a co-learning gathering, hosted on the third Tuesday of each month
Supportive Spiral is a 90 minute* gathering in which people come together to co-learn.
*with 30 minute optional chill time after :-)
Supportive Spiral is here for us to play with questions!
You're invited to come play with curiosity in this cozy co-learning container. Supportive Spiral is not an answer to any one question but rather a generative response that spirals outward and inward with more questions, more wonderment, more excavation.
what happens in a Supportive Spiral?
- welcome and orientation (you + us)
- intro ourselves, meet one another (you + us)
- share about the resource you're wanting to supportively spiral into (you + us)
- spiral into your individual resource (you + your resource, the majority of our time is here)
- share back about your time with your resource (you + us)
- close gathering, bye till next month!
- optional chill time to chit chat, share space (some of us)
oooh this is cool, how can I score an invite?
In this iteration, I host a monthly Supportive Spiral open to people with whom I am in community.
The most straight-forward route to receive an invite is to join Be With Cassandra. It may take a beat for us to feel like we're in community with one another but by joining Be With Cassandra, you will receive a monthly email from me that will support us in getting to know one another. Along with the monthly note, you'll receive an invite to the monthly Supportive Spirals.
The more networked route to receive an invite is to join another community, network, or group I'm already a part of. Or our connections may already overlap somewhere out in the ether! If you are curious to know if we already are connected somewhere, let's chat! If you are curious to know what communities, networks, and groups I'm a part of, let's chat about that, too! Email is the best way to initiate a conversation.
i'm curious, how did Supportive Spiral come to be?
It started like this... As a lover of learning, I have observed and experienced firsthand that many course creators often miss out on the opportunity to support their participants' extended learning beyond the timeframe of their live course.
When I started observing this pattern (and before the self-awareness, experiencing the pattern myself), I realized this, of course, isn't only a phenomenon within the more recent pandemic-related booming expansion of online learning but it's a phenomenon within all places of learning.
How does a learner continue their own learning journey after they finish the book? ...after they finish the training?
And, perhaps more importantly, what about all the learners who don't finish the book during the class but want to pick it up again after the class is long over [raises hand]?
What about all those learners who excitedly step back into a curriculum only to lose momentum right away due to feeling lost on how to re-engage?
Supportive Spiral isn't only for continuing your learning journey, it is also a place for starting your learning journey. I sometimes find it easier to begin in community, and that's what this is all about – learning in community.
i'm into your way of thinking about things, tell me more...
What if we don't need more knowledge chugging out of our brains and fingers and more containers of communities of practice or private memberships to hold all that "more" but rather we need more time, space, and containers for learning, synthesizing, digesting, and playing with all the knowledge that's already out there?
(Speaking from an American millennial perspective here) What if, through our capitalist consumer ways of living, we've misinterpreted, mismanaged, and maybe even abused what learning is all about?
What if learning is a spiral? (It is)
What if each person takes a different amount of time and space to process new learning? (We do)
yes, yes, yes, i'm on the same page, what else is there to share?
Supportive Spiral is offered with the intentions of meeting new friends, creative partners, and potential collaborators and practicing the art and craft of hosting space for belonging, creativity, change and (un)learning. You may choose to bring your own intentions into the gathering, and if so, please express them with the group!
In this iteration, Supportive Spiral is a pay-what-you-wish offering. Offer what you wish, pay before or after the Supportive Spiral. Your presence is an abundant exchange if you cannot offer money at this time or if you're already offering money in exchange for membership in another community, network or group.
i'm excited to bring my wonder into this gathering!
Yes! And with your wonder, bring your half-finished online course.
Bring your just started workbook.
Bring that documentary you keep wanting to watch.
Bring your questions to the Supportive Spiral and you'll have space, time, and care shared with you so that you can savor the learning and synthesization process.
Bring your curiosity to a Supportive Spiral so that you can learn in community with fellow learners who are equally curious about learning and life.
Let's savor our own unique learning experiences!
one more thing, i'd love to know more about the host?
It's me, Cassandra! I host gatherings that inspire, nurture, and connect. I study service and experience design. I danced and practice yoga. I love to be in nature and remember that all of us are nature.
I serve as a Creative Partner, a role I am iteratively co-designing with my creative partnership clients. As a Creative Partner, I support entrepreneurs in bringing their creative projects to life, whether it's podcasts, children's books, digital products, and more projects as as the process unfolds with more partners.
Supportive Spiral Process by Cassandra Louise Ellis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work here at www.bewithcassandra.com/supportive-spiral.