Live Group Training Programme via Zoom

Beyond a workshop or course ~
Learn by real-life application of knowledge!

 

Do you want to cultivate the awareness and skills for co-creating the beautiful world you know is possible?

Develop readiness for composting structures of domination and authoritarianism ~
and birthing structures of collaboration and sacred leadership

Apply to join our experiential programme!

~ Starts Sunday June 30th 2024 ~
5pm - 7.30pm BST / 12pm - 2.30pm EST / 6pm - 8.30pm CEST
 ~ Limited Places ~

** The first run of the programme has now commenced. Please Sign Up to Our Newsletter for Announcement of Future Runs inshaAllah**

 

This transformative leadership programme is for those who desire a shift in the world from dysfunctional, patriarchal, structures that we have habituated to and unconsciously perpetuate, to a world where regenerative ways of organising, relating and leadership are commonplace. 

It is for those who are called to learn and awaken the necessary practises, awareness and skills to help facilitate this collective shift.

The collective need is a new paradigm - one of collaboration - as the current paradigm of domination is unsustainable, degenerative and at the heart of the global polycrisis. The mainstream societal structures holding this paradigm are showing their cracks, and collapse is inevitable. We need wholesome alternatives to turn to. 

This programme will be a space for teachings, learnings, experimentation and magical discoveries...

Beyond the Workshop Paradigm

In this unique initiative, we go beyond the workshop paradigm, to learn conscious, collaborative ways of organising and decision-making through direct participation.

While a single workshop can open our minds, deeper embedded learning comes through real-life application over a period of time - not just through solitary, one-off workshops or a short course.

Thus, this initiative offers you applied learning that will help you not only develop core awareness and skills for co-creating a just world - it will also help integrate that awareness and those skills into your being, nervous system, and body - so you can more instinctively apply your learnings in other spaces and other areas of your life.



“Relationships change us, reveal us, evoke more from us. Only when we join with others do our gifts become visible, even to ourselves”

~ Margaret Wheatley & Myron Kellner Rogers

 

Developing Key Awareness and Skills

More and more people, including Muslims, are looking at growing or setting up alternative communities, whether land-based, or in towns or cities. We know from years of exploration and conversations - in the Permaculture movement, Muslim groups, Transition towns, Intentional and Co-housing communities - that the challenges go beyond having the right land-based skills.

It is the people-based stuff that is one of the most challenging, yet marginalised, aspects of any community project. Yet when this is approached with awareness, patience and skill, it offers the possibility of beautiful experiences of connection, co-creation, meaning and belonging.



“Practise stepping for a moment or two into another person’s shoes, and see the world as they see it. This way you bring about change. This way you’ll be a change-maker.”

~ Scilla Elworthy

 

Transforming Conditioning

As a result of our individual wounds, collective conditioning, and traumas through our daily existence in patriarchal, dominating structures, many of us are in the very early stages of knowing “how to do it differently”. Indeed, many groups and NGO’s focussing on a ‘just cause’ are unconsciously perpetuating those very structures and processes of domination that are part of the problem.

Through this initiative, you will see possible solutions in flow, and reflective questions evoked when solutions appear out of reach. We will be grappling towards a collaborative paradigm of relating for which there are few examples.

You will be supported to consciously embrace discomfort as we move beyond our edges. Without this kind of deeper work, any change will be superficial and will lack integration.

We will each also receive loving, honest feedback from one another, and will become more aware of our habitual patterns and conditioning, enabling them to loosen. Our growth will additionally be nurtured through compassionate listening, organising, and taking action together.


“If you’re always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be”

~ Maya Angelou

 

Collaborate Meaningfully on a Shared Project

Within the parameters of WiN’s vision and aims, you will pinpoint a focus and organise as a small team of 5-7 participants to deliver an initiative related to collaborative organising and conscious group work. You will be supported by a trainer.

There will be clear aims and processes to guide us. There will be short teaching sessions, both formal and on the go. We won’t have all the answers as we each remain open to new learnings.

We will hold the space through our openness, willingness to be vulnerable, and active participation. We will be supporting one another to evolve and be transformed in ways that may even surprise us.

We will be intentionally co-creating alternatives to the typically top-down paradigm within Muslim and other cultures, with conscious use of and delegation of power as we collaborate together.

By participating, you will gain rare skills you can take forward - whether for grassroot organising, cooperatives, intentional eco-communities, spiritual group, and so forth. You will learn skills you can apply in your unique areas of influence, now and in the future!

Examples of Projects: There are numerous options including an online public event, a recorded event or resource to offer more widely, an in-person event if participants are all in sufficient proximity, and other possibilities. We will say more on this in due course, and the project does not have to be big. A small project may even be a more effective stimulus for practising skills and developing more integrated awareness that you will be able to take forward.


“Building community is to the collective as spiritual practise is to the individual”

~ Grace Lee Boggs

 


The Scent of Sacredness

In this fast paced world where domination and individualism tends to be a norm, we may be habituated to bypass the richness of relating intentionally to one another in collaborations. Yet there is a sacred quality when we listen deeply, and the wisdom of our diverse experiences is drawn out.

There is a breath-taking beauty when we co-create with patience (sabr) in service to a greater purpose. The work takes us far beyond meetings that simply go through motions, instead into a space that engages with soul.

There is a creative beauty in the process of a community working with curiosity, aliveness and the willingness to step into the unknown, as it co-organises, integrates perspectives, and works towards collective decisions. Even seemingly mundane tasks, when done with reverence have a depth and meaning that warms the heart. There is a sacred quality in the collective decisions we arrive at, and in the responsibilities and actions we take with ihsan (excellence, beauty) as we bring those decisions to life.

In this learning journey of Sacred Collaborative Leadership we will be giving value to our presence together. We won’t be perfect. We will stumble and fall forwards into greater understanding as we relate within the scent of sacredness, both in what we achieve together and the process of how we get there.

We will also draw in aspects of the Engaged Surrender foundational strand to WiN’s Five Strand Activism Model.


Key named principles of Engaged Surrender include:

  • Center Process and Not Knowing

  • Process Conflict and Tensions

  • Value Spaciousness and Contemplation

  • Apply Congruence between Word and Action




“Meaningful conversations have the potential not only to transform human relationships, but to transform human consciousness”

~ Kosha Anja Joubert

 


Be Enriched: A Powerful Blend of Approaches

  • We will draw on WiN’s learnings over the many years we have been intentionally applying and refining our work on the ground.

Specific approaches we may draw on include:

  • (Embodied) Sociocracy: Consent-based decision-making with principles for dynamic governance, distributing power and accountability. Our approach will inhabit an intentional embodied quality to sociocracy.

  • Social Permaculture: Holistic nature- based design applied for groups/communities

  • Process Work: Working with awareness of rank and power, while embracing tensions

  • Consensus Decision-Making: Through creatively drawing out the wisdom of the group

  • Nonviolent Communication: Life-affirming communication principles that value everyone’s needs, with a systemic lens

  • Embodied Practises: To connect with the wisdom of our bodies and felt experiences

 

This diversity of approaches helps cater for a range of situations we will encounter, and cultivates an experience that is both practical and transformational.

At the same time, the course is within a spirit of openness to new learnings, experimentation and further evolution and refinement as we travel forwards.

 

"Far better and more lasting is what God will give to those who believe and trust in their Lord; who shun great sins and gross indecencies...; conduct their affairs by mutual consultation."

Qur' an: 42:36-38

 

Who this training is for?

  • You may be interested in learning foundational ‘people’ skills for forming an eco- or intentional community.

  • You may be interested in applying more effective ‘people’ skills for permaculture or land-based projects

  • You may be a therapist, healer or coach, looking to build collaborative structures and processes with colleagues

  • You are keen to apply alternatives to top-down ways of working, through processes that integrate shared power

  • You may be Muslim or lean towards Islam (You may be involved, or not, with a mosque, organisation, or place of worship).

  • You may not identify as Muslim but appreciate the value of this learning journey. You understand it will prioritise Islamic spirituality and the experience of Muslims (along with occasional space to include perspectives outside of this).

  • You may be in a spiritual or Sufi community open to less hierarchical ways of decision-making and governance

  • You may be anarchist-leaning keen to embody more conscious ways of co-organising together

This first run of the programme will be limited to seven participants

 

“Simple majoritarianism can easily lead to populism, which in turn might lead to fascism and the oppression of ethnic, religious and sexual minorities, women, the poor, and the socially marginalised.”

~ Abdullah Öcalan,

 

Some Qualities you will experience through participating

  • Emergent processes within a supportive structure

  • Group feedback processes: Multi-directional, gentle feedback for a growthful experience as we travel and evolve together

  • Empowerment through distribution of power: through clearly defined roles integrated with feedback mechanisms

  • The power of Accountability: Experience the power of gentle accountability as you co-organise

 

“I think the world would function extremely well with millions of little cooperative groups, all in relation to each other”

~ Bill Mollison

 

Outcomes

  • Learn and experience facilitation tools that draw out the wisdom of the group

  • Learn and experience how a group can self-govern more wholesomely

  • Deliver a small shared project related to the programme content, using the processes you learn

  • Practise deconditioning from mainstream patriarchal patterns, and moving into patterns centering responsibility, accountability and having a voice that counts

  • Experience what a group feels like that functions with less hierarchy and greater equivalence

  • Learn and apply tools for a group to reach an agreement even when everyone has a different position: Going beyond the ‘boss’ and loudest voice wins paradigm

  • There may also be the opportunity of continuing your journey through a pathway leading to being part of the WiN team. This pathway will support your continued growth of skills and awareness in the company of fellow travellers. It will additionally support the emergence of intentional and transformative change-making initiatives and community engagement.

 
 

 

Course Trainers

Muzammal Hussain (Project Co-ordinator)

It was over twenty year ago when Muzammal first experienced the deep connection and creative power of collaborative decision making, shortly after initiating Wisdom In Nature (WiN). Since then he has been passionately learning, applying and refining group processes in the context of change-making and shared power especially in small groups.

Muzammal is also an experienced Permaculture Designer specialising particularly in social permaculture and organisational change. He designed and delivered perhaps the first Islam and Permaculture course anywhere in the world in 2010, and more recently produced an Islam and Permaculture Online Anytime 10-hour Starter Course.

He has also completed numerous training and applications in group work, community building and conflict transformation, including intensives in Process Work and World Work. Muzammal has also completed the 10-week Sociocracy Leadership Training with Sociocracy for All, focusing on the practical application of dynamic governance, distribution of power, accountability, and consent decision making. More recently, he has engaged in Non Violent Communication (NVC) training and practise especially through the Nonviolent Global Liberation Community.

He has advised a range of organisations, such as mainstream NGO's as well as radical cooperatives, and is a Board member of Peace News.

Muzammal is also a qualified medical doctor and has worked in NHS psychiatry over more than 13 years in both in-patient and community mental health settings. Additionally, he brings the sensitivity and skill of an experienced Emotional Breakthrough Healing Therapist, with 20 years experience helping clients meet and process anxiety, mood and trauma experiences. He is author of the E-Book, Radical Healing, Wholeness and Islam.

 

Potential Guest Sessions (tbc)

 

Mohamad Chakaki

Session title: Unpacking Hierarchy in Our Islamic Cosmological Inheritance

The popular children's book A is for Activist has this to say for the letter K – "Kings are fine for story time and knights are fun to play, but when we make decisions we choose the people's way."

It is an uncontroversial statement that the Islamic cosmological tradition is a hierarchical one. Indeed, the tropes of kings and knights abound in this storied literary and spiritual tradition.

What room is there for a more egalitarian reinterpretation? What insights might metaphor, musicality, and embodiment offer into alternative ways of knowing and being in an Islamic cosmos?

These aren't abstract, academic questions. They shape and can reshape our approach to activism, ethics, and ecology. Everything in the world sings Allah's praises. What is our role in that symphony?

About Mohamed: Mohamad grew up playing in the sand and surf on both sides of the Arabian Peninsula, and then on the edges of eastern forests and city streets in the Washington, DC area. His interests lie at the intersection of cities & nature, art & science, East & West and so on.

Mohamad's teaching, coaching, and facilitation focus on strengthening internal capacity to meet the complexity and uncertainty of our current social and ecological challenges with a clear-eyed, creative, and compassionate response that connects mind and heart.

Mohamad is a PhD student in Transdisciplinary Leadership for Creativity and Sustainability at the University of Vermont, a Senior Fellow and coach at the Environmental Leadership Program, and an affiliated trainer and mentor with Coaching for Healing, Justice, and Liberation.

 

Jo Taylor

Session title: ‘Regaining Hope - What we can learn from a truly Democratic, Women-led Revolution in the Middle East’

Jo Taylor has been active in grass-roots political, feminist, ecological, community and internationalist solidarity organising for over 17 years. She works for the Solidarity Economy Association, a small worker-led cooperative working to build up the solidarity economy from below in England, Scotland and Wales as an alternative to capitalism. She co-ordinates their Co-operation in Mesopotamia project, building international solidarity with the Rojava Revolution in North and East Syria, and has visited this region and other parts of Kurdistan on a number of occasions.

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Participant Quotes on our Our Previous Leadership Training


“There are different types of leadership programmes. There are those that teach how best to navigate the current systems, then there are those which seek to help transform those systems. Wisdom in Nature is definitely the latter.

I sensed what I learned could be applied in a range of different situations – political, organisational, personal – but each time toward the longer-term goal of a more socially just society.

I wish to thank them for an enjoyable but also highly thought-provoking time.”

~ Martyn Rush, DPhil Candidate, Oxford




"I really benefited from the unique approach towards conflict resolution that was outlined in the Wisdom in Nature [training].

[The Course Leaders] encouraged us to embrace and discuss tensions that usually went unspoken, and this state of vulnerability brought out the most interesting discussions and fulfilling resolutions.”

~ Hibba M

 

Commitment and Expectations

Dates: Sunday 30th June 2024 to end of October 2024
Time: 5pm - 7.30pm BST (UK summer time) / 12pm - 2.30pm EST / 6pm - 8.30pm CEST on Sundays

Dates (Guest sessions may be yet to be arranged):
June: Sun 30th
July: Sun 7th, Sun 21st, (Sun 28th: possible guest session)
August: Sun 4th, Sun 18th
Sept: Sun 1st, Sun 8th, Sun 22nd,
October: Sun 6th, Sun 13th
(While there may be no formal sessions, the second half of October will be available, if needed, to complete any project)

  • Four month commitment

  • Regular zoom gatherings (2.5-hour): Calls are weekly or fortnightly. Day/times: 5pm-7.30pm UK time on Sundays:
    Typically 50 mins - 1 hour teaching; then 1.5 hour applied sessions. In the applied sessions, participants practise and apply learnings through meeting as a circle, and collaborate on their project, with trainer support

  • Occasional Guest Input: Possibly as additional (optional) sessions (it may not be possible for these to be on the same day/time)

  • Participants deliver short sessions: Opportunity to share experience or knowledge where this might enrich the group

  • Some preparatory work between sessions: approx between 1 to 3 hours a week, on average: for collaborating together; possibly videos / reading

  • Unlearning and deconditioning: Recognise we each hold conditioning from the dominant paradigm. Unlearning, and opening to new ways requires us to each face our own discomfort. We need to be willing to face, feel and process inner tensions. This can be assisted by conscious, supportive group work.

  • Recognise that this is a pilot project: it will evolve and mature through feedback mechanisms built in. Some details will adapt and may evolve according to what arises, and what is needed as we travel together in the context of the overarching aim.

Please note and check you are okay that during programme calls, we may record or take a screenshot for our platforms, to illustrate a flavour of the programme to potential future participants. (If a video recording, we will not share publically unless we have your specific consent).

 

Exchange/Fee

The anticipated minimum we aim to raise to deliver the first run of this programme is £3.5K British pounds. You are free to choose the amount you pay, with a minimum of £250 (unless agreed otherwise). Or on the other end you may decide to give £1K or more. We ask that you choose an amount that gives a sense of felt commitment and feels like a stretch (without feeling overstretched).

On this first run, the programme will be limited to between five and seven participants. Please do not assume the amount to pay as a participant would be an equal fraction of the total minimum we wish to raise - everyone’s needs and capacities are different. Thus, please use the principles described in this section. If we at WiN gain more than the minimum, we will invest it into our further work.

We also want it to be an amount you can give without feeling resentment. The amount may be less or more than what this course may cost if there was a fixed fee. We want to offer this course in a spirit whereby the exchange resonates with your heart - knowing that those who give less will be supported by those who give more, and the needs of the course providers to invest in their own support and who have inputted far more work than is visible will also be met. There are also finances needed for platforms and tech aspects, as well as cushioning for unanticipated costs. Where you are financially able, we ask you to consider an amount that might also help this work grow beyond this round, if you feel such a resonance.

We very much welcome those from less financially privileged backgrounds. If you do not have the capacity to gift the minimum option, then please contact us. The important factor is that

  • this programme excites you

  • you appreciate the value of this sacred collaborative work

  • you have a commitment to participate as fully as possible, and

  • you are willing to embrace your ‘edges’, face discomfort.. and grow with others.

At the same time, anyone who wants to support our work is invited to give if they have capacity, whether or not they participate in the programme. You can gift our work here.

We have a basic set of terms and conditions for the SCL programme here.

 

“Decide what is sacred to you, and put your best life energies at its service. Make that the focus of your studies, your work, the test for your pleasures and your relationships. Don’t ever let fear or craving for security turn you aside”

~ Starhawk

 

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A little bit about WiN

Impactful history: Wisdom In Nature was established in 2004 originally called ‘The London Islamic Network for the Environment’ (LINE). LINE made a strong impact in a short space of time, and without ever applying for any external funding.

Over the years WIN has engaged through a range of ways: monthly forums, mobilising for demonstrations, land-based projects, art initiatives, skill-sharing, resource cycling, reflections through the Qur’an, and numerous multi-faith events. It’s focus has crystallised around trainings and transformative experiences.

WiN has collaborated with dozens of organisations and also gained media coverage from local newspapers to TV, and The Guardian newspaper covered our iconic stunt on Brick Lane.

WiN’s approach is holistic - knitting together the relationship between issues, rather than being reductionist.

Meeting the revolutionary Zapatistas: WiN was also honoured to have been amongst a handful of grassroots groups and the only Islamic one, that in early November 2021 - had the honour of a full-day private meeting with a group of six revolutionary peasants, the Zapatistas, from Southern Mexico. We share our experience here.
We have also hosted an online forum on Islam and Anarchism.

According to a researcher who studied Islamic ecology groups both in the UK and in the States, she wrote: “…the UK group Wisdom in Nature offered the most sophisticated solution. They argued for transformative structural change that put justice, equality, “deep democracy,” and sustainability at the heart of a new world..." and another researcher wrote “perhaps the most promising example of sustainability in the Muslim community in the UK, in terms of tying together the political, economic and cultural challenge… is Wisdom in Nature… aimed at changing the way not just nature is conceived, but the way political decisions are made and how community activism is done.”

 

Apply to Join the Programme!

Update (July 2024) ** The first run of the programme has now commenced. Please Sign Up to Our Newsletter at the Footer of this page for Announcement of Future Runs inshaAllah**

Update (7/6/24): We have now had as many applications as places with most places having been confirmed. We are now operating a wait-list.

Please complete the short form to be included on the wait-list.

(You may also like to subscribe to our newsletter at the footer of this page)

 
 

Please complete this form if you wish to apply for a place. We will also typically arrange an informal chat where we can also discuss if it feels like a good fit for both of us.

Note: Please also keep an eye on your junk folder as well as inbox, in case due to circumstances beyond our control, any reply from us lands there.

 
 
Header Image is by skeeze from Pixabay - Used with gratitude