Sharon Weil - ChangeAbility: How Artists, Activists, and Awakeners Navigate Change

a genuine archer book

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Archer/Rare Bird

601 West 26th Street Suite 325 New York NY 10001
archerlit.com

Copyright 2016 by Sharon Weil

Set in Minion

epub isbn : 9781941729151

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data

Names: Weil, Sharon, author.

Title: Changeability : how artists, activists, and awakeners navigate change / Sharon Weil.

Description: First Hardcover Edition | A Genuine Archer Book | New York [NY],
Los Angeles [CA]: Archer, 2016.

Identifiers: ISBN 9781941729137

Subjects: LCSH Change. | Art and social action. | Art and society. | Social change in art. | ArtistsPolitical activity. | ArtPolitical aspects. | Healing in art. | BISAC ART / General | SOCIAL SCIENCE / General | POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Political Advocacy.

Classification: LCC NX180.P64 W45 2016 | DDC 701.0309/04dc23

To the spirit of Change and all the brave souls who embrace it.

And to Emilie Conrad, dear friend and mentor, who taught me about the movement of change, and how to ride its possibilities.

Contents

Passing 4 Normal Guests

Creativity

Rebecca Mark

Writer, poet, professor, at Tulane University

Words & Waves

Amy McEachern

Moving, packing, and organizing specialist, Creative Moving

Change, One Box at a Time

Jackie Welch Schlicher

Actress, singer, writerceramicist

Creative Translation

Adam Wolpert

Painter, group facilitator, codirector of Intentional Communities Occidental Arts and Ecology Center

The Art of Agreement

Embodiment & Meditation

Camille Maurine

Performance artist, author, teacher of Embodied Meditation for Women

Embodiment Secrets for Women

Robert Litman

Movement and breath educator, The Breathable Body

The Breathable Body/Anatomy of Anxiety

Harvey Ruderian

Structural biodynamic bodyworker: Aston Patterning, Rolfing, Dynamic Cranial Sacral

Listening With My Hands

Fred Sugerman

Movement artist and educator

Becoming a Change Artist

Food & Ecology

Claire Hope Cummings

Environmental lawyer, journalist, and author of Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds

GMO: The Uncertain Peril

Ann Gentry

Founder, Real Food Daily, Los Angeles

You Are What You Eat

Penny Livingston-Stark

Permaculture designer and teacher, cofounder of Regenerative Design Institute

We Have the Solution

James Stark

Community leader, cofounder, and codirector of Regenerative Design Institute

Permaculture & The Ecology of Leadership/Communities are Ecosystems

Michael Stocker

Naturalist, bioacoustician, musician, Executive Director of Ocean Conservation Research

Saving the Sea

Revisioning Medicine

Amber Gray

Body-based psychotherapist

Fear, Trauma, and Restoring Resilience

Deena Metzger

Author, teacher, healer

Revisioning Medicine

John Weeks

Former Executive Director of Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care (ACCAHC)

Integrating Alternative/Mainstream Medicine

Social Change

Corinne Bourdeau

Producer and public relations for Social Change Films

The Passionate Filmmaker

Paul Rogat Loeb

Writer, speaker, activist, awakener

Soul of a Citizen

Beth Rosales

Senior philanthropic advisor

Strategic Giving for Social Change

Jacques Verduin

Restorative justice leader, director Insight-Out

GRIPGuiding Rage Into Power

Tom Verner & Janet Fredericks

Magician & Artist, Citizen Ambassadors

Magicians Without Borders

Spirituality

Amanda Foulger

Core shamanic practitioner and teacher

The Spirit of All Things

Rachel Lang

Astrological consultant, intuitive healer

Portals to Inner Change

E ach of these guests, artists, authors, activists, and awakeners participated in conversations about seeding change in the world on the Passing 4 Normal Podcast.

Authors Note

S o much has changed in the few years since this book was first published. Of course it would. Life is a constant flux, and change is always moving: evolving one moment into the next. The movement of change rocks back and forth between change events that bring us joy or bring us fearand sometimes, both. Our response to change can be jubilant, cautious, overwhelming, or infuriating depending upon the day, or the nature of the event. We currently live within an ever more contentious and intolerant polarized political environment where alternative facts intentionally undermine truth, and where extreme natural disasters and deadly mass shootings instill a collective grief and an enormous uncertainty. At the other end of the spectrum, we have seen great numbers of people come together offering a generous outpouring of assistance to those affected by the fires and floods, resistance movements raising voices across many important issues, and hopeful, exciting breakthrough discoveries in medicine and science that improve our health and our lives.

For me personally, my youngest daughter has gone off to college allowing me to reinvent myself in the open space of the empty nest. The duration since the last publication has been an opportunity for me to deepen my understanding of change and change navigation, as well as to practice the application of the principles presented in this book. Im happy to report: they really work!

My continued conversations with change innovators, podcast listeners, and the readers of my books have refined my understanding of where the challenges reside for people in their ability to navigate change. In listening to them I am able to refine how this book can be used to be of greatest benefit. Let me be clear. This book is intended for you. It is meant to assist you in reframing how you think about change, to provide you with a scaffold to support you in navigating the uncertainties of change, and to inspire you to have the imagination and the courage to make those changes, as they are needed, in any arena of your life.

This book is an intricate weaving of counterpoint perspectives on change, ranging from large social movements to the most intimate change of breath. Its a step-by- step conversation about the nature of change and a demonstration of universally applied principles for navigating change, illustrated by many voices of experienced change-makers across a wide variety of fields. Its an in-depth conversation. How could it not be? Change is the essential character of our world and its a big world.

Soon after completing this book, I created the journal workbook companion, ChangeAbility Playbook, How to Navigate Your Own Change , so that readers could have practical and engaging ways to work the principles articulated in ChangeAbility and apply them to their own personal changes. Make no mistake, understanding the nature of change is complex, just like understanding the nature of the cosmos or the human body is complex. But, by condensing the ideas for the playbook, I gained additional perspective on this book and how best to absorb its principles and put them into action.