Regenerative Communities Virtual Dialogues are a virtual place to gather to share experience, and to participate in online seminars, teachings, and virtual events during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are in a period of rapid prototyping. For us that means trying stuff, listening to those who participate, sensing into what else is needed and what is possible. We can’t do this alone. Please tell us what you would like from NewStories by sending an email to pandemic@newstories.org .

We are 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Dialogues are currently by donation via PayPal.

Upcoming Teachings and Dialogues

We will continue to announce our Teachings and Dialogues offerings through our newsletter – please sign up for the newsletter at the bottom of this page. We welcome your ideas, feedback, and suggestions about what Teachings and Dialogues might be of best service – please share your thoughts by sending an email to pandemic@newstories.org .

A Collective Path to Transforming White Body Supremacy

Tuesday, July 14 and Thursday, July 16, 2020

In this 90 min session we will dip our toes into this exploration of White Body Supremacy (leaning on the wisdom from the book “My Grandmother’s Hands” by Resmaa Menakem) and its implications. 

You will walk away with grounding and soothing practices which, if practiced over time, can help you stay present when faced with injustice and pain, which is an important skill in anti-racism work. 

Click here for more information and to register.

Re-Authoring Diversity and Inclusion

Chené Swart and Lungie Molamu from South Africa will lead us in these sessions that will focus on discovering and learning how our stories of the “other” shape and maintain who we include and exclude in our relationships, communities and organizations.

4 hour introductory session on July 21st by donation.

2-day Deep Dive on July 30 and 31 – 6 hours each day.

Past Teachings and Dialogues

While these teachings and dialogues have passed, we will consider hosting them again upon request. Please send us an email to pandemic@newstories.org .

Wednesday, June 3 and Saturday, June 6

Practices for Creating Calm and Connection in Community

Helping ourselves, families, and communities with stress is important right now! 

Please join NewStories along with Teresa Posakony for an introduction to a series of somatic and breath practices to help you navigate life and the COVID disruption with a little more ease. These practices can help us be centered in the storm, making more of our energy available to be calm, in connection, engaged, and creative. 

Register here: https://newstories.org/practices-for-creating-calm-and-connection-in-community/

Wednesday, May 20th and Saturday, May 23rd

Pausing with the Pandemic

In these times rich with the possibility of transformation, it is natural for change agents to want to step into the fray and start to bring about the changes we have all been longing for.  And yet, what our drive and vision may be ‘naturally’ encouraging us to do and be may not be the only way of being that is needed in these times.

How do we make equal time for spaciousness, for stillness, for the discerning presence of patience and deep listening? So that the actions we take are not solely born out of habit or preparation from earlier times, but more fully responsive, emergent even, awake in the times we are actually in the midst of. Born out of the now, not force fit into the now.

Come explore how to spend some time in collective sense making about these times with Dorian Baroni and Bob Stilger: https://newstories.org/pausing-with-pandemic/

Week of May 4th – Growing Your Own Creativity

Mari Shibuya, NewStories Team Member led us back into our interior and our exterior and our work as creatives. These times call for as much creativity as we can muster. It seems like every week we are called on to find our “next now.” Normal, whatever that word even means, is a long ways away. True creativity hinges on our willingness to step away from our “go-to” response and look deeper – to step beyond what is known into the unknown. Moving towards the unknown means shifting the questions we are asking ourselves and others. 

Week of April 26th – Corona as Collective Initiation

Lynnaea Lumbard, NewStories Board Chair, led us into an exquisite exploration of how we are each being initiated into the next arc of our lives by the pandemic and the new social protocols which will shape our lives for the foreseeable future. In many ways these sessions were an invitation to slow down and stay together, allowing insights to emerge through guided meditation.

It’s amazing to remember how much is available to us when we stop and be still and connect with our own inner guidance!

Week of April 19th – Grief as a Welcome Guest

This lovely session on deepening our relationship with heartache in a time of change was with guest practitioners Erica Crawford and Olive Dempsey. With the pandemic creating waves of uncertainty that will wash over us in the coming months, and likely years, we might ask ourselves, what is the role of grief in this time of complex change? How might we make a seat at the table for our grief, instead of closing the door to it? And what supports our ability to access the generative wisdom, creativity and vitality of our grieving? 

Through gentle experiential practices, and supported with key insights from grief work, somatic therapy and the Work that Reconnects, this session nurtures our capacity to turn towards our experiences of heartache and loss with skillfulness and compassion. 

Week of April 12th – NewStories Spiral of Co-Creating

Using the NewStories Spiral of Co-Creating to map our steps for transformative change, Bob Stilger, NewStories President and Allen Myers, Executive Director of Regenerating Paradise explored how the spiral was the roadmap for discovering how to build new community after the devastating wildfires of November 8, 2018 which destroyed most of the homes and businesses in Paradise, a town of 27,000 in Northern California. What might the spiral tell us about how to lead our communities and organizations forward as we move with and through this pandemic?

Week of April 5th – Using Polarity Management to Hold the Contractions of These Times

Gayle Karen Whyte led us in a dance with the polarities and paradoxes of these COVID times. When to act and when to pause. What are the tensions you are carrying teaching you about what comes after this pandemic eases? 

Gayle uses Barry Johnson’s Polarity Management to teach organizations how to deal with complexity and ambiguity, and it applies directly to these pandemic times. We’ll explore ways to hold the many contradictions present: planning for now and planning for the future, being individualistic (self and family) and collectivistic (tending the commons), seeing the unfolding scale of the tragedy and seeing this as an opportunity to learn. On one level, it’s a way to map them out so that we can even see these dynamics and talk about them, and on another level, it’s a core way to understand the human dynamics of fear, aspirations, and values and how they play out when we are faced with crisis.

For more information: https://newstories.org/paradoxes-and-polarities/

Week of March 30th – Using Two Loops

For many years, NewStories has used a simple and powerful model to help people define and situate their own regenerative leadership. It’s known, affectionately, as “the two loops.” What’s possible now that was not possible before? What ways are we each called to offer our leadership now, in our communities and organizations? Join us for a virtual training seminar on how this model might apply to you, your life and your work in these Pandemic Times.

Week of March 23th – From Physical Distancing to Social Connection

Please join us in sharing, reflecting, learning and connecting with each other around our own experiences of living and working in these times. Bob will also share what he’s learned about staying present and doing what’s called for in these times of disaster. The virus itself is giving us the message to stop, go inside, quiet, listen, gather, learn. How’s that working out?