In this episode I'm joined by Vincent Brown, whose doctoral research research centers around The Work that Reconnects, a theoretical framework and workshop methodology for personal and social change developed by Joanna Macy, a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. Vincent's dissertation study is on men's work in the context of The Work that Reconnects, which is the focus of our conversation. Our discussion contains a lot of personal reflection on what feels like a timely and challenging topic, in a time when the trauma that men have inflicted on others and on the planet is becoming increasingly clear and widely recognized.-Guiding Principles of The Work That Reconnects:

· This world, into which we are born and take our being, is alive.

· Our true nature is far more ancient and encompassing than the separate self-defined by habit and society.

· Our experience of the pain for the world springs from our connectivity with all beings, from which also arise our powers to act on their behalf.

· [Psychological] unblocking occurs when our pain for the world is not only acknowledged, but experienced.

· When we reconnect with life by choosing to bear our pain for it, the mind retrieves its natural clarity.

· The experience of reconnection with the Earth community arouses the urge to act on its behalf

(Macy & Brown, 2014, pp. 65-67).

http://workthatreconnects.org