"Working in women's groups using theory that mirrors our ancient natural wisdom is an effective and satisfying way to reweave our damaged relational patterns."
~Alexandra Merrill
April 12-18, 2010
Pay $650 Deposit |
| Pay $1550 Remaining Balance |
$2200 Full Payment |
Matching Grant |
Announcing the One and Only, Very Last Opportunity
to Attend Women's Way XXXV -Six day Seminar/ Retreat
April 12-18, 2010
We have had a wonderful 35 year run. And we know it is our time to close down. In some way, we live on because we know we live in hundreds and hundreds of wonderful women. Knowing when to stop, to let go, and to go to the ground is as much a part of the path as knowing how to walk it. Our decision to bring a full and honorable closure to this very solid, challenging and transformative learning community is a sign of our good health and our strong heart. And yours.
In this last retreat, a full 7 days long, we will bring together many aspects of what we have learned over three decades. We plan to incorporate our best design and theory elements into this form: bodywork, movement, art, spiritual practices, women's group theory, leadership strategies and interventions, cosmologies, healing modalities, work with trauma, and transnational feminist thinking and practice, social justice and oppression issues as they emerge. We know so much more about women's work than we did 35 years ago when we started. We are able to hold complex, fragile, intense and transformative women's process. In this last retreat, we will also be adding sessions to discuss ethics, practice and theory.
We intend to fill Hope Springs with 35 women to embody the spirit of this 35 year old body of transnational feminist work. We will be a learning community of women who just have to return one last time, women who have never thought about coming and women who have always said, "I just couldn't fit in."
We hope to have many young women who are interested in learning this form because, although Women's Way is ending, some of us will continue teaching and training. Our work is never over, after all. As long as there are students, we will make forms for passing on what we have learned through our work with women's communities. And, we know young women are our future.
With enthusiasm and good will to each.
Joy, Rita, Beth, Bhanu, Alexandra
" That which is not fully given away is lost forever."
Rig Veda
The seminar is offered in a retreat format. The retreat provides a very safe opportunity to
set aside everyday concerns. We can be as slow and intentional as the inner work
demands. This internal focus allows examination of the female self in both the personal and
professional world.
We come together as daughters, nieces, sisters, aunts, mothers, grand-mothers, grand
daughters, partners, lovers, friends, colleagues, rivals, enemies, competent workers and
comrades - our connections are diverse and intricate. The community we create at this
retreat looks into the inter-relatedness of all our shared concerns, as well as sometimes
seemingly unbridgeable distinctions between us. Between our sameness and our
differences lies a path of great satisfaction and clarity.
During our days together we offer daily meditation time, very strong daily bodywork,
experiential activities and opportunity for learning the percept language and world view. We
also include focused discussion, structured journal writing and didactic theory presentation.
We integrate myths, fairy tales, fables, artwork, Tarot and other provocative media into our
learning experience. In between all the activity, we will make sure there is time for resting,
playing, walking, sitting by the fire.
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her colleague Alexandra Merrill. For over two decades, she has been working as Organization Development (OD) and Gender consultant to Not-for-Profit Organizations and consults to individual women. She has co-authored a book, Reconstructing Gender Towards Collaboration, which has been translated in six Indian languages. Bhanu staffs Group Relations Conferences (known as Tavistock Model) in India. Presently, she is a student of bodywork, alternative healing practices and music.
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Help Build Women's Way Scholarship Fund
Hope Springs has received a $10,000 matching grant earmarked for the support of international women and young women's participation in and travel to the April, 2010 Women's Way Workshop.
If you are willing and able, please help in matching this generous gift to fulfill our mission to provide Feminist Education and a transformational experience for a diverse population of women and make this final, international Women's Way Program accessible to women of all cultures and economic means.
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This program is approved by the National Association of Social Workers for 52 continuing education contact hours. Many professional organizations accept NASW CEU's. If you need CEU's or if you would like a letter to request reimbursement from your employer, contact Beth Wheeler at bwheels@verizon.net.
Registration
Make your payment for Women's Way tuition, room and board via paypal buttons on the right or send check with application. Download the Women's Way APPLICATION (pdf) to Hope Springs Institute, 4988 Mineral Springs Road, Peebles, OH 45660. You can also register by phone (937) 587-2602.
For more information, go to Women's Way website: www.womens-way.com.
Rita Andrews has devoted the past 12 years of her work life to the development of women. She is committed to supporting women in all walks of life to find their power and step into their leadership. The focus of her work is building on the strength of the similarities in women's lives as well as honoring and respecting the differences. She believes building bridges between women requires the understanding of experiences that women face because of the dynamics of difference - age, race, class, sexual orientation, religion, nationality and more. Additionally, Rita has a 30 year organization development consulting practice where the focus of her work is leadership development, collaborative culture change efforts and the management of diversity as key strategies for creating organizational environments that are productive and supportive of all employees.
Alexandra Merrill, founder of Women's Way is president of Merrill Consulting Associates, a professional member of National Laboratory Institute and the Indian Society of Applied Behavioral Sciences. Her expertise lies in teaching about archetypal processes in group life, comparative mythologies and the cross-cultural themes which are always embedded in group life. She works with the visible and invisible differences, the unconscious processes and the legacies of oppression which are both empowering and inhibiting the growth of the life force in women's collective. As a feminist she always seeks to focus the group work on the processes which oppress the human spirit in men and women and then collaborate with the group in lifting the oppressive energy off the system. Her current research interests lie in the areas of articulating a theory for the process of the all-female group and in following a 10-year action research leadership project with a large national community of women. She is also developing regional, national, cross cultural and cross-discipline teams of women working for social change in the USA and in India.
Bhanumathy Vasudevan (Bhanu) is a social scientist with education in Sociology, Applied Behavioral Science and Personnel Management. In 2001, she co-founded "Chamundi", a bi-national women's organization with Alexandra Merrill. That decade of work completed, she has renamed her company, Mayyam, and refocused on leadership work with women Dalit and Adivasi (indigenous) communities and consulting to not-for-profit organizations. Currently she is leading along with her colleague a five-year collaborative leadership program for women from multi-cultural backgrounds of class, caste, language, region, ethnicity and religion. Her bi-national work among women in U.S. and India has been steadily growing since 1991 in collaboration with 
Elizabeth (Beth) Wheeler, Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and Massage Therapist, has been working with women and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community for over 15 years. She specializes in working with trauma and how it manifests itself in the body, mind, spirit and emotions of a person and of a group. Beth has also had a private practice in massage and bodywork for the past 10 years utilizing a variety of techniques. She is currently integrating her bodywork and psychotherapy skills to provide more holistic and integrative therapy and education to both individuals and groups. Her areas of particular interest are cross-cultural group and systems level work with women and within the LGBT community.
Joy Srinivasan is a Managing Trustee and Chairperson of Makkala Jagriti (MJ) an NGO she founded in 2003 along with few other colleagues. She also works as a freelance consultant to organizations and an associate of many consulting organizations. She is an accredited Professional Member of Indian Society for Applied Behavioral Sciences (ISABS), and a graduate of five-year Women's Collaborative Leadership Development Program offered by Mayyam and Aikya, Bangalore and Weir Merrill Associates, U.S.A. She had worked in corporate sector for over 15 years and decided to give up her career in industry to pursue her path of working for the social movement. Makkala Jagriti focuses on issues of education and community development for the economically and emotionally challenged children and adults. MJ has evolved today under her leadership as a democratic and collaborative organization promoting and facilitating learning centers for children from economically disadvantaged communities, government homes for destitute and orphaned children with active participation of all stakeholders, she has involved herself with children & adults from economically disadvantaged backgrounds by helping them to continue their education, and has walked along with such children as they learned to unravel their strengths.