Live Courses
Exploring ourselves and the world
through stories, both personal and collective,
in order to strengthen our activism
Human beings are meaning-making animals
We take in information from the world around us through our senses and, individually and collectively, we transform that information into narrative. We turn the world around us into stories, and, by telling these stories to ourselves and one another, by relating with and through these stories, we turn the stories we tell ourselves into reality.
Stories are the everyday magic by which we are able to experience the world in a meaningful way, rather than having to deal with the data of reality in the raw. This is not a failure, but a feature. It is what allows us to be human, to create community, culture, society, and technology.
But it is also the means through which much suffering arises and is maintained. This is true from the small scale of painful personal relationships, to the large scale of violent bigotry, inter-community hatred, and systemic oppression.
Stories are how we weave together, or pull apart, our lives, our communities, and our societies. The power of that magic can be wielded consciously or unconsciously, for good or ill, for private benefit or collective upliftment.
Resilient Activists invite you on a deep dive into story with the following courses.
Introduction to Working With Story
we learn and use tools for exploring, analysing and entering into stories of all kinds
20th February - 7th April 2022
Human beings are meaning making animals. But too often, we're unaware of the stories we tell, of the cultural narratives we take part in, and the ways in which they shape our lives, our societies and our world.
In this course we will learn different ways of becoming aware of and examining stories, from the personal, to the societal, to the fantastical. We will also develop our capacity to change and transform stories to bring about the world we want.
we enter into stories of our location, to relate more deeply with people and place
24th April - 24th June 2022
This course is for people who want to become present and alive to what is here and now: in themselves, in their locality, and in the stories that weave between self and place.
Through becoming present to ourselves, and engaging deeply with a local story, we will move more fully into our relationship with self, others, and place.
Man Maid
we enquire into ancient stories, to explore gender in the present
10th July - 9th September 2022
In this course, people of all gender identities and experiences enter into personal enquiry and group dialogue around questions of what gender is, what it means, and how it impacts our activism.
We will explore three ancient stories of women made by, for, or from men: the stories of Eve, Galatea, and Blodeuwedd. As we engage critically with each story, it will provide a lens through which to explore our own experience of gender within society, and how gender relates to oppression and liberation in different contexts.
Rooted
we tell an ancestor's story, to face our inheritances of white supremacy & colonialism
23rd October - 23rd December 2022
This is a course for white people to:
- honour our ancestors as complex human beings
- begin to engage honestly with our personal inheritance of racism, white supremacy and colonialism
- develop a personal practice of ancestor reverence based in who and where we are, to support us in our work of dismantling whiteness
Healing Religious and Spiritual Wounds
we journey together to heal our wounds and develop clarity around religion and spirituality
January - May 2023
Spiritual and personal practice can be an amazing resource for our activism, and a source of support in times of crisis. But pain from past experiences of religion and spirituality can be a substantial block to accessing that resource and support.
In this class we journey together to find peace with our pain and wounding around religion and spirituality, and to clear the way to developing a nourishing personal practice.
