Do you remember how we started so fiercely and sweetly, by LANDING and sharing our labels? We joined as a group to share our labels, which produced some heated reactions in the room when we named them. When we shared our labels, this act of sharing also linked us closer to one another.

Then we were asked to name our crossroads and our highest dreams, and those dreams were posted all over the room for the duration of the training. And then, the best part of our coming together that first night – we walked to the bonfire at the Grotto and burned our labels, even if it was hard for some of us to let these go…

Then do you remember how we moved into NAMING, which was filled with so much content, so much learning – our heads were full. We learned about the Art of Hosting, shared our gifts in the Gifts Cafe hosted by Abe, and talked about ways of connecting and linking with one another. Then the wonderful gift of a teach and Phyllis’ masterful chalk drawing, where we learned about the 2 loops theory. The 2 loops helped us understand the process of change and where at any one time we might stand in that process. Then we entered short teaches on living systems, 4-fold path, theory U and the chaordic path.

Then something peculiar happened where camp counsellor Steve took us out and we got sunstroke, though Myron and I did manage to kick your butts in the balloon – 3-legged race. We came back after dinner and were taken through an earth-based meditation by Violetta. Some made art during the meditation, some wrote poems, some sat quietly in the meditation and connected our bodies to the earth.

Then we had open mic hosted by Myron … and who’s seen hoop work like Myron’s?

We gathered yesterday for the DEEP DIVE and had those amazing open space conversations in the morning hosted by Myron and Peter. It felt like there was a fire building with many of those conversations. Do you remember the afternoon and that beautiful wisdom and sharing of Deep Democracy? The takeaway there were the three things conflict requires: take your side fully, take the other side and take the neutral side. Then we did a group process and we lived this. Some people who needed to take care of themselves left. To leave to do this takes great courage – as much as it does to stay. Some people stayed close and made art in the poet’s corner. The folks in the dreamroom practiced embodying their side and then tried to play the role of the other side, to take that difficult role of the devil’s advocate, and of the neutral side. This was really about dropping in deeply to understand experiences in the room, to tap into so much truth and meaning-making out of the deep feeling and perspectives shared in the room. So much gratitude to everyone who held the space, in the room, on the periphery, out of the room…

One group process always leads us to the next and we ended with two outstanding issues that could not be tackled in our time together:

• the experience of the one who has no words or language for mental health, who cannot and does not access services because they cannot or will not identify with the language we use
• the role of government, a ghost role in the room, and regulations, policies, funding structures that affect mental health access, services and programs for youth.

Then we had a party, and there was a lot of blue hair, swimming, singing by the bonfire, watching movies late into the night. Some of us were still in the heavy process, still doing some heavy emotional and spiritual lifting; others were releasing, felt lighter and now have blue hair.

Our final day together, we applied the wisdom and knowledge we learned, to move into ACTION. We explored what it felt like to show up, to take that learning forward and apply it to our lives. Peter launched us into a ProAction Cafe that was animated, action-packed and allowed some of us to explore our next steps more deeply with the wisdom held in the room.

We had a beautiful closing circle held by Caitlin, did a lot of last-minute contact information sharing and said our joyful and sometimes tear-filled goodbyes…

-Written by Cath Dyer