Inbal

Since the last newsletter I sent out, I've been to Europe on a teaching tour, and on the Appalachian Trail, backpacking. I just returned last week, digging myself from under a huge backlog, and staring into the reality that we have just started the third year without my sister Inbal who died September 6, 2014.

 

It was both painful and sweet to be out in nature at the time of the anniversary, as I remember various trips that Inbal and I took in years past, and just how much she loved camping and being in nature. She was the one who introduced me to backpacking.

Her legacy continues to live even as she is no longer with us. Most movingly, the program she created: Parent Peer Leadership Program, has completed its first 10 years with 272 graduates. These are people who have learned the revolutionary framework that Inbal developed around parenting, and have applied themselves to bringing it to other parents. Disrupting parenting patterns is one of the most hopeful ways I know of to move into a future I like. This is why I am choosing to share  information with you below about the next PPLP, which is starting soon.

 

Arnina

Now that we are only two sisters remaining, Arnina and I visit each other's homes more often, and Arnina is coming soon for her annual visit. She is offering a mini-intensive workshop, which I also want to tell you about, because I want you to have the opportunity to experience the magic that she brings to her work. Her workshop is called "Behind the Mask: From Fear to Freedom", and I am itching to see many people exposed to the profound liberation that her work offers, as you laugh and cry your way to a freedom you may have not known was possible.

Sabbatical! As for me, the third sister... I've had an amazing August and early September, and I am reaching more and more clarity about how essential it is for me to reduce my level of travel and teaching. This year, I have pared down to focusing primarily on Convergent Facilitation, which I believe is my most unique contribution at this time aside from my writing. I am preparing for a sabbatical next year, committing to at least 145 solid days of writing and doing less teaching and consulting. In my hope, this sabbatical, if successful, will continue indefinitely, in lieu of retirement, which holds no interest for me. The challenge, needless to say, is that finances are difficult already, and if I work fewer hours, are going to be even more tenuous. For this reason, I invite you below to embrace the Circle of Support and participate in my future ability to put everything that's in my mind in writing so it's available to the world even after I die.

Miki with the team who supported the Poland workshop last month (+ a guest peeking)

Recently, I have joined SURJ (Showing up for Racial Justice), a national US-based organization created by white people to support movements like Black Lives Matter and other people-of-color-led groups. I can't remember the last time I joined a political organization, so this may well be my first ever. We just started a reading project: we are all reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, about the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and the way that they keep US society as a racial caste system. I just started, and I am already painfully riveted. Please join me if you want to understand and perhaps contribute to changing the social reality of life in the US. 

 

in peace and hope,

Miki

 

P.S. If you want to hear more of what's been happening in the last month, click here for both work and personal celebrations and mournings, including the very last LYI retreat I led, my backpacking trip, and more.