More from the Tree of Life Workshop

More from the Tree of Life workshop in London

I am writing this as a participant in the workshop.  I helped out with some of the practicalities on the day, for which I received an undeserved amount of appreciation! But all the hard work of preparation was done my Gilda, Glenda, Georgia, Heleni and Maggie.  I’m afraid I haven’t succeeded in adding pictures as intended, but there are some in Karen’s posting.

 Jo Bownas

6 July was a warm summer day in London and, at Conway Hall Ethical Society in Red Lion Square, sixty five people came together to participate in the workshop ‘Resilience, Community, Hope: Using the Tree of Life Approach for Building Positive Futures’.  The workshop was generously and inspiringly presented by Heleni Andreadi, Glenda Fredman and Georgia Iliopoulou.

Like the systemic gathering in Cambridge, the ‘Tree of Life’ workshop had its roots in the summer events planned by KCC.  Many of us had been looking forward to attending the KCC summer school that week and, following the very sad loss of KCC, the wish to come together to honour and keep alive what we held most precious about our connections with KCC generated much energy and creativity.  There were many contributors to early discussions in the Linked-in group about what might be possible; and then four people stepped forward and began to give shape to what was to become a very special day.  Heleni, Glenda and Georgia offered a one day workshop based on their experience of using the ‘Tree of Life’ approach in professional teams; and Gilda Flores offered to take the lead in arranging the venue, catering and coordinating bookings.  The idea of a day spent together in London with a theme of ‘resilience, community and hope’ seemed so exactly ‘right’ that those generous offers were enthusiastically accepted.

After a great deal of work by Gilda, Heleni, Glenda and Georgia, with help from Maggie Smith, we arrived at 6 July and Conway Hall.   Most participants in the workshop came because of their connections with KCC; but we were pleased to welcome some who were drawn to it because of their interest in the ‘Tree of Life’ approach.  We were also pleased that Susan and Peter Lang accepted an invitation to attend.  As they registered for the day, participants who knew Peter and Susan were invited to join in creating a tree of appreciation – we were each given a small ‘fruit’ card on which to write an appreciation of the fruits of our connection with Peter and Susan.  The fruits were then displayed on an image of a tree to be presented at the end of the day.

The workshop began with an invitation to share our hopes dreams and visions for the day.  The presenters then introduced the ‘Tree of Life’.  Using the ‘tree’ metaphor to shape their presentation they spoke about the roots of the approach in the work of Ncazelo Ncube in South Africa and in her collaboration with David Denborough from the Dulwich Centre in Australia; and about how the ethics and practices of Narrative therapy are developed in the Tree of Life.  They went on to tell us about the branches of practice that have grown from Ncube’s work, including Tree of Life work with adults living with HIV/AIDS, with African Caribbean Men in a Mental Health Project and with people with learning disabilities.  They then told us about how they – Glenda, Georgia and Heleni – have begun to use the Tree of Life in working with professional teams, the experience they were going to invite us to share today.

After a coffee break we were invited to spend time individually, drawing our own professional tree of life: the origins and influences of our professional journey (roots); where we are now, activities of our daily practice (ground); skills and abilities that contribute to our practice (trunk); hopes and dreams for the direction of future practice (branches); significant people who support our professional life (leaves); gifts we have received from others towards our professional development (fruits); gifts we offer to others through our work (flowers).

We then interviewed each other about our trees, helping each other to ‘thicken the description’ and make our tree stories richer.  Before lunch we were invited to stick our trees on the walls around the room to create a ‘Forest of Life’; and after lunch we took a walk in the forest and talked together about the themes and wonders we found there.

The final part of the Tree of Life work involved focussing on ‘when the storms come’ in professional life.  We were invited to share stories of the hazards and effects of ‘storms’; of our responses and of what we do when the storm passes.  Throughout the day there was a great energy in our gathering and the responses shared at the end of the workshop suggested that many of us would return to our trees to grow still more deeply and richly the stories they told of our professional lives. Many were also inspired to think of how they might use the Tree of Life in their own work.

The workshop ended with celebration.  We completed certificates for each other with appreciations of some of the abilities found on our trees and including our dreams and hopes for the future.  Finally each participant presented another with their certificate.  We then turned to the appreciation of Peter and Susan Lang who had, for many of us, been enormous influences in the roots and growth of our professional lives.  Peter and Susan were presented with the Tree of Appreciation we had created, and with a gift of a ‘real live’ tree.

After the workshop there was an invitation to those who wished to stay on to share our dreams and commitments for the future of our systemic community and to create a map for our next steps.  Karen Partridge facilitated our discussion and helped give shape to the many ideas and wishes that emerged (Karen has since posted a summary of these ideas) There was appreciation for the recent event in Cambridge and for the newly created Systemic Gathering website – and a wish to join our energies and support new developments wherever they might appear.  The wish to create another workshop, following todays very successful event, lead to discussion about a future of workshops with each group of organisers ‘passing the baton’ to the next.  Mebrat Deres, Gillian Hughes and Grace Heaphy offered to convene the next workshop on the theme of working with refugees and trauma.  Three members of the Tree of Life workshop organisers will pass the baton by joining them in the planning.

The day ended with a sense of a storm that will be survived, of systemic trees whose roots are deep, though growing now in new and uncertain ground; and  whose branches reach out towards each other in new directions and with the promise of new flourishings.