WARRIORS FOR THE HUMAN SPIRIT
Training to be the Presence of Insight and Compassion
We need leaders who recognize the harm being done
to people and planet through the dominant practices that
control, ignore, abuse, and oppress the human spirit.
We need leaders who put service over self,
stand steadfast in crises and failures, and
who display unshakable faith that
people can be generous, creative, and kind.
Margaret Wheatley
Warriors for the Human Spirit are leaders, activists, and citizens who want to make a meaningful contribution in this time of increasing assaults on the human spirit and all life. To serve well, to be effective with their energy and influence, they train with discipline and devotion to refrain from fear and aggression and to embody the best human qualities of generosity, insight, and compassion. They are already skilled leaders and activists. They know how to create engaged and productive workplaces and healthy communities. They know how to advocate for their causes and to work well in networks of diverse people. Yet their hard-won skills and valuable experiences are not enough in this darkening time. A different category of skills and capacities is needed so they can act wisely and well, persevere, and use their influence and power to offer sane, life-affirming responses even as threats to people and planet intensify.
Warriors for the Human Spirit are awake human beings
who have chosen not to flee. They abide.
They serve as beacons of an ancient story that tells of
the goodness and generosity and creativity of humanity.
You can identify them by their cheerfulness.
You will know them by their compassion.
When asked how they do it they will tell you about
discipline, dedication and the necessity of community.
Warrior in Training
Who is a Warrior?
Warriors are people who focus their lives and work on making a difference. They respond to a sense of calling, to a purpose that gives meaning beyond petty definitions of happiness and self-satisfaction. They are of all ages, faiths, professions and cultures. Depending on their age, they have contributed in many different ways or are aspiring to contribute.
Those who have contributed are now witnessing the destruction of their good work as programs, populations, and causes are deprived of resources, minimized in importance, or denied to be of any value. Young people who have just picked up the torch of activism are learning that high ideals, sound ideas, and rational behavior do not create positive change.
Our hearts are broken by witnessing so much destruction and increased suffering, yet the need still lives in us to contribute, to make a difference. What is our work now? What actions and ways of being can give meaning to this time?
“What time is it on the clock of the world?” 1
A sense of calling, purpose or role cannot be defined independently of the time in which we live. It is essential to identify an answer to the question of what time is it because only then can we discern what work is needed.
Warriors arise only at certain historical times, when the culture is under threat: protection and preservation of people, values, and ideals become critical. We live now in a time when the human spirit is being threatened, oppressed, ignored and reviled. Why is this happening now? Because we are at the endpoint of our global civilization, enacting a pattern already well-established in history, what befalls every complex society at the end of its cycle.
A Warrior is a person who has the courage
to face the dark forces threatening our world
and to grieve for what is being lost
especially for future generations.
Her insight into the present world situation energizes her,
deepens her compassion for those suffering from oppression,
and motivates her to live in a way which
brings peace into each situation she encounters.
She is strengthened by comradery with her fellow warriors.
Warrior in Training
[1] In her late 90s, after a life of dedicated and powerful activism, Grace Lee Boggs challenged us with this question.
The Facts of Life
All living systems rise and fall in the cycle of existence: there is birth, growth, flowering, decline, death. The cycle repeats over and over; everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Each phase of the cycle requires different behaviors:
- At the beginning, discovery, creativity, learning and invention playfully fill the space of possibility. It is an exciting, high energy time when anything seems possible and hope abounds.
- In the middle, what has been created gets stabilized into complex systems that provide capacity, efficiencies, standardization, and sustainability. Hierarchy and bureaucracy develop and people settle into roles that make the systems work.
- In the final stages of decline and collapse, protection and preservation are essential to save values, ideals, and programs that are being destroyed by the powerful few. As solutions fail and crises proliferate, suffering grows; serving others becomes critical.
This is the cycle of life, irrefutably evident in the history of every civilization. Meaning and purposeful actions shift dramatically depending on which part of the cycle the society is in. Our current global culture cannot be saved by grasping onto the myth of progress or thinking we are unique and different. At this time, it is foolish to strive for innovation and sustainability when what is so clearly needed is protection and preservation.
The Warriors arise when the people need protection. We step into this role of contribution and service in full recognition of where we are, what is possible, and what is not. We are broken-hearted in witnessing all that is being lost. We are exhausted from efforts that can no longer bear fruit. Yet we have abiding faith in the human spirit, in the capacity of people to be generous, creative, kind and compassionate–no matter what. It is our faith in the human spirit that inspires us to undertake the discipline of training to be of service for this time.
While despair might permeate the greater part of the nation,
others achieved a new realization of the fact that
only readiness for self-sacrifice could enable a community to survive.
Some of the greatest saints in history
lived in times of national decadence,
raising the banner of duty and service
against the flood of depravity and despair.
Sir John Glubb, historian2
[2] I used Glubb’s six stages of a civilization’s rise and fall as a major frame in Who Do We Choose To Be?
The Capacities of Warriors
Any training—to shape our bodies, play an instrument, learn a skill–requires dedicated effort and discipline; no level of skillfulness is possible without hard work and repetitive practice.
Warriors for the Human Spirit train as a community. We learn together and support one another as we discover what it means to live into this vow:
I cannot change the way the world is
but by opening to the world as it is
I may discover that gentleness, decency and bravery
are available, not only to myself, but to all human beings.
It takes enormous courage to open to this world, to experience our anger, rage, and grief for what we witness, to acknowledge our exhaustion and despair, and yet continue to step forward in service not restrained by these intense emotions. As we learn how to open to the world without being overwhelmed by it, we discover new capacities for doing the work: gentleness, decency and bravery. This is a rich promise that we have discovered becomes true as we open to the way the world is. We surrender to this reality, and discover work rich in meaning, relationships that endure, and a deep confidence that we’re engaged in our right work.
And we can’t do this alone. Humans can get through anything as long as we’re together. We rely on one another with relationships and connections forged in training together and maintained thereafter by multiple means of being together both online and in physical reality. We seek to embody this historic quote: “I always knew you thought of me, and that if I got in a tight place, you would come, if alive.” 3
[3] In a letter written by General Sherman to his commanding General, Ulysses S. Grant, offering his reason for why they won the Civil War.
What is the Work of Warriors?
Wherever we are, whatever our work, we train to be able to offer ourselves in two essential ways:
- Through our presence, we serve as reminders and role models of who every human being is capable of being.
- With our leadership, we bravely stand in stark contrast to the current practices and dynamics of this age. We know what must be remembered and preserved to create good human lives and societies, and we embody this wisdom in our work.
As we do our current work, and find new places of contribution, we strive to:
- be present with compassion and discernment in all situations
- refrain from using fear and aggression to accomplish our ends
- create Islands of Sanity wherever possible
- do our work with greater commitment and different skills, including patience, clear seeing, compassion
- refrain from fixing, staying present, supporting others to find their own solutions
- stay in situations which triggered us or from which we fled but where we still want to contribute
- maintain a keen sense of humor
- rely on moments of grace and joy
Who are the Warriors?
To date, five cohorts of people have trained as Warriors for the Human Spirit. These are 150 people, 81% women, ranging in age from 28 to 85. They have gathered from 21 countries on all continents. By work and profession, our community includes formal and informal leaders of global and local non-profits, corporates, communities, foundations, local and federal governments, schools and universities, activists, coaches, consultants, writers, administrators, teachers, academics, dancers, theater directors, musicians, parents, citizens, social entrepreneurs, artists, architects, community planners.
We are united in our shared aspiration to serve this time wisely and well. We come from all identities, cultures, traditions. We arise because of the needs of this time and are united with our differences by our desire to serve.
We are privileged people and we honor that as a profound responsibility: We have the capacities and resources to choose to be of service. As the Bible says: “To whom much is given, much is required.“ We accept this responsibility and willingly engage together.
Where in the World are the Warriors?
There are 155 warriors in training, from 25 countries across 6 continents:
Warrior Training
How the Warriors Train
Warriors train to serve this troubled time as sane, confident, and trustworthy leaders on behalf of the human spirit.
We train in these key areas:
- Identity formation: We consciously take on the role of Warrior for the Human Spirit. In naming ourselves as Warriors, we take our place in the long history of those few people who always arise to stand against the tides of destruction, those few people who train themselves to protect, defend and exemplify what must be preserved. The Warrior identity supersedes prior roles and lays out a path of service. Discipline, devotion and community are the means to ground this identity and provide the capacities and skillful means to act wisely and to persevere through challenges that will only increase.
- Stable Mind. Through meditation and contemplative practices, we learn to know and work with our minds. We develop heightened levels of awareness so that we can act consciously rather than compulsively, responsively rather than reactively. We develop the skill of being present in any situation, seeing it as it is, without our personal biases.
- Direct Perception. Our actions are impeded by confused and clouded vision that springs from personal needs and biases. Blinded by our ‘self’ we can’t notice all the information that is so easily available in any situation. As we open to the world as it is, without trying to mold it to our liking, we recognize that the world is our ally, a source of information that gives us the capacity to see clearly and act skillfully.
- Mind-Body Integration. We suffer from many disconnections, believing that heart and mind are separate, or that body and mind are not one integrated whole. With the practice of Qi Gong—a gentle practice requiring no physical strength—we discover capacities of balance, energy, presence, and letting go. We develop a reliable body-mind memory of what true presence and balance feel like.
- Community. So many of our relationships contain our earnest attempts to help, fix, heal. Yet healthy relationships are hindered by these desires. One of the Warrior slogans is: “Don’t fix, don’t flee, just stay present.” As a community of people devoted to exploring what it means to be a Warrior for the Human Spirit, we learn to practice this as we encounter the very real challenges, fears, and joys of our communal exploration.
The commitment to learn to cultivate a breaking heart surrounded by community
is a level of vulnerability, surrender and commitment
I am eager to bravely face.
My definition of Warriors is that we cultivate the courage,
through sustained discipline,
to bear the enormous tragedy we are facing in the world today,
while at the same time bearing the enormous beauty of everything humans can be.
Warriors are committed to cultivating the right conditions for
true humanity to arise but are completely free of ambition.
Warrior in Training
Faculty
Core Faculty, all programs:
Meg Wheatley
Jerry Granelli
Ulrike Ebert
We three are the core faculty who work as one to offer this Warrior Training. We have also worked together in many other places for many years. Individually, each of us has been training for decades with our different teachers, each of whom challenged us, supported us, and demanded that we practice with discipline and devotion to learn how to be Warriors. We have manifested warriorship in different arenas—music, martial arts teaching, leadership forums and writings. In this program, we aspire to offer you as much clarity, generosity, support, and challenge as we have learned from our own teachers–as we continue our training with them.
Margaret (Meg) Wheatley began caring about the world’s peoples in 1966, as a Peace Corps volunteer in post-war Korea. In many different roles– speaker, teacher, consultant, advisor, formal leader–her work has deepened into an unshakable conviction that leaders must learn how to invoke people’s inherent generosity, creativity and need for community. As this world tears us apart, sane leadership on behalf of the human spirit is the only way forward. She is co-founder and president of The Berkana Institute, (www.berkana.org), an organizational consultant since 1973, a global citizen since her youth, and a prolific writer. She has authored nine books, including the classic Leadership and the New Science. She has been honored for her ground-breaking work by many professional associations, universities and organizations. Her work now focuses exclusively on developing leaders as spiritual warriors. www.margaretwheatley.com.
Jerry Granelli is a renowned jazz drummer/composer and an experienced meditation teacher. He teaches meditation and Direct Perception in the program, and is co-designer with Meg of the overall structure and content. Jerry received his training in warriorship directly from Chögyam Trungpa, whom he served as attendant for 17 years. As a jazz master of improvisation, he has developed the skills of being completely present to what is arising, following the music where it leads. Through voice, movement and perception practices, he works with warriors to develop their capacity to be present and come awake. “One reason why people like improvised music is that it’s a direct reflection of life, not something we thought up. It scares you…makes you think you’re going to die for a moment…do you have the courage to play? Can I move out of my desires and wants, and into compositional choices?” www.jerrygranelli.com
Ulrike Ebert is founder of a Tai Chi and Qi Gong school in Rome, Italy. As a long term teacher and practitioner of this internal discipline, it is her experience that mind space and body space need to fuse in a profound way to bring the mind to reign and transform the body into something we call inner peace, or openness, or wisdom. Working with the subtle perception of one’s own body, what has been blocked or disconnected can be brought into alignment; these energies then become available for mindful and genuine actions.
Program Fees and Costs
Tuition:
The 8-month training is $4800 U.S.
This tuition is payable in either:
Two installments:
$2400 (1/2) due within 30 days of acceptance
$2400 (1/2) due 30 days after completion of first training retreat
Monthly payment plan:
$480 per month for 10 months, starting month following date of acceptance
Please note: All payment transactions are electronic with a bank fee of <4%.
Food and lodging for in person retreats
Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu New Mexico All inclusive for 7 nights
Private Bath/Double Occupancy: $735.00
Private Bath/Single Occupancy: $1225.00
Shared Bath/Double Occupancy: $700.00
Shared Bath/Single Occupancy: $1155.00
Tuscany Italy, Abbey at Spineto All inclusive for 7 nights
Residence is in beautiful country houses on the Abbey grounds, with private baths
Single room: 910 Euros
Double room: 700 Euros
Scholarships
We have a small number of scholarships available to support tuition, travel, or to deal with unexpected currency fluctuations. We do not want finances to hinder participation, but also have to work within our budget. If you are accepted into the program, we will gladly work with you to try and make your participation possible.
Intrigued?
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