“We need to look at one another afresh, with new eyes. We need to keep doing that, every day.”
Ben Okri
and so we walked with sacred intent on sacred ground in gentling sunshine on ancient rocks we walked with the sacred drumbeat in our hearts through portals and gorges over ridges and mountain tops through riverbeds and in the quiet of kloof the great mother olifant...
When I step into the field, I am not holding anything. My hands are empty, must be empty. I am showing up to the full with my empty hands and my beating heart. The bird in my chest, sometimes the butterfly wings in my stomach, the tingling of hands, body alive. I show...
Women are medicine 2022 reflections Undine Whande April 2022 She comes home with the smell of fire in her blanket, A whiff of wild lingering under her skin, A deep laugh that seems to come from afar, A sliver of new moon under her toenails, Some sand in her hair,...
The throne is broken The fancy hat no longer fancy The bone has been taken back into the earth The vulture has cracked A single thread, so finely woven Gleams in the sunlight Do you see? I ask: Where have the frogs gone, during the drought? I walk on, invited by the...
When we forget, we remember
The movement is cyclical, yet evolutionary
Spiralling, spiralling
We are remembering right now who we are
Destiny and contract
SA Lockdown Week 1 – what makes me feel alone at this time is how all around people are succumbing to fear. Calling this a period of social distancing (rather than physical distancing) has been an unfortunate choice of words.
Longing to belong This writing is an example of what we learned from a particular constellations process in 2017 when we explored the theme of “Belonging”: There is a deep longing at the heart of be-longing, which is the longing to be, just to be, but fully. To be...
Thinking about Spirituality, Scepticism and Social Change A reflection by Undine Whande and Rebecca Freeth, 2014 Rebecca I am, at heart, a sceptic. As the daughter of an Anglican minister, I have long considered it my duty. It used to be quite cool and interesting to...
Stories of the war, we never actually met. He died in 1955. What do I know of you?
Unrelenting Kampala traffic, people, boda bodas, matatus, bicycles with heavy loads, building materials mostly, a heaving and roving sea of bodies around us. Where is the road to Kitgum? Inching our way forward, metal almost touching metal, bare. The open country finds us, finally.
Easy chatter is alive in the bus. Suddenly we hear the call to stop. A police road block: ‘let’s talk’, he says, entering the bus chest out, bright white uniform (why?) and black beret. ‘You, Madam and the driver.’ He points at me. ‘We’re gonna talk about the Queen’s Crown.’ Sideways on my seat, firmly glued, smiles. ‘Sure, let’s talk.’ We look at each other, an interested gaze. Eventually he sighs, steps out, points us to the Alligator Lodge for lunch. Not a day for the Queen today.
Reflections from Practice - Learning, Monitoring, and Evaluation in Transitional Justice Programmes Undine Whande,Transitional Justice Programme, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation Introduction What makes any social-living-system work is not how...
A short meditation on community and transformation Undine Whande Recently my friend Tania reminded me of an insight shared with us by Goethean scientist Craig Holdredge: When you plant a seed there are two ways to look at the developmental process that unfolds: The...
We live by stories, we also live in them. One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or along the way, or we are living the stories we planted – knowingly or unknowingly – in our- selves. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.1
As we sat in Café Duddel in the German city of Cologne, we sensed that the brainstorming we had been working on for weeks was emerging as a direction. “Transhumanity” was not (yet) something we could set down to paper in the form of a definition. No, it would not let itself be held down, it needed to move. The process, for us, was transhumanity – a journey we both shared in very different forms and ways. How else to describe our joint experience here in Germany, defining the German word Heimat (for home in the plural), a form which you will not find in German dictionaries? Was “home” the right word, when the concept of belonging was no longer static? When roots were sprouted in South Africa, Ethiopia, Canada, the Unites States, Germany… in the face of all our seeming differences, these roots were from the same tree. This, we sensed as we sought the answer to the questions of where is home, what is home? As we pondered these questions, we reflected and shared our own stories.
Most of us are probably familiar with Johan Galtung’s ‘typology of violence’. As a peace researcher Galtung is known for developing the term and theory of structural violence. The concept of structural violence dawned on him while seeing the victims of poverty in India.
The biggest wisdom for all shifts and changes we may seek lies inside our bodies. When we listen to that wisdom, life energy is released and we get in touch with what really matters.
…step out for an hour and explore what is important to you?
…have fun dealing with serious issues?
…deepen into your own transformational practices
Constellations work offers a systemic way of looking at your current life situation and explore the questions that may be working you right now. We are all part of multiple systems – our family systems, organisational systems, the ecology of the environment and our own bodies.
Allowing yourself to meet blank canvas
Meeting the Dancer inside
Being in Nature has been an experience that has given me strength, courage and insight since childhood. My father was a marine biologist and took us on walks to the beach,
What little Momo could do like no other was: listen. Some might think that is nothing special – listening – why – anyone can do that. But that is not true. Very few people are capable of really listening. And the way Momo knew how to listen was unique in the world.
A few years ago, my colleague Ghalib Galant and I hosted a leadership development process for young Zimbabwean leaders in the peacebuilding and human rights fields called ‘Spinning the Web of Relations’.
Undine Whande, Rebecca Freeth, Jabu Mashinini and Sebastiao Guerra co-facilitated the Nelson Mandela Dialogue on Memory Work 2013-2014