself what I could learn from that.
I am the guide with the New Eyes, the Child Eyes to this material you might say. Lucky for me Paula writes: Everything that enables disables also. And anything that disables, enables also.
And lucky for us she writes for all with Ears Willing to Listen.
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