Thoughts from Cloughjordan: The Active Hope Spiral
The Spiral by Dori Midnight
While I was staying at Cloughjordan, I got to attend several workshops on Joanna Macy’s The Work that Reconnects Spiral. This is a journey of healing and change, rooted in the teachings of systems thinking, deep ecology, deep time, undoing oppression, and spiritual traditions. While I have been familiar with Joanna Macy’s work for a long time, I had never had the opportunity to participate in a Work that Reconnects event until I arrived at Cloughjordan. Over the course of four days, I attended workshops that guided me through the four different phases of the spiral: coming from gratitude, honoring our pain for the world, seeing with new eyes, and going forth. This was an incredible emotional process for me, and out of everything during my two months of research in intentional communities, I think this was the most powerful for me.
On the first day, we began with gratitude. I sat face-to-face with a stranger and listened to them speak about what they love, what makes them feel alive. The prompt was: “Something that makes me feel alive is…” We repeated the sentence, filling in our answers again and again for a few minutes while our partner just listened silently, without comment. Then we switched. It was incredible how quickly the gratitude came, how quickly I felt connected to the person sitting across from me, who had so many familiar human joys. With the constant cycle of bad news and a world that seems to be falling apart more every day, I was shocked by how much good I could still find around me. I also realized how rarely I have the chance to express myself fully and deeply without interruption or the expectation of conversation. Just sharing to share. To speak from joy, to be witnessed, without needing anything more than a listening ear. That in itself felt radical.
The second day of the Spiral was the most difficult and the most powerful for me. On this day, we honored our pain for the world. Our group sat in a circle with several natural objects placed in the center—a rock for fear, a stick for anger, a bowl for emptiness, leaves for grief, and a cloth for anything that didn’t have a name. The facilitators did an incredible job of creating a space where there was total comfort and safety between people who were still basically strangers. As a group, we hummed together to enter a ritual space, something outside the bounds of daily life, where we could safely express our pain for the world.
One by one, people were moved to go to the center, pick up an object, and speak whatever needed to be spoken in that moment. Whatever emotion needed a space to be held. The rest of us simply listened. When they finished, we all said together: We hear you. It was stunning how quickly the vulnerability came, how raw and honest people were willing to be. We sat there for hours, witnessing each other, holding space for emotions that often go unspoken. I cried for people I hadn’t shared a single conversation with because the pain they carried felt so familiar. It belonged to all of us.
At some point, I felt moved to speak. I didn’t know what I was going to say or which object I would choose. I just stood up and walked to the center. I picked up the dried leaves for grief and immediately dropped to my knees as I started to sob. The grief entered my body so fast and so powerfully, I could barely speak at first. I told the group that my brother had passed away unexpectedly just a few months earlier. I let myself cry and shared what I could. I let the grief move through me as honestly as it wanted to. The compassion and support from the circle hung around me like a blanket as I grieved, giving me the support I needed to feel fully.
Photo: Eric Maher
When I returned to my seat, the women around me, none of whom knew me, immediately reached for me. They opened their arms and wrapped me in blankets, held me as I cried. I’ve never felt such profound love and care from strangers. It was the most powerful thing I have done to process my grief. We so often push our pain down because it’s inconvenient, or uncomfortable, or too much. But in doing that, we isolate ourselves from each other. This experience reminded me that when we actually speak our pain and let others witness it, it doesn’t get bigger, it softens. We’re not meant to hold it alone.
The next day, we moved into the third stage: seeing with new eyes. We all lay together in a field as one of the facilitators told the story of our evolutionary journey. From single-celled organisms in primordial oceans to complex, breathing beings full of stories. I don’t think I had ever really let that sink in before, just how many things had to go right for us to even exist. How unlikely and miraculous it is to be alive in this exact moment. That after billions of years of stars exploding and cells dividing, I could be lying on the grass in Ireland, surrounded by other complex beings. How cool is that?
On the final day of the workshop, we gathered around a campfire to reflect on the last part of the Spiral: going forth. We were invited to think about what we felt called to do, and what was within our capacity to give. There was no pressure. Just a soft, collective wondering about what had changed in us and how that change might ripple outward. Even though I didn’t come up with a grand plan for everything that I was going to change in my life and in the world, I did have a sense of knowing. A sense that even if I don’t know exactly where I’m going, I know what matters to me. I know I want to move through the world with more presence, more compassion, and more listening to my human and non-human family.
The Spiral reminded me that even in the middle of pain and confusion and a world that feels like it's breaking, there’s still so much beauty. Still so much to be grateful for. Still so many ways to begin again. After engaging with the Work that Reconnects, I walked away with the feeling that I had more to do. I’ve been looking for The Works that Reconnects facilitator trainings, because I want to help other people experience this incredible work. I want to be a part of personal and planetary healing.
