Going Global Workshop

A residential oppportunity to explore our personal and collective creative potential for acting globally

When: June 1st-June 6th 2011.
Where: West Mountain Inn, Arlington, Vermont, U.S.A.

If the time comes when our culture tires of endless homicidal feuds, despairs of the use of force and war as a means of bringing peace, becomes discontent with the half lives that it’s members are living, only then will our culture seriously look for alternatives... When that time comes they will not find a void...They will find that there are ways of being that do not involve power over persons and groups. They will discover that harmonious
community can be built on the basis of mutual respect and enhanced personal growth.
- Carl Rogers, A Way of Being

We believe that time is now. We invite you to join us in a gathering of open-minded people interested in creating a more compassionate, creative future by learning to engage the challenges of dizzying change and find a personally and socially constructive way forward.

Each of us has been intimately involved with the exhilarating process of facilitating in temporary, international, person-centered communities. We have learned first hand that this approach in its original form remains radical. It challenges the prevailing political, authoritarian system that we have introjected. It questions all the tried-and-not-true, worn-out policies of power and control.

The Learning Process in Groups
“The most personal is the most universal.” Carl Rogers (20th Century Humanist Psychologist.)
“The most universal is the most personal.” Ibn-El-Arabi (12th Century Sufi Mystic.)
“The personal is political.” Carol Hanisch (20th Century Feminist)

These quotes express the inextricably linked nature of our common human experience. In the community we will create together, our personal story will be interwoven with the emerging story of our shared humanity.

The community will serve as a learning laboratory where aspects of our own use of power and control, as well as our personal, global and spiritual concerns arise from the unpredictable turn of events rather than from imposed agendas. The facilitators will assume the role of learning partners rather than experts. The carefully structured, undirected process will foster the personal and social impact of a person-centered climate, enhance participants’ capacity to suspend established ways of seeing, and strengthen the courage and wisdom to generate undiscovered solutions to our runaway global crises.

In this interactive and egalitarian process, blending person-centered theory and experience, participants will discover new and courageous ways to respond to social and personal conflicts. The group will engage the depth of learning, wisdom, and personal empowerment that proliferates when the ‘freedom to learn’ (Rogers, 1969) takes precedence over reliance on expert guidance. It is our belief that such an endeavor can nurture the seeds of enhanced human possibility and profound social change.

Click here to register your interest.