Many people these days chase belonging through external circumstance, hoping to find inner wholeness.
We are learning that it is wholeness that we must seek first,
in and through ourselves,
from which belonging then naturally arises.
Too many circumstances in contemporary life
fill us with false promise,
vacated from needed wisdom.
In these days,
it is not more tools that we need; it is more connection.
It is not more information that we need; it is more wisdom.
This online series is about growing more wisdom, more wholeness, and more belonging
from the inside out through attention to grief, joy and their edges.
We are learning that it is wholeness that we must seek first,
in and through ourselves,
from which belonging then naturally arises.
Too many circumstances in contemporary life
fill us with false promise,
vacated from needed wisdom.
In these days,
it is not more tools that we need; it is more connection.
It is not more information that we need; it is more wisdom.
This online series is about growing more wisdom, more wholeness, and more belonging
from the inside out through attention to grief, joy and their edges.
So many of us think we can grieve alone, that it is even noble to do so.
But for grief to yield its medicine, it requires community.
None of us can go all the way to the depths of our grief if we don’t have someone holding space for our descent,
assuring us that we won't drown.
We have learned that joy requires commitment,
and is foundational in who people are and wish to be in the world.
When joy is present as a foundational commitment,
joy shifts from a thing people experience to a way of being.
A B O U T T H I S 4 - W E E K O N L I N E S E R I E S
The central focus of this Wisdom Series is Grief & Joy.
Human beings live in rather complex circumstances. For many, the pace of contemporary life demands urgency. It insists repetitive false narratives that pull us away from our more wise and soulful selves and communities.
Grief gives us path to transformation, yet is so often overlooked and avoided. Only through grief can we truly transform things. Grief points us to letting go. To surrender. It's deeply personal. Yet it's also deeply communal.
Joy, so often displaced with the sky-falling news of the day, also gives path and practice to transformation. To celebration. To contribution. It too is deeply personal. It too is deeply communal.
The edges of grief and joy teach us. The edges keep us honest. The edges point us to awareness. To wholeness. The edges bring us home to new world.
This wisdom series is not a training of easy steps that assure neat and tidy outcome. It is a communing of people readied by life circumstance to explore together, to welcome wisdom and sense-making through the lens of grief and joy.
This online series mixes teaching, sharing stories, asking questions, wondering and wandering to territories known and not known. There will be whole group and small group interaction. This series mixes insights found in both words shared and silence welcomed.
This series is intended to invite and cultivate:
Week 1: A Path of Wise and Soulful -- Most human beings seek to live purposed, committed, and meaningful lives. Yet much masquerades to distract from what is most simple, clear, and helpful. Most human beings wish to feel a clear center and clear practice that points to wisdom.
Week 2: Paradox of Grief, Joy -- Life presents us with loss. Sometimes the big ones, more than our brains, hearts, and bellies are able to process with immediacy. Sometimes the more regular ones, that require our deliberate attention. Life also presents us with joy. Everything from new births to the miraculous persistence of a spring flower. Attention to paradox guides integration.
Week 3: The Clarity and Courage of Edges -- How important it is to have inner conviction and outer support to approach the edges that stretches us into new territory and growth. A continued journey of grief with joy, joy with grief. Choosing grief. Choosing joy. Choosing life in the all of it as path to wise being.
Week 4: Freedom Matured -- Wisdom always creates depth. Practices for grief and joy -- these give us life-giving ways. For ourselves and with others. They reclaim an integration of thought and intuition, of mind with heart and belly. They grow an inner resources toward freedom.
Together we will find our ways.
Human beings live in rather complex circumstances. For many, the pace of contemporary life demands urgency. It insists repetitive false narratives that pull us away from our more wise and soulful selves and communities.
Grief gives us path to transformation, yet is so often overlooked and avoided. Only through grief can we truly transform things. Grief points us to letting go. To surrender. It's deeply personal. Yet it's also deeply communal.
Joy, so often displaced with the sky-falling news of the day, also gives path and practice to transformation. To celebration. To contribution. It too is deeply personal. It too is deeply communal.
The edges of grief and joy teach us. The edges keep us honest. The edges point us to awareness. To wholeness. The edges bring us home to new world.
This wisdom series is not a training of easy steps that assure neat and tidy outcome. It is a communing of people readied by life circumstance to explore together, to welcome wisdom and sense-making through the lens of grief and joy.
This online series mixes teaching, sharing stories, asking questions, wondering and wandering to territories known and not known. There will be whole group and small group interaction. This series mixes insights found in both words shared and silence welcomed.
This series is intended to invite and cultivate:
- connecting, learning, and awakening
- dwelling in what stirs the human heart
- integrating what we experience in both outer world and inner psyche
- encouraging us to greater intimacy that connects this moment with the longer arcs of our lives
- centering in our deep humanity so as to contribute in life-giving ways to ourselves, our colleagues, and our circumstance
Week 1: A Path of Wise and Soulful -- Most human beings seek to live purposed, committed, and meaningful lives. Yet much masquerades to distract from what is most simple, clear, and helpful. Most human beings wish to feel a clear center and clear practice that points to wisdom.
Week 2: Paradox of Grief, Joy -- Life presents us with loss. Sometimes the big ones, more than our brains, hearts, and bellies are able to process with immediacy. Sometimes the more regular ones, that require our deliberate attention. Life also presents us with joy. Everything from new births to the miraculous persistence of a spring flower. Attention to paradox guides integration.
Week 3: The Clarity and Courage of Edges -- How important it is to have inner conviction and outer support to approach the edges that stretches us into new territory and growth. A continued journey of grief with joy, joy with grief. Choosing grief. Choosing joy. Choosing life in the all of it as path to wise being.
Week 4: Freedom Matured -- Wisdom always creates depth. Practices for grief and joy -- these give us life-giving ways. For ourselves and with others. They reclaim an integration of thought and intuition, of mind with heart and belly. They grow an inner resources toward freedom.
Together we will find our ways.
"And then the ancestors said,
'Maybe your problem is that this world is more real to you
than the spirit world.'"
Quanita Roberson
"There are no greater advocates for inner work and self-healing in facilitation than Quanita and Tenneson.
Dr Myriam Hadnes
Host of the "workshops work podcast",
Founder of the NeverDoneBefore"
W H O S H O U L D A T T E N D
Seekers, searchers, people in comfort, people in discomfort.
This is the sixth version of our Wisdom Series, offered twice per year. We adjust and update themes per our interests and with what we see friends, colleagues, and communities exploring.
We welcome people from all walks of life, all professions.
Managers, facilitators, team leaders, consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs.
Educators, artists, poets, musicians, faith community leaders, and government.
Community organizers, social change activists.
We welcome the older and the youngers, and people working with the olders and those working with the youngers.
We welcome men, women, the in-betweens, and the undecideds.
All people seeking a substantially better wisdom of heart, mind, and belly.
This is the sixth version of our Wisdom Series, offered twice per year. We adjust and update themes per our interests and with what we see friends, colleagues, and communities exploring.
We welcome people from all walks of life, all professions.
Managers, facilitators, team leaders, consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs.
Educators, artists, poets, musicians, faith community leaders, and government.
Community organizers, social change activists.
We welcome the older and the youngers, and people working with the olders and those working with the youngers.
We welcome men, women, the in-betweens, and the undecideds.
All people seeking a substantially better wisdom of heart, mind, and belly.
D E T A I L S & C O S T
|
"When people draw from the root of their deeper self
they become authentic and able to act with true originality,
for the deep self is secretly connected to the origins of life."
Michael Meade
"Thanks for leading me into the deep with confidence and trust in the process.
F&W made this trip possible in ways I can't fully name yet."
Juliet Barrett
Fire & Water Participant
they become authentic and able to act with true originality,
for the deep self is secretly connected to the origins of life."
Michael Meade
"Thanks for leading me into the deep with confidence and trust in the process.
F&W made this trip possible in ways I can't fully name yet."
Juliet Barrett
Fire & Water Participant
M E E T Q U A N I T A , T E N N E S O N
Together, Quanita and Tenneson have over 40 years of combined experience
in the fields of leadership, community, dialogue, and change.
But their most unique orientation, perhaps,
is what they bring to encourage depth of inquiry and honesty of practice.
Both believe that the times we dwell in require this depth, and in fact, mourn an absence of wisdom.
Their individual and shared work is rooted in a deep friendship, love of learning, growing in community,
and a belief that there is always more unseen than seen that wants to be discovered.
Both believe that people are hungry for simple, needed ways to be more wise in times such as these.
in the fields of leadership, community, dialogue, and change.
But their most unique orientation, perhaps,
is what they bring to encourage depth of inquiry and honesty of practice.
Both believe that the times we dwell in require this depth, and in fact, mourn an absence of wisdom.
Their individual and shared work is rooted in a deep friendship, love of learning, growing in community,
and a belief that there is always more unseen than seen that wants to be discovered.
Both believe that people are hungry for simple, needed ways to be more wise in times such as these.
Quanita Roberson
www.nzuzu.com www.qtwisdom.com Cincinnati, Ohio, USA I love circle. Circle is a place where we can not only remember that we belong to each other but that we are each other. It has birthed me into this world. I remember. First in my grandfather’s church, standing in the center as the elders laid their hands on me in prayer, guiding me to circle as a communication line to spirit. Next, in my Montessori preschool class, teaching me circle as a tool for learning. Then through my spiritual teacher in ritual, practicing circle as access to the ancestors. And finally, through The Circle Way, connecting me to circle as a structural framework for community. I am a facilitator dedicated to addressing embedded trauma. I am a spiritual teacher, speaker, author, life coach, and a storyteller. I have three books published. Most recently, The InnerGround Railroad: A 40 Day Journey to Remembering Soul & Spirit (Akan Publishing, co-authored with Amy Howton). And previously, Soul Growing: Wisdom for 13 year old boys from men around the world (Dos Madres, 2015) and Soul Growing II: Wisdom for 13 year old girls from women around the world (Dos Madres, 2019) I have a background in Organizational Management and Development with a concentration in Integral Theory which has supported me in looking at the world in a more holistic way. I also have had the privilege of studying with some amazing elders. Including Sobonfu Some and Jojopah Maria Nsoroma, keepers of ancient indigenous wisdom from the Dagara Tribe of Burkina Faso, Fanchon Shur in Embodying Creative Leadership through Growth in Motion, Peter Block, and Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea of The Circle Way. I live in Cincinnati, OH with my two children. I am inspired by the Ohio River and the stories of freedom that were birthed from this region. |
Tenneson Woolf www.tennesonwoolf.com
www.qtwisdom.com Lindon, Utah, USA All of my life, I’ve been the kind of human being with as much interest in the "unseen" as I have in the "seen." I’ve had interest in the mystery and the mystical, with an inherent hunch that things are not as they seem. Some of my hunger for the unseen comes from a despair native to times such as these -- I continue to learn that many of us are feeling it. My hunger for re-storying of who we are as human beings and what we are up to in our work, family, and community, comes from an innate desire to evolve myself and the systems I’m part of. My work over 25+ years -- as a facilitator, workshop leader, teacher, writer, coach, and guide -- has been improving the quality of collaboration and imagination needed in groups, teams, and organizations — to help us be in times such as these with consciousness, kindness, and learning. I post a daily blog, Human to Human, on my website, in which I offer reflection on varied aspects of participative leadership practices, insights, and human to human depth. I'm a poet that finds enormous value in prosing words and images to meaning. My most recent collected publication of poems is Most Mornings (CentreSpoke 2022). These poems sample practices. They sample learnings. They sample insights and discoveries. They sample dilemmas and concerns. They range from simple and clear appreciations to more complex and murky wonderings about how to be in the world of these times. My first publication of poems and reflections was A Cadence of Despair: Poems and Reflections on Heartbreak, Loss and Renewal (CentreSpoke 2020) which invites and maps relationship with the deeply personal that so often is surprisingly universal. My lineages include The Berkana Institute (Meg Wheatley), The Circle Way (Ann Linnea, Christina Baldwin), and The Art of Hosting (Toke Moeller, Monica Nissen). I live in a small town where urban meets rural, in Lindon, Utah, at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains. I am originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. |
A F E W R E S O U R C E S T H A T I N S P I R E U S
|
|
|
O T H E R K I N D W O R D S
|
Whoever you are, whatever ails or inspires you, Quanita and Tenneson shape the space with an ease and curiosity that invites a deep dive into what is essential and human.You are held here."
Chris Smyth Past Workshop Participant I told my friend that it was food for the soul; a rare time to be authentic and vulnerable in a safe space around people willing to be the same. It restored my faith in humanity. In a time when we are surrounded by all the awful things in the world to be in a group of 15 humans that are all on their journeys was inspiring. Q & T helped me move from seeking community to being and inviting community. Genevieve Sofranec, Past Workshop Participant As a mentor and coach, Quanita is the representation of her spirit name -- Wind Warrior. the shifting winds of change and transformation come forth when she is in your presence. I have experienced a beautiful transformation and growth since working with Quanita. She values my story and encourages me to keep writing more chapters. I am honored to know her and I am a stronger person because of her support. Regina M. Sewell Founder / CEO / Owner Creative Life Coach for Embraceable Living I have been deeply privileged to know Tenneson for a number of years and to more recently to work with him in his world of mastery — bringing forward the wisdom of the group. His magic is so subtle that it’s hard to name. He is at once deeply and lovingly present, authentic and humble, completely trusting of what unfolds in the moment, with an uncanny capacity to see, weave and illuminate unseen patterns of authentic truth from whatever emerges. Kinde Nebeker Principal, New Moon Rights of Passage "I am still floating from our experience and am beyond grateful for this time of deep transformation, or as I feel it now, a deep remembering of what we all knew/know.” Corbin Tobey-Davis Faith Community Leader Quanita is the real deal. As a grounded and completely authentic facilitator of healing ritual. Her capacity to hold space, bear witness, go with you to the depth of your grief and suffering, and bring it to reconciliation and resolution is rare -- even exceptional. I feel so grateful to count her as a friend and fellow traveler on the path. Nilima Bhat Co-Author of Shakti Leadership I met Quanita many years ago, and through her discovered a new way of thinking! I learned about animal spirits, crystal healing, spiral dynamics and medicine wheels. Six years after working with her, I still apply these lessons and share what I learned with my friends. Quanita has made such a positive impact in my life. Thank you Quanita! Muthoni Kori Kastner Cincinnati Waldorf School There are a mere handful of people in the world with whom I would ever host a circle that demanded deep presence, humour, attention to beauty and a fierce holding of the container. Tenneson is one of these few whose gentle and inviting demeanour belies a strong commitment to human beings working together past fear, ego and division. Being hosted by Tenneson makes me grateful to be in this field, as a host, as a colleague, and as a friend. Chris Corrigan Global Art of Hosting Steward Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd. Tenneson's creative and welcoming style transforms complex challenges into intentionally simple constructs that invite sustainable change. Carla Kelley Executive Director The Human Rights Education Center of Utah |
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Rumi, 13th Century Persian Poet
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Rumi, 13th Century Persian Poet
