Collective Trauma Training Funding

Dear friends,

I am doing something I have never done in this way before. It is a humbling risk to take, a sort of initiation, to ask for help to do something that I would not be able to do without the support of community. It is not easy for me to ask, but the call of this work is clear and strong for me, strong enough that I am not able to turn away from it. So here I am. And I thank you for the curiosity that has you here with me, reading these words.

This month, I will be traveling back to Israel to join the second in-person training of The Pocket Project training on Collective and Intergenerational Trauma Integration (Restoring a Fragmented World), taught by Thomas Hubl. This six-day training will complete a year-long study of collective trauma and its symptoms in the world. The program is designed to assist us in working with individual, collective and intergenerational trauma, helping us to build healing and integration competencies as well as to explore the facilitation of large-scale group processes. We are learning to deepen our capacity to stay present and aware within a traumatized field, so that we can begin to relate more fully and precisely to what is underlying the symptoms that are surfacing, without dissasociating from or collapsing into those symptoms. 

Participants are traveling to Israel from 38 countries around the world to explore trauma integration and to address the particular issues in their own "pockets" of the world. I am really excited to have the possibility to connect with a team of people who are committed to turning toward these deep shadows in culture and dedicated to learning to facilitate spaces of healing. I'm looking forward to the collaborations that will arise as we deepen into this work together. 

For me, this is essential work. Everywhere I look in the world today, I see and feel the legacy (and repetition) of trauma acting itself out. As a citizen of the United States, I feel called daily to this reckoning with the traumas that exist in the very foundation of this country,  and the systemic perpetuation of those traumas up to the present day. I feel the heaviness of what is not acknowledged in our official national story, and the deep need to meet what was not or could not be met at different times in our history, that continues unmet today.  I feel individuals carrying these huge stories, traumas far too big for any one human to heal. I feel the earth suffering from what we cannot feel. And all of this calls me to the study, knowing that there is so much to learn, and that no one person has the answers. This is a collective listening, a willingness to show up. 

Many of you who know me know that I have studied with Thomas Hubl and the Academy of Inner Science for almost six years, that I facilitate a local practice group inspired by his work and am an Trainee Assistant for the Timeless Wisdom Training 2, and that these studies have profoundly supported me in preparing for the kind of facilitation and healing work that I am called to. I was initially drawn to Thomas's teaching because of what I had learned about his work with collective trauma, so when I heard of this particular training, I felt a deep longing to join the exploration. It did not initially feel possible because of the expense, but it kept insistently knocking on my door until it suddenly seemed that I would find a way to go. That for this, I would learn how to ask for help. 

Thank you for taking the time to explore this with me here, and for considering being a part of the wave of support that is carrying me deeper into the heart of this work. 

Here is an explanation of the expenses to be covered: 

Tuition: $1600 for the year
Room/board for two 5-day trainings: $800
Two  roundtrip flights from Albuquerque to Tel Aviv: $3000

(I have accounted for donations that have already come in through other channels by adding them myself to this campaign, for a true count). 

If you're curious, here is Thomas giving an introduction to the Pocket Project:


If you have a bit more time, here is a great dialogue between Thomas Hubl and William Ury, cofounder of the Harvard Negotiation Project and one of the world's leading experts on negotiation and mediation, speaking on negotiation in conflict situations: 


And here is an excellent article in Kosmos Journal: Thomas Hubl's The Pocket Project: Facilitating the Integration of Collective Trauma. 

For more exploration: 

The Pocket Project




And because my poet's heart is what carries me into all of this, anyway:

A Ritual to Read to Each Other, by William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.