The Land & Leadership Development Community

The Land and Leadership Development Community is for those who want to continue learning in a ongoing community of practice that applies framework thinking to regenerative land management, policy work, human and environmental health, and planning at a local, regional, or global scale, while working on their own inner development as a leader. We define leadership as anyone working to make things go well in the world, whether the efforts are recognized or not. Please contact Didi Pershouse before paying if you have questions about whether you are eligible to apply, or if you are requesting financial assistance. We welcome donations to our scholarship fund by anyone wishing to support this work.

Read on for more details. If you think you are interested, please email [email protected] and we will send you an application. If writing in English is difficult for you, just let us know you are interested and we can schedule a time to have a conversation.

The Land and Leadership Development Community

We are a group of people who share a set of aims and a living-systems approach to achieve those aims.

We know:

• We are smarter and stronger together than we are alone
• There is a power that people develop when they count on one another that can lead to wiser decisions, and more lasting change in the world.
• Continual learning, personal development and community development are not only meaningful and fun, but also essential for true ongoing regeneration of living systems (ecosystems, economies, health care systems, food systems, political systems, etc.)
• The work of other species and the flows within and between living systems are mostly invisible to us unless we: practice asking better questions and observing the world around us more deeply; and are willing to question our assumptions, monitor results of our actions, and continually learn and adapt.

As a community, we are growing a shared understanding of how living systems work (and how to create conditions that allow life to do its work) based on our own experiences of energies within those systems. (Energies = flows of water, carbon, sunlight, and nutrients; the work of all species; human beliefs, behaviors and patterns; evolution and biodiversity, etc.)

If you have spent hours playing with rocks in a mountain stream, you know that you can redirect flows of water--and use the power of water to change an entire landscape--by moving a few stones. Likewise, by seeing relationships and understanding the nature and power of sunlight, grazing animals, human beliefs, microbes, etc., we can design actions that redirect whole systems (economies, public health, food systems, etc.) to create landscapes and communities that work for all life, rather than getting distracted by working on parts and pieces.

Our international community gathers together weekly for a 2-hour session (alternating days and times, currently Wednesday evenings and Thursday/Friday mornings), with two consecutive weeks devoted to a theme, but using different approaches to the theme. See below for a list of dates. This allows people to choose whether they want to attend every week or every other week.

Didi Pershouse designs the events, and serves as a resource to the group as a whole. You are not required to attend every session live: all meetings are recorded, and members have access to all our previous recordings. We work together not just as a learning community, but also as a “meta” learning community that sometimes attends other events together. We will hold regional retreats in the future, as opportunities for in-person gatherings open up.

The cost is $600 for a six-month membership (with an option for $100 monthly payments). Our current members have also contributed toward a scholarship fund, which has been distributed to those who needed financial assistance. If you can contribute something toward the fund, that will help us provide assistance to new members. Add on a donation to your payment, or you can donate through PayPal.

This may not be the right time in your life for this kind of work. Our discussions are highly focused, and we work towards integrity and being fully awake, which means that we sometimes interrupt automatic patterned behavior, to help us all wake up. This requires a strong center from all participants and a commitment to the work. Please consider whether this is a good fit for you.

A few of the many WRONG REASONS TO JOIN:

• You want to collect good ideas that you can put into a workbook. (This work is living work. The design changes every time.)
• You are looking for self development but you aren’t currently working on any projects related to this work.
• You want a place to think about projects, but don’t want to work on self development.
• You want an expert to tell you what to do and give you lots of great advice
• You are looking for a place to process lots of emotions (we have other communities that are great for that.)
• You want someone to be the great Earth Mother for you and take care of everything.