Thanks to our Moscow colleagues and students, Elena Margo and Arman Bekenov for telling us of the good work of their group, “Democracy.Doc”. That creative group integrated worldwork and theatre in their own manner. Their theatre work involved hundreds of people in many Russian cities.  Recently, the northern-most largest city of Siberia, (above the Arctic Circle), Norilsk,  used their worldwork theatre group to help plan the city’s future. This contributed to the “Norilsk City Development Strategy Roadmap.”

Amy’s Puppet, the president, congratulated the new diploma and master graduates at the Process Work Institute in October!  See Heike Hamman’s photo of Amy’s President.

 
Click the photo to enlarge.

Because of privacy considerations, we often don’t  publicize much of the good news about conflict work from around the world.  But recently, we were excited by hearing the stories of university people, lawyers and judges (in court rooms), who used aspects of our work to succeed in their work.  One judge reported using a “flirt” (watched and saw something in the court room trying to catch his attention) in the midst of an intense conflict in a court room. This bit of information produced intuitive and most unusual and wonderful outcomes! (And apparently the other judges were amazed at this apparently  “psychic” ability)

The Autumn newsletter published by the Portland Institute is out. Read about news from the process work community in different parts of the world.   

The Wall Street Journal favorably reviewed Pauline Oliveros’ and Ione’s “Sonic Gesture of Peace” performance given outside the Lincoln Center of New York City.  Pauline and Ione are good friends of ours!  See the review.

Due to recent New Orleans's policy changes (mandatory evacuation of the city at lower storm levels --starting at level 3--), the following New Orleans worldwork training seminar will retain its focus  on THE SPIRIT OF NEW ORLEANS- Environment and Culture, but take place in Yachats, OREGON, Sept 3,4,5 and 6.

 Rather than risk danger during a hurricane season which according to predictions, will be stronger than usual, we will process issues around hurricane Katrina on the Oregon Coast. We shall continue to support New Orleans in other ways.

We are thrilled to hear that the Wizard Clinic is coming back to life!

Welcome to the Wizard Clinic!  With Dr. Dawn Menken and Dr. Jai Tomlin. (Sept 29 and 30)

The Wizard Clinic began when two coastal whales jumped out of the sea and called all wizards, magical animals and beings with super powers to gather for a celebration of children. Arny and Amy Mindell, two grand wizards, began this Clinic in the mid 1990s? It is a place where children, their parents and caretakers can come together to play, learn and work on the special problems, challenges and beauties of being a kid.

This weekend will re-introduce the Clinic for the first time in Portland, led by Jai Tomlin and Dawn Menken. There will also be featured guest appearances with Arny and Amy Mindell and puppet friends.

Come explore the world of childhood dreams, magical allies, monsters and super beings. We will also focus on body symptoms and illness, learning difficulties, school bullies, and family relationship dynamics.

The wizard clinic is for people of all ages; a place to have fun, by discovering the magical and mysterious remedies, potions and solutions that our childhood wizards will reveal.  Contact pwi@processwork.org

An archive researcher at Stanford University's Hoover Library, sent us the following connection between Arny’s LEADER AS MARTIAL ARTIST and Russian history.

“The late renowned Russian social psychologist, Peter Shikhirev, is credited with many things including presenting works on Conflict Resolution "which were used to help write the new Constitution of Russian Federation." In 1991, Shikhirev translated and published in Russian, Arny’s “THE LEADER AS MARTIAL ARTIST, An Introduction To Deep Democracy, Techniques And Strategies For Resolving Conflict + Creating COMMUNITY.”

We loved seeing Aleks Peikrishvili parading for love in Portland. See the front cover of the “Just Out Magazine”, July 6,  2007 (Volume 24, number 17) below. See this picture at higher quality.

David Clark’s new website www.activityzero.com/   amazed us. It fills the heart and mind with art, poetry, animation and koans and the Tao that can’t be said. Entering it is like experiencing a session with a Zen master. He speaks about symptoms as well!

Julie Diamond, the (Portland) Process Work Institute’s academic dean, director of training and program development, was recently applauded by the Portland Oregon Police Department.  Together with Liesbeth Gerritsen and other team members from the Portland Police department and “Project Respond”  who created the Crisis Intervention Team Training Workgroup, Julie received an award for carrying out training workshops in crisis intervention. These trainings became mandatory for all police officers after someone was killed last year in police custody.  The group received a Unit Commendation award. Read the full article here.

To know more, see the interview with police lieutenant Sara Westbrooke, who led the project). Also listen to Julie speak about this on Kate Jobe’s Podcast.

While working on the reconstruction of New Orleans since the flooding (September 2005), and pondering the recent flooding in the UK, we came across what seems to be important information for city facilitators.  Symbolic or totem spirits beneath flood waters may help some leaders to find their center while working on these types of environmental catastrophes today, and in the future. Click on the following for more:

Are there Spirits Hidden Under Flood waters? (PDF format, 692 KB)

Green Politics, the attempt to relate to the earth’s biosphere, helps inhibit the greenhouse effect and global warming. Working at the bio-sphere level, the level of living beings on our planet, is a matter of life and death.  Just as a person who eats the wrong foods must stop poisoning herself, so we need green policies to stop abusing the earth’s body.

Yet green politics is not enough.  Just as the person who eats the wrong foods needs to feel and sense her body better to make permanent changes to her eating habits, so also we need to feel the earth again, in order to sustainably refrain from unnecessary biosphere destruction.  We need to know “Pacha Mama”, “Mother Earth” as the Inca’s referred to Her.  Many Aboriginal groups around the world have said, (as our Australian Aboriginal friends say) connect to the Earth’s “Dreaming”.  This means,  connect to your sense of the earth’s power and majesty, intelligence and awesomeness.

Awareness of the Earth’s power and gravity is what we call Brown Politics. If you practice “brown politics”, green politics will automatically result. The consequences will possibly be more sustainable and create less conflict.

Brown politics is an aspect of deep democracy. It focuses on the freedom of all peoples, the freedom to discuss real problems, dreamlike roles in the background, and the freedom to use our sense of the earth’s fields to advise us about the future.

The new 3 Year Process Oriented Leadership, Facilitation and Coaching educational program for students in Palestine and Israel is part of the Democracy Institute’s work in collaboration  with the Arab American University in Jenin.  For more, see:  www.deepdemocracyinstitute.org

We are thankful to our friend,  colleague, and solar power environmental activist Dr. Martin Vosseler of Switzerland  for pointing to the remarkable videos of that historic crossing. www.transatlantic21.org

The first IAPOP conference in London. “Deep Democracy, where fields meet” inspired many. See http://www.iapop-conference2007.org/  We saw and experienced new applications and extensions of processwork, and felt excited and challenged by the process oriented psychology community, and their original work.

The proceedings of this IAPOP conference will eventually be published. See the attached partial list of conference presenters and their abstracts. (Thanks to Dr. Lily Vassiliou and JC Audergon for this information)

Download Conference Abstracts. (.pdf file 236KB).

The United States Association for Body Psychotherapy, http://www.usabp.org/ offers more social and intellectual support than any other group we know interested in body processes and consciousness.

Remember Phelim from worldwork seminars on the Oregon Coast in Newport, in Sydney, and elsewhere?   Remember his anarchical group, “Improbable Theatre?”, the group that portrayed coma on stage? Well, Phelim is back on stage again. We loved seeing his London show, “Satyagraha”, a story about Ghandi, an epic opera by Philip Glass, based on the life and legacy of Gandhi’s teachings.  “Even by ENO’s standards, this is a bold move – an uncompromising work with a libretto entirely in Sanskrit, extracted from the Hindu sacred text the Bhagavad Gita…”  (Click here for more).  Satyagraha will be in New York City April 11, 2008 playing at the Metropolitan Opera House.

We are continuously learning from and excited by, the work of Justine and Michael Toms on New Dimensions Radio  which airs around the world and on Oregon Public Broadcasting (listen here).

They describe their on-line internet radio program  as "Six hours of original programming including the current 'flagship' program and gems of timeless wisdom from the extensive archives heard 24/7. These six hours rotate four times a day, for 24 hours of streaming audio, where you can enjoy listening at your computer."

We were excited to learn from one of our French Process Work colleagues of the "latest excitement …conducting some Processes for the socialist candidate (Segolene Royal) & her workers-on the theme of ‘participative democracy’!"

We are enjoying rereading Aminah Raheem’s  book, “SOUL LIGHTNING: Awakening Soul Consciousness.” She bridges the gap between psychology and spiritual experience. Aminah is the originator of Process Acupuncture, and a diplomate process therapist.

We are excited to discover and announce
Amy’s New Film-Animation-Musical-Show:
“THE STARS AT NIGHT.” (See the flyer here!)

When? Its debut will be on May 27 Sunday, 7-8 pm!

Where? At the PWI 2049 NW Hoyt, Portland Oregon.

According to various sources, we are happy to have heard that Ms Paula Zahn, in her CNN broadcast, "Paula Zahn NOW" that  “takes you inside the news and behind the headlines, from around the country and across the globe” has been using worldwork methods.