About Us - Spiral Journey

The Spiral Journey Team

Molly Young Brown

Molly Young Brown (she/her), M.A., M.Div. lives in Mount Shasta, CA with her husband Jim. In her work as a writer, workshop facilitator, and life coach, she draws on the Work That Reconnects, ecopsychology, psychosynthesis, and systems thinking, and specializes in working with activists. She co-authored with Joanna Macy both editions of Coming Back to Life (1998, 2014) and edits the online journal, Deep Times: A Journal of the Work That Reconnects. Her other publications include: Growing Whole: Self-realization for the Great Turning; Held in Love: Life Stories To Inspire Us Through Times of Change (co-editor Carolyn Treadway); and Lighting A Candle: Collected Reflections on a Spiritual Life. mollyyoungbrown.com
Molly’s most recent publication will be released November 25, 2025: Coming Together in the Great Turning: Collective Liberation and Work That Reconnects; by: Aravinda Ananda, Molly Young Brown, Kurt A. Kuhwald. Prepurchase now and get 15% off. Learn more about Coming Together in the Great Turning.

Constance Washburn

Constance Washburn (she/her), M.A. is an activist, educator, director and facilitator, has been a student of the Work That Reconnects since 1994. She attended many intensives with Joanna Macy. Molly, Mutima and Constance have been co – leading WTR retreats and workshops since 2013. She is a founding Weaver of the Work That Reconnects Network helping to support the international community of facilitators. She is also a founding member of the Elders Action Network and leads an Empowered Elder Webinar using the Work That Reconnects for elders around the world. She has a MA in Education and Theater, loves ceremony and ritual and has certificates in the Ecology of Leadership, Permaculture Design and Transforming Business, Society, and Self from U.Lab MITx. She is a mindfulness/ meditation instructor in the Vajrayana Tradition and a long time yoga practitioner and have completed 3 yoga teacher trainings. constancewashburn.com

Yulia Smagorinsky

Yulia Smagorinsky (they/them), M.Sc.Agr, Spiral Journey administrator and co-facilitator.
Yulia is a farmer, weaver of social change and healing, permaculture designer and a graduate of the Spiral Journey Facilitator Development Program and registered facilitator of the Work That Reconnects Network.

As a trauma-informed horticultural educator and restorative justice practitioner in the Healing Garden at the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Service Center, Yulia creates beauty and healing spaces and hands-on experiential opportunities for youths.

Yulia is a co-founder of Emergent Abundance Farming Collective, sharing food, knowledge, skills, information, access to land and sources of healing with the local community. They are actively creating platforms and pathways to hold space for others to heal, to listen deeply and transform.
wideningcircle.com

Sara El-Sayeh

Sara El-Sayeh (she/her), M.A. is an Egyptian writer, (single) mother and facilitator roaming the fault lines of Cairo. Sara has an MA in economics in international development and spends a lot of time contemplating life post growth. She’s a Post Growth Institute fellow (2025) and works with the imagination as an important tool to carry us forward on the path of degrowth.

Post-revolution and mid-collapse, her work explores what it means to belong, and at times completely refusing to, in a place that demands that she becomes convenient.

Sara maps the geographies of single motherhood: the labyrinth of repair and care as resistance. Her work helps (her) navigate the freeze of capitalism while slowly weaving communities of care to nourish us through times of collapse.

ian goh

ian goh (he/they) is a reconnection worker passionate about exploring the Buddhist philosophical roots of the Work That Reconnects. As part of the team at Spiral Journey’s Facilitation Development Program, he teaches the Buddhist dimensions of the Work, viewing this return to origins as skilful means to decolonize our practice. A facilitator at heart, ian weaves Liberating Structures, Engaged Buddhism (particularly Plum Village teachings), and politicized somatics into Work That Reconnects spaces. his approach invites practitioners to experience the Work as an expression of Buddhist insights on interdependence, impermanence, and the liberation of all beings.

Rukmini Iyer

Rukmini Iyer (she/her) is a facilitator, coach, writer, and peacebuilder based in Mumbai, India, working at the confluence of systems thinking, decolonial inquiry, and collective healing. With over two decades of experience across leadership development, DEI, organisational transformation, and interfaith peacebuilding, she brings a unique integration of inner and outer systems change.
Rukmini is the founder of Exult! Solutions, a consulting practice that bridges for-profit leadership work with corporate organisations around the world with pro bono initiatives in dialogue and social transformation. She serves on the International Board of Creators of Peace, leads narrative and systems-based facilitation processes globally, and is currently a Global Community Builder with the School for Moral Ambition. Her recent work includes co-facilitating peace and mediation trainings with refugees and indigenous youth from Eastern Europe, teaching conflict resolution in Indian universities, and designing embodied learning journeys rooted in the Work That Reconnects.
She draws deeply from nature-based traditions, non-Western cosmologies, and her own ongoing spiritual and ecological inquiry to hold inclusive, trauma-aware, and joyful spaces of collective regeneration. More about her work can be found on LinkedIn.

Co-Creator of the Spiral Journey Facilitator Development Program:
Queen Rev. Mutima Imani

Queen Rev. Mutima Imani (she/her), M.A., co-creator of the Spiral Journey Facilitator Development Program and creator of the Decolonized Expanded Spiral of the Work That Reconnects, is an internationally recognized facilitator, speaker, and author specializing in transformative practices that awaken personal and collective potential for a thriving global society. As the convener of Awaken to Love and a dedicated steward of the Work That Reconnects (WTR), Mutima brings a decolonized, inclusive lens to themes of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in social and environmental activism. Drawing on a wealth of experience as a spiritual leader and healer, Mutima intertwines ancestral wisdom, deep ecology, and community-based practices to address the root causes of oppression, disconnection, and ecological collapse.

Mutima is the author of The Promise of the Great Turning, a groundbreaking exploration of how Joanna Macy’s WTR spiral can evolve to address the polycrisis of our time. With a focus on healing intergenerational and racial trauma, nurturing resilience, and fostering liberation, She empowers individuals and communities to navigate the transition toward a just, regenerative future.
Mutima co-authored ‘Mindful Earth Liberation: An expanded spiral guide for the Work That Reconnects’ together with Dr. Angela Miller-Porter.
mutimaimani.com

Root Teacher: Joanna Macy

Joanna Macy Ph.D. (she/her) was a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking and deep ecology, and a respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology, interweaving her scholarship with learnings from six decades of activism.

Her wide-ranging work addressed psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and postmodern science. The many dimensions of this work were explored in her fourteen books, which include Coming Back to Life as well as three volumes of poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke with translation and commentary.

Joanna has encouraged our emphasis on decolonizing, saying, “It is a good and necessary thing to take steps now to “decolonize” the Work That Reconnects. Midwifed by a white woman, it inevitably carries the limitations and distortions of white blindness.”

Joanna Macy passed away peacefully in the loving care of family and friends on July 19, 2025. We celebrate her life and hold her memory in our hearts. You may like to read more on our memorial page.