# Organization development work and facilitation training My primary OD mentor has been my mother, Moe. She’s been working with teams and organizations since at least the ‘90s and is truly a world expert. I’m honored to have her mentorship. I completed a Master of Arts in Organization Development & Leadership from Fielding Graduate University in 2024. A few thinkers in our field are particularly inspiring to me: - Yabome Gilpin-Jackson, especially her work on [transformational learning](https://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book/?isbn=9781626564046) and [trauma](https://sldconsulting.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ODReview_vol54_no1-Gilpin-Jackson.pdf) - Kurt Lewin, especially his work on conceptualizing the role of group process in creating healing in a broken world - Gervaise Bushe and Robert Marshak, who’s conceptualization of “[dialogic OD](https://gervasebushe.ca/practicing.pdf)” has brought our work into the 21st century I completed a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences from [Quest University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_University) in 2018. I specialized in the question, “How are worlds built?”. My primary curiosity was about how the stories we tell--especially the ones we tell ourselves--dictate and shape our world. I was particularly influenced by tobias c. van veen, Shira Weidenbaum, I loved writing: - [[Reading Science Fiction - A Case Study in What It Means to be Human]] - [[Pan’s Labyrinth]] - [[What is Don Quixote? Sand on the Banks of the River Tagus]] # Grief tending ~~I work primarily in the lineage of Malidoma and Sobonfu Some. ~~ I used to say that "I work *in* the lineage of Malidoma & Sobunfu Somé. I'm learning that isn't right. To be *in the lineage* is to be like a salmon swimming upstream—a river it was born to, it's ancestor were born to, it's children will swim and know in their genes. But I'm more like a deer sipping from that creek after having wandered too far from my own forest. A forest lost to me know. I'm lost, and this sweet water is so refreshing. So it is with great honor, deep reverence, and immense gratitude to the Dagara people of Burkina Faso and their lineage of grief ritual (inspired by their funeral rights) that was carried to the west by Sobonfu Somé and Malidoma Somé, that I am in an on-going process of developing, recovering, and restoring grief tending as one part of my body of work. Some of my grief mentors, teachers, and guides, both living and deceased, are: - [Ian Carrick](www.openhubsinging.com/ian-carrick), my brother - [Laurence Cole](https://www.laurencecole.com/) - [Mary Hart](https://www.harttoheartcoaching.com/blank-1) - [Therese Charvet](https://sacredgroves.com/about-sacred-groves/) - [Joshua Lowe](http://www.joshualowetherapy.com), founder of [Grief & Gratitude](https://www.griefandgratitude.net/) - [Siena Tenisci](https://sienatenisci.com), founder of [NW Grief Tending](https://northwestgrieftending.com/about/) - [Jordan Lyon](https://www.jordanlyon.com) - Dan Leuchauer - Margaret Vaugn - Win & Janet Carrick - [Joanna Macy](https://workthatreconnects.org) - [Vanessa Ochado de Oliveria ](https://decolonialfutures.net/hospicingmodernity/) There are others seen and unseen: - The desert home I grew up and live in no more - The bird that died in my hands on my porch. I don't know why. - and on and on and on... I completed a year-long mentorship program co-led by Laurence, Mary, and Therese in early 2025.