Spiral Journey was formed as a partnership in 2017 by three Work That Reconnects facilitators, Molly Brown, Mutima Imani, and Constance Washburn, who saw the need for a focused facilitator development program in the Work That Reconnects (WTR). At the time, the only “training” available was participation in ten-day intensive retreats offered by WTR root teacher, Joanna Macy. But retreats were becoming less frequent as Joanna at age 87 was limiting her professional activities. Molly, Constance, and Mutima saw a need to support people who wanted to facilitate the Work but didn’t feel sufficiently prepared by only reading the books on WTR or attending workshops solely as participants.
The first two programs were a year in length, but soon Mu, Mo, and Co (as they came to abbreviate their names on planning documents) realized the program would be accessible to more people if limited to six months. And to their surprise, they found they could cover all the essential concepts and practices in that time.
Over the years, Spiral Journey has been supported by a series of administrative assistants to handle finances, registration, and the various platforms used: Silvia diBlasio and then Jo delAmor, both graduates of the program, stepped in to help Mu, Mo and Co manage the program. They each went on to professional roles in the Work That Reconnects Network as well as offering their own programs. Yulia Smagorinsky became the administrator of the program in February of 2022. While continuing to manage the administrative details of the program, they stepped into a facilitator role in 2024 when Constance suffered a serious illness and could not facilitate the Spiral Journey program that year.
In the summer of 2025, Queen Rev. Mutima decided to leave the Facilitator Development Program to further her own work, including the development of the Decolonized Expanded Spiral, which she had introduced into the Spiral Journey program. We thank her for fundamentally shaping the FDP and the Work That Reconnects as well as for many years of her deep commitment to the FDP.
She will continue to offer some of her workshops through Spiral Journey.
Yulia stepped up as a co-director of the program, along with Constance and Molly. They all saw the need for a more international facilitation team, and invited three graduates of our program to join our team: Rukmini Iyer from India, Sara El-Sayeh from Egypt, and ian goh from Malaysia, thereby expanding team capacities, experience, and wisdom with these talented people. See their bios on the about us page.
At the end of 2025, after years of operating as a small business, Spiral Journey has become a project of Gaia Passages, a non-profit whose mission and vision fits perfectly with ours.
