Weaving our Intentions & Knowledges

Workshops

Weaving our Intentions and Knowledges Together

Date: March 2022

The same session was run on two different dates:

Co-Researchers:

1 person was at the first session. SP

3 people came to the second session. CI, EC, FMW

Location: The Flaggy Shore, The Burren Co. Clare

Duration: 2.5 hour Workshop

Purpose:

Group Building

Refining our common intentions and getting to know the skills and knowledges we each bring which may help us in our collective action.

Co-researchers are asked to bring an activist tool or knowledge that they use in their practice.

Method:

Creative eco-embodied praxis activities

Facilitator: Giselle

Praxis Workshop Structure:

This core workshop was organized into ... activities:

Co-Researchers meet and greet, Individual reflection and share-back
People explore their visions and intentions and discuss the activist tool they brought with them. together through an embodied eco-art activity.
Tea and food
Sharing outcomes from activity and
The group reflects on this activity and what thoughts or feelings it generated for them.
Individual workshop evaluation and share back. Benefits (usefulness), challenge's of the process. Next steps.

This was a 2.5 hour workshop but could be expanded into a longer workshop, or series of workshops, depending on the context.

In this workshop we wove our intentions and activist knowledge's together in a series of short creative eco-embodied activities to inform future workshops and actions.

This workshop was designed using a combination of themes and suggestions made in the ‘goin back to go forward’ workshop and follow-up emails sent to co-researcher after that workshop. In particular group building, playfulness, nature and creativity connection, the really useful questions that emerged, and weaving intentions together to inform our direction.

The aim was to gain more clarity around the co-researcher’s common motivations and needs within the research context and to signpost us towards a practice purpose for research actions. To do this, the workshop was enacted in two parts, weaving our knowledge together, and weaving our intentions together. In the first part, a toolbox of shared skills was created by inviting co-researchers to bring some tools from their own activist practices to the workshop.

Co-researchers in attendance discussed their tools of preference and arranged them as a small eco-art pieces, photographically documented. The tools encompassed gardening books, Red Rebel costumes, a facilitation process tool called FIST, buddhist prayer flags, ideas of pilgrimage, such as, Kora, collective walking and zine making and distribution and martial arts practices that promote body care in public activism work.

This was a notable session in that a number of creative actions and workshop ideas started to germinate at this point and the roots of the Red Rebel Action, climate camp and zine workshops and zine, and Samhain: Ritual Action For Change workshop can be seen in this session, as well as the 'Love and Power' postcard tool.

This workshop was run twice on different dates to accommodate peoples varying availability.

The key reasons people listed in reflection sheets as to why they came back to this workshop were:

· Collective Action
· Group Work
· Refining Intentions and common purpose
· Relationship Building
· Connect with people with similar concerns.
· Not be flaky, made a commitment.
· See what happens.
Reconnect with art

Weaving our Intentions and Knowledges together, first date:

SP attended the first session, and was the only co-researcher in attendance due to late cancellations.

SP brought her Red Rebel costume which they use for protests, and gardening books which represent their biodiversity and food producing garden practice.

The Red Rebel Brigade are an international performance artivist troupe dedicated to ‘illuminating the global environmental crisis and supporting groups and organisations fighting to save humanity and all species from mass extinction’ (Red-Rebel-Brigade, 2022). The non-violent practice was devised for the Extinction Rebellion Spring uprising April 2019 in London by Doug Francisco and Justine Squire from Bristol’s Invisible Circus.

Red Rebels Clare | Facebook

Red Rebel Brigade - Red Rebel Brigade

Book: The Garden Awakening – Designs to Nurture Our Land and Ourselves | Mary Reynolds - Reformed Landscape Designer (marymary.ie)

The Farmer’s Almanac

*SPs red rebel costume and practice was part the reason that a Red Rebel Action was proposed and designed, thought it did not go ahead in the end.

The eco-art action 'Gra' highlighted love as the common motivation linking from the last session for doing this work. We also reflected on the value of today's workshop as a stand alone session and as a way to inform the next session.

SP went on to create a piece of eco art based on this activity and what feels important to her to bring about change.

SP s : Poetry from the notebook page photographed above.

Weaving,

bringing hope amongst despair.

feeling the soul, being kind

reflecting on what has been and what will be,

each small action reflects with everyone’s small actions and become something tangible.

Like the ebb and flow of the tide breathing feeling being we must have hope,

keep trying what will be will be it’s not flippant, it is acceptance.

the longevity of all these conscious actions and words and songs we sing is powerful.

it is all for a reason however hard that is - acceptance that some things are to be.

Back to the beginning hope amongst despair-I contradict myself open to all possibilities -keep at it.

Su writes a poem as her way to reflect on the workshop. Though she worked alone in this instance, she feels that even with one its empowering, who’s here is here, and goes on to say later writes that each small action reflects with everyone’s small actions and become something tangible.

As we walked back to the car park together we discussed the aims of the project and how to use art to raise awareness. She suggested an art piece that could be put in a window in a shop in town. I agreed, and also highlighted that she had created some small pieces of eco-art in the workshop today and the images could be shared, for instance, on social media. She also asked about what the agenda of the research was, and that it was to work with the agenda of the group, which was still forming through our workshop practice.

Weaving our Intentions and Knowledges together, second date: CI and FMW in attendance. EC attends second half of session.

CI brought a tool called FIST from their youth work citizen participation practice. FIST is an acronym for; Feelings (what feelings are coming to you), Images (what images are coming to your mind), Senses (what is happening in your body – taste, smell, touch, sound), Thoughts (what thoughts are coming to mind). They use this in their active citizenship and youth work practice to bring grounded and embodied awareness to people in the group. In this way people come to understand what they are feeling and how this shapes our thinking.

FMW brought Buddhist prayer flag and expressed the sadness and frustration that they sometimes feels because some activists do not consider spirituality as an important part of activism.

*Fiona Mae carried this theme of wanting to bring a spiritual practice to activism through the project and went on to co-develop the Samhain: Ritual Action For Change workshop.

Second half of Session

EC joined for the second half of the session and talked about their experience of using collective walking and zines as activist tools with
the Feminist Walking Tour of Dublin (see image across).
We also explored some really useful questions generated in previous workshops e.g. How do we claim power? How can we link up? Is this Strategic? Where can we intervene?

This led the group to discuss pilgrimage and embodied practice ideas
as activism and after tea we went down onto the beach to explore these
idea experientially, and see where that would lead us. See images below.

*EC went onto propose a creative action at Climate Camp Ireland 2022
and co-developed the climate camp workshops and zine workshops.

This led to the climate camp community co-producing a climate camp zine for 2022.

*FMW went on to propose Samhain: Ritual Action For Change workshop and a red rebel action

Walking as processing feeling and connection, play, as mindful practice, creating awareness.

A Red Rebel walk was suggested and the use of particular movements. The importance of protecting ourselves when working in public was highlighted. This creative action could present opportunities for costume, banner, zine making, digital media, performance, poetry and linking up with other groups. and martial arts movements which embody the notion of love and power Paul Lindon* love and Power Postcardhttps://www.being-in-movement.com/

Other Walks mentioned:

The Tree Walk

Famine Walk – Afri, Action from Ireland, Afri 30th Anniversary of the Famine Walk - YouTube

Temporary, naturally formed art ready for dissolution. wishing wall made from gathering (sticks twigs leaves et cetera) gathering together silent in group connecting to nature doing no harm or interference making shrine alter and a pathway to walk around Kora-temporary nature - will dissolve. Love is a big theme in the project

The value of embodiment, moving and breathing on the earth trusting the group process and trusting going on a path. Ideas can come together from each person and from the collective action or collectively designed art piece and be woven together successfully.

each small action reflects with everyone’s small actions and become something tangible

'we make the road by walking'

As we created our eco-art action using our collective intentions, bodies, and the ecology around us, the notion of 'we make the road by walking' was mentioned. The saying originates from the poem "se hace camino al andar".

However, in radical adult education circles Myles Horton and Paulo Freire (1990) used this phrase to describe their activist adult education stance (Tisdel, 2013) and co wrote a book titled 'we make the road by walking: conversations on education and social change'. The phase represents here the idea of learning though doing activism work together, and learning though our ongoing experiences of learning together, with each step taken informing the next step. In the book Horton and Freire discuss the nature of social change and empowerment and their individual literacy campaigns. The themes they discuss illuminate problems faced by educators and activists around the world who are concerned with linking participatory education to the practice of liberation and social change (goodread.com, 2022). The emergence of the concept into our eco-art action created a powerful link between the radical, cultural and spiritual practices we were exploring.

We make the road by walking : conversations on education and social change : Horton, Myles, 1905-1990 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

https://codkashacabka.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/we-make-the-road-by-walking-myles-and-paolo-freie-book.pdf Read

Elizabeth J. Tisdell also used walking in pilgrimage as a method of research on transformative learning. As spirituality was a strong theme from this workshop, I've included an extract on pilgrimage and transformation from her paper

We Make the Way by Walking: Spiritual Pilgrimage and Transformative Learning While Walking the Camino De Santiago (newprairiepress.org). Numerous writers have described spirituality as a journey toward wholeness, or a journey toward wisdom (as summarized by Tisdell, 2003) using the idea of journey in its more metaphorical sense. But Kottler (1998) suggests that many adults also attempt to facilitate their own transformation and spiritual development through travel, while others do so by going on a spiritual pilgrimage. A spiritual pilgrimage can be either a metaphorical spiritual journey or actual travel to sacred sites (Cousineau, 1998), and in anthropology, Morinis (1992) discusses different types of pilgrimage, all of which involve a journey and a goal, where a part of the goal is movement along the journey itself from the familiar to something other, until this new other becomes integrated into a new sense of self. This sense of movement is reminiscent of the phrase “we make the way by walking”Tsdell, 2013. p3) . “Blessed are the peace-makers,” particularly Neil Douglas-Klotz’s (1990) midrash of “Blessed are they who plant peace in every step” brought to mind the peaceful ethos of the Red Rebels in our workshop.Intersectional-Eco Feminism and Spirituality..more to come.

Key Takeaways From the Sessions

Benefits

Co-researchers’ key takeaways from the session were

A sense of community
That Ideas come together from each person and from the collective action or collectively designed art piece and can be woven together successfully.
The value of embodiment, moving and breathing on the earth trusting the group process and trusting going on a path.
Walking as processing feeling and connection, play, as mindful practice but also creating awareness.
Small actions are powerful and add to the whole and become tangible
Who's here is here
Learning, Sharing Knowledge and Experiences

Key Generative Themes From the Sessions

Agency
We grapple with a range of emotions and contradictions:
Acceptance, Contradictions, Hope, Despair, Possibility
Desire for sensory experiences, embodiment
Common visions, conscious Action
Need more Love in the world, community, connection, play, creating awareness (recurring themes0.