Facilitation

Facilitation Topics

Testimonials

Facilitation of the leading edge of thought. Hunter Thompson once said that there is no honest way to explain the edge, "because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."

Facilitated group-work sessions: Being and becoming at the edge of experience. These sessions are based on research into the specific, requested invitation, the milieu of the group, its aim and objectives, and emerging future visions. It includes explorations of perspectives particular to each group as human resource, creative innovations, immersive experiences, archetypal knowledge of roles and integrative processes.

Please Contact Us if you would like to request a facilitation.


African Resilience

African Resilience

"The emboldened spirit is what I gain from working in an African country under siege inspired by the hope of freedom." — Tossie van Tonder

We underestimate the particular relationship that African countries have with each other. In a recent visit of mine to a war-torn country I was again enlightened by the very close watch we have on our neighbours. When I say 'neighbours', these could stretch across Africa in any direction irrespective of distances. The transistor radio is ever present in a hand and urgent and thorough discussion of African affairs, directly and immediately affecting us, is no uncommon thing.

Capacity building is one of the most sought after commodities in countries aspiring for new democracies. South Africa is still seen as a success story, one that African peoples wish to learn from, absorb the history of, the recent events, the latest in 'what works'. Unfortunately I do not always have good stories because freedom, once attained, is not a final state or condition. It takes constant vigilance and activism to maintain.

My work in African countries always leaves me with a sense of great admiration. People struggle hard. The depth of commitment and the resilience needed to sustain survival, a vision, a future, an educated youth, health and leadership leaves me humbled.

What I gain from my work in Africa always empowers me. As a South African I am glad to bring a story of progress, extraordinary vitality and political transformation, as much as disappointment, tragedy and often panic. But I often leave an African country with the sense of the impossible. The impossible hope, the impossible quest, the collective soul that sustains the impossible, until it will happen, become, emerge and surprise us with its immense resilience.

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The Co-operative

Creating co-operative wealth — From Character to Resilience We Advance the Idea and Spirit of Passionate Work.

What you will gain:

  1. A more integrated participation in work, business and entrepreneurship that has evolved into a life style of passion and excellence.
  2. Come and see how your co-op is one of the most advanced ideas in the world of work and fulfillment.
  3. You will receive extraordinary knowledge, enough to make the human mind query questions that are no longer mundane but venture into the outrageous and the unfathomable, because when asking such questions, we awaken to the true spiritual nature of our self.

In South Africa the recent past brought a focus on the development of human resource skills. This kind of education made people far more versatile in their manner of thinking, speaking, and acting. Also about who they are and how they wish to live their lives. South Africa has become a democracy that unconditionally deepened our thoughts about freedom. We now speak strong gender language that makes women and men understand that their former roles can no longer be taken for granted. Children have attained a voice. So have disabled people, foreigners, artists, teachers, labourers, business, the poor as well as the wealthy and so on. Race has been dissected and policies have been created to bring equality into the living space of our everyday lives.


Unfortunately, broader participation in the economy has not evolved as much. The vast majority of people is stuck at the base of the economic pyramid, dreaming of being able to do an honest day's work and be compensated fairly for that. Yet they can only look at that possibility outside of themselves, being beggars essentially. Unemployment is an undignified state of existence for a large percentage of South Africans. And Government will not be able to provide adequate assistance for these masses.

The Co-Operative, Creating Co-operative Wealth - From Character to Resilience provides a platform to listen to and develop the voice of entrepreneurship in communities. Self-and community-directed and dignified work is a dream that becomes fulfilled. What is the critical conversation that needs to happen? Here you speak about your business as a source of community fulfillment. We discover that the aspiration of determined, visionary and passionate work is every person’s birthright. It is on this platform where members of the family or business co-op finds the voice of selfhood, the identification with transparency, communication and values that lies dormant and find vitality in the co-operative. This work supplements the Department of Trade and Industry initiative of CIPC.

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Motherhood

Marathon of Motherhood — "My mother is a warrior in her own Right." Luyolo Sijake


Hiroshima Memorial

What you will gain:

  1. You will understand this archetype of archetypes, The Great Mother in your body and how she has to manage her power as the one with the deepest sense of survival and of thriving.
  1. You will be astonished at how many facets of the mother is culturally claimed and you will reclaim them all for your own autonomy.
  2. The marathon of this archetype is infinite, it changes in mysterious ways over phases and remains in charge whether or not you have a child. You will feel her authority of love expressed in extraordinary ways, unimaginable and in excellent form.

Remove the energetic endeavour of women for a brief moment and the whole of society will collapse. This work aims to re-appraise and inform women of the immensity of their task of love and care.

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Photo: Shoichi Ono

Elderhood: Act Your Age

Deepening the Force of Character in the Later Years.

Beyond 45, interest shifts from information to intelligence. The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected. This work, aimed at public groups and companies raises the voice of the elderly from trivial and personal to culturo-mythical, becoming extremely vital to the survival of our community.

What you will gain:

  1. You will never look at yourself as aging without having a sense of authority and wisdom in your being.
  2. The expressive exploration of yourself as a powerful individual is healing, safe and free.
  3. You will delight in the prospects of growing up for once and for all.
  4. You will find the authentic alignment between head, heart and body, and it will sustain you forever.
  5. In addition you will receive a series of fabulous movements to help with stiffness, mobility and well-being. This includes fantastic exercises for your eyes.
  6. "I am feeling a lot of radiance and excitement for the future ... and loving the grace of my gray hair. blessings to all your gifts." VL


Photo: Man-Making

Youth

Respect for the learning process begins with the first condition of place: Worthiness and Respect for Yourself.

What you will gain:

  1. You will understand and become a person who will never lose respect for yourself again.
  2. You will walk a head taller and people will appreciate your gifts to the world.
  3. You will learn lessons that nobody taught you before. They will empower you, ground you and let you fly.
  4. You will no longer feel a victim of your community or peers who have not taken themselves through this remarkable process.
  5. You will love yourself.

When we explore identity, earth stewardship, gender, politics and aesthetics, it is in movement that we get a clearer head space, a breath, a sense of our particular integrity. Everyone's intelligence is unique and it becomes an opportunity to engage with a vast diversity of perspectives when we consult our body – in movement.

Residencies with various training facilities offer the capacity for learning the art of presence, grabbing the moment and the deep story of a student's current work and life.

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Photo: Nicola Visser

The Father

Who heals the Father? The Patriarch Is A Human Being.

What you will gain:

  1. Information about fatherhood that has never been revealed to you and which would give you an energetic position in the household where you will be an authority with heart.
  2. You will gain control over your powers and reclaim the true value of the patriarch in your community.
  3. You will restore the role of the father in the eyes of your wife, your daughters and your sons, and it will make them strong.
  4. You will receive knowledge and you will experience yourself as one who has the answers to the world of power.
  5. You will forgive your father, and you will bless the young men in your world.

If the father understood that what he creates has nothing to do with what anybody else is creating, then he would understand his perfect heart of wisdom. This work is a radical shift in perspective on men, for men only.

The social form of men is being damaged by the day. As such it informs the body of our total sense of ourselves as a community. It is Time for This to End.


Photo: John Cartwright

The Farmer as Archetype: The South African Farmer

A Formidable Perspective on the Bigger Picture.

What you will gain:

  1. A restored value of the nobility of the farmer on our land.
  2. A deepened grasp on the essential and fundamental role of the farmer, as archetype, in our country.
  3. An experience of yourself as a person with a deep-seated resilience to live on the land and at the same time a person who is adaptable, diverse, fluid and compassionate - because land does this to you.


Photo: Joelle Chesselet



I have never met farmers who just want to put food on the table. They want to send their children to school, and build a better house. They want to extend themselves to be successful men and women in the world. They aspire to leave a legacy. They want to prosper in the noble art of farming with a renewed definition of what the farmer in the 21st century is becoming. All these ideas need a time and place for the farmer to explore the territory of soul-making, to deepen and find that the resourcefulness needed to make the world of farming a livable act, has an interior, rich with humanity, goodwill, intellectual fervour, solitary and communal focus and love for the soil.

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Tokyo

The Climate Change of People

Ecology is a Mesh and People Need Resilience Like Never Before. Think Big, Then Bigger Still, Beyond Spectacle That Dissolves Everything Within Itself.

What you will gain:

  1. You will discover that we can expand the multi-dimensional by re-directing the compass of how we embody ourselves - and thus the manner of our worldly engagement.
  2. You will realise that the work of transdisciplinary research – restoring the energetic and rhizomal interconnectivity of the arts, spirituality and science – is the educational work of the world.
  3. You will discover the image of your perfection matching your courageous explorations into a field where security and comfort becomes superfluous.
  4. You will sense a personhood of the emerging future.

What we are exploring in the philosophy of climate change is ideas of entities of such vast temporal and spatial dimensions that they defeat traditional ideas about what a thing is in the first place. In this body-philosophical approach we redefine, refocus a post-humanism responsive to our changing understanding of our lives and our world. This is revolutionary work. "Human" is but one life form among many. The world as we know it has already come to an end. It would be a good idea to become this and end the illusion that the world will remain as we knew it.

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I do not choose to be a common man.
It is my right to be uncommon... if I can.
I seek opportunity... not security.
I want to take the calculated risk;
To dream and to build.
To fail and to succeed.
I will never cower before any master.
Nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand
Proud and unafraid;
To think and act for myself,
To enjoy the benefit of my creations
And to face the world boldly and say:
This, I have done.
I am an entrepreneur.

Thomas Paine, 1776

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship - An Archetypal Profession in an Era of People- and Environment-centred Work Ethics.

What you will gain:

  1. A deepening of your understanding that you have a vital role to play in our country and the world at large.
  2. Relief at being able to draw the line from where your own well-being, health, sense of balance, relationships and prosperity matter.
  3. You will liberate yourself to a significant view of your work and life as serving the same spirit of excellence.

What is, and What is Becoming - Entrepreneurship Offers A Critical and Challenging Exploration Adding Social Depth to Corporate Social Investment and Sustainability Plans.

Please Contact Us if you would like to request a facilitation.

Testimonials

I hold your work in high regard and felt privileged to have had the opportunity to be part of the group of last week. AH

During this weekend's workshops you led me to affirm my image of myself as an elder and you deepened immensely my understanding of my role as senex. You also facilitated the re-emergence of the dancer within me, for which I am hugely grateful.
Thank you - go forward in strength and wisdom in this essential work. VB

You are in an aspirational authentic alignment between your head, heart and body. AW

Thank you for a creative & profound weekend. The Act-Your-Age workshop activated a real and vital but neglected archetype.
We were led graciously into seeing through a different window and then embodying that vision, sharing it with each other and taking it out into the world. The elders which we are became an empowerment and a privilege. PR

Read more testimonials

Thank You so much for the weekend... a whole range of perspective changing experiences and the pictures... I was at the shopping mall yesterday where I usually enjoy watching young children with their mothers but this time I found myself noticing the elder people and all their ways... It is not the years that weigh us down, the weight is the confusion of an incomplete transition from the draw of youth into the wisdom and serenity of elderhood... The time with Tossie ensures that the transition with all the accompanying joys is accomplished. PE

I wish you all the best with this work! I am so very glad I just made it in (I see you have lifted the entry age group to 45+! ha !) The depth of the work we explored moved me in very deep places of my being. The inner movements you initiated are still dancing and shaping the wise elder me and elder committed now to give more of myself to this existence. I am feeling a lot of radiance and excitement for the future ... and loving the grace of my gray hair. blessings to all your gifts. VL

I have had such profound experiences in movement workshops with this profound and unique teacher who really knows how to mine the deep dark recesses of the unconscious! Deepen your movement practice and discover something uniquely powerful in these workshops with Tossie. AG

The experience you crafted for us all was huge! I want to thank you. I want to acknowledge your mastery in shaping the whole workshop. I was moved. What a privilege. MP

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