With Miki Kashtan

Sundays, 10 Jan 2027 – 28 Feb 2027

16:30 - 18:30 Central European Time (CET)

7:30 - 9:30 a.m. Pacific  Time (PT)
(find your local time here*)
(*if this time doesn't work for you, see the "Session Times, Recordings & Watch Party" section below)

None of us know whether any action any of us takes will be enough to turn around the unraveling of our societies. Still, our individual and collective longings and our care for all life have been propelling more of us around the world to choose to participate in activism. 

The focus of this course is on supporting those of us who are working for this kind of transformation to be able to do it without recreating the very thing we want to transform. This is a tall order, since all of us live in a world functioning in scarcity, separation, and powerlessness, which are tragically internalized within us and not just “out there”. In the absence of modeling, support, and capacity, we are then more than likely to resort to the very mechanisms we stand up to in other moments, such as attempting to control what is happening, protective ways of being which deepen separation, pervasive mistrust, and punitive measures in response to conflict.

And if you wonder about whether what you are doing “counts” as activism, here are some examples of what it could mean, beyond the usual meaning of participating in protests, demonstrations, or direct action:

• Working within communities to empower community members

• Working, as parents, with teachers and administrators to align school practices with the needs of children and teachers

• Leading organizations in transitioning to distributed and collaborative leadership or needs-based approaches to resources

• Working across the globe to subvert the “development” paradigm and support local communities to restore their indigenous practices

And if you are still unsure, you are welcome to sign up for the first session (without any commitment!) to see if this course is for you. 

Session 1 – Jan 10: What’s ours to do? From opposition to vision, mourning, and action 

The purpose of this session is to lay the foundations of how we can keep both our eyes and our hearts open when we engage with what is happening around us and beyond. Whether we do it individually or collectively, the shift from opposition to vision gives us energy and inspiration because we know where we are going and why we want to go there. Vision alone, though, can become a form of bypass, a protective shield to keep us from taking in just how big the gap is. For that, we need to also mourn the gap between where we are and where the vision is. Again, mourning alone can easily lead to despair. In addition to vision and mourning, action is essential to give us a sense of movement and efficacy. Action without vision and mourning is common and can easily lead to control or urgency. Integrating vision, mourning, and action supports us in remaining fully human. Our last step is to sense into what is ours to do so as to stay within capacity and integrity. 

Session 2 – Jan 17: The Great Turning: the three building blocks of nonviolent activism

Joanna Macy popularized the idea of “The Great Turning” as a possibility instead of going down the route of “The Great Unraveling” which is already happening. She includes within her framing three pathways: consciousness transformation, creating structural alternatives, and holding actions, which are similar to Gandhi’s self-purification, constructive program, and nonviolent resistance. The focus of this session is to look closely at what each of these includes and how to relate each of these to the other two, so that our consciousness transformation includes placing ourselves within a systemic context; we create alternatives which are a conscious embodiment of being part of a larger whole; and our direct action projects are grounded in vision. In addition, understanding how these activities relate to and subvert the ways that social orders reproduce themselves can also support us in growing precision about choosing what is ours to do. 

Session 3 – Jan 24: Consciousness transformation: nonviolence as courage, truth, and love

This session is intended to be a deep and short dive into three intertwined elements. One is the focus on liberating ourselves from patriarchal socialization to restore our full shared humanity as choice, togetherness, and flow. One is the focus on leadership as caring for the whole in interdependent relationships with others, even if they don’t also orient in that way. And one is the spiritual and practical commitment to nonviolence in thought, word, and action. A deep question runs through this entire session as well as the overall course, which is about the relationship between personal change and social change and how to know how much to focus on liberation and how much to focus on doing what is ours to do beyond ourselves. 

Session 4 – Jan 31: Creating alternatives: what constructive program can mean for our times

Once we start looking into what it might mean to create the seeds of a future social order even within an unraveling one, there is no apparent end to where we might focus. Whatever group, movement, community, or organization we are part of, a host of questions arise in relation to aligning how we function with the vision we are working towards. This includes how we make decisions; how we integrate the mind-body split in how we relate to manual and mental work; how we support women’s leadership; how we engage with age-old social divisions in ways that point to a manner of living in which social divisions no longer exist; how we relate to children as part of disrupting the reproduction of the social order; how we shift from individual to interdependent living and restore the commons; how we shift into needs-based systems starting with our own collective functioning; and others which arise once we give this area focused attention. 

Session 5 – Feb 7: Standing up to patriarchy: how to make nonviolent resistance nonviolent

Given where we are as a species, and even as we can’t know what if anything will work to bring about the great turning, it’s unlikely that enough of us will come together fast enough to create alternatives to the social order if we don’t also engage in what Joanna Macy called “holding actions” to slow down the harm while we gather capacity. Both she and Gandhi knew that such actions are not likely to bring about what we want and that they are nonetheless necessary. The purpose of this session is to look closely at what nonviolence means when we are engaging in resistance: What does it take for nonviolence to be integrated into our minds and hearts deeply enough that we remember the humanity of those whose actions we are trying to change? How do we care for the stringent criteria about distinguishing nonviolent from violent use of force? How do we invite creativity so that our actions look like vision implementation rather than symbolic protests?  

Session 6 – Feb 14: Personal power and natural authority

Whatever path we take in our activism, we are likely to do it with other people, which means we will likely form movements, communities, or organizations where the topic of power is likely to arise. The premise of this session is an understanding of power as the capacity to mobilize resources to attend to needs. The focus is on exploring two key elements related to power within patriarchal societies. One is about the shift from internal to external resources as the source of power within such societies and the other is the shift from using power with others to using power over others which power based on external resources makes easier. From there, we can take on, within whatever group we are part of, the immense task of leaning, again, on internal resources so we can regain our capacity to care for our needs within caring for the whole, and to entrust what matters to us to where natural authority exists within our group. In this way we can restore our evolutionary capacity for solving problems collaboratively, so we can move from either/or frames such as top-down vs. horiztonalism into collaborative, distributed leadership.  

Session 7 – Feb 21: Power, privilege, and liberation for all

The focus of this session is on one of the most charged and challenging areas within any activism which takes place at this time: how to engage with the intensity of separation that arises from social divisions – and to do it in a way that aligns with vision. This includes a profound shift from the pervasive focus on anti-oppression to looking at what is needed to focus on liberation for all. This shift has far-reaching implications for everything we do: how we engage with our own liberation and support each other’s liberation; how we build organizations, communities, and movements which are islands of vision in this area as well as others; and how we relate to each other across the globe in the face of the unspeakably tragic legacy of thousands of years of patriarchy which intensified in the last several hundred years with capitalism and colonialism. At the heart of this shift is an understanding that we are one interdependent web of relationships and we need each other, even when major impacts exist, in order to liberate ourselves individually and collectively for whatever comes next for humans. 

Session 8 – Feb 28: Dialogue across divergences

The focus of this last session is on another complex topic which is how to engage with each other across divergences instead of establishing walls of protection in relation to those who disagree with our perspective. The vision that is the foundation for this session is of having everyone freely choosing their views and finding pathways for bridging across them. Committing to this vision invites us to recognize that the desire to convince others or even impose our views on anyone is rooted within the habit of control and reproduces what it seeks to change. Instead, identifying our reactions to views which really challenge us and learning to distinguish between disagreement and lack of care and between needs and the strategies we choose to attend to them supports us in finding capacity and willingness to engage. From there, as we learn to understand deeply what is important to us and what is important to those with whom we disagree vehemently, we can move towards integrative solutions to the most difficult political differences of our day.

Gift Economy

We are offering this course entirely as a gift! We never charge for anything we offer.  At the same time, we completely depend on financial gifts given to us freely to sustain our capacity to do what we do and continue to offer what is ours to offer.  We provide much more detail about all this in the registration form. 

Ideally, you would think through for yourself how much makes sense for you to give  us, and we are well aware that this is often a difficult task for people who are not used to the gift economy. 

Any step you take outside of considerations of "market value" will support a gradual shift towards needs-based distribution of resources. Which direction will this stretch you toward: Giving more than you imagine such a course would otherwise "cost" (generosity) or giving less than that amount (receptivity)?

This is the first course we are offering entirely on our own, without any outreach support from the NVC Academy. Overall, our sense is to ask for about $25,000 to come to us through this course, and, as always, we release into mystery about what will actually come.  

We want to repeat: we take genuine pleasure in knowing that many people who do not have the means to give us gifts are regularly attending our offerings – usually about half the people don't give anything. At the same time, we depend on others who do have the means to do so to give us financial gifts to keep doing what we are doing. Each time you participate in one of our offerings, we invite you to reflect anew on this request.

*Making your decision about whether and how much to give*

Ideally, you would take time to think through for yourself how much makes sense for you to give to us. We know this can feel unfamiliar, and sometimes challenging, especially if you are not used to the gift economy. As a result, we are offering you guidance in choosing how much to give – and only if it is helpful.

If the options below feel confusing or are a barrier for you to join, and you would like to contribute a different amount, please choose the amount you give. This is actually our preference – that you choose your amount from within and not based on what we say below.

For those who have the means: $1000 

• Many people will not be able to contribute anything, and if there are some who give significant amounts, it makes it easier for the entire group to sufficiently attend to our needs

Average sustainability estimate: $250

• If approximately 200 people register, as we currently anticipate based on responses so far, this would mean an average of about $125 per person. However, since up to half of participants typically do not contribute anything at all due to lack of capacity, this would mean an average of at least $250 per contributing participant for this course, to support our sustainability. We are more than happy for people to make monthly gifts over time, even beyond the end of the course, to make this easier.

Increased Accessibility: $15 

• If you are from a marginalized group; or part of the global south, regardless of where you live, and would like guidance on how much to give, this amount is 6% of the amount above that we just estimated would be generally sustainable for us.

What works for you 

• Just a reminder again that the above are just guidelines to help you navigate, and if you are clear that none of these work for you, then please choose your amount, including, again, zero.

Again, more detailed information about our needs and our approach is offered when you register for the course.