Why We Believe in Facilitation

Good facilitation fosters greater effectiveness, creativity, and vitality in our workshops, meetings, projects and possibilities. It helps us act and interact with intelligence, awareness, care, and vision. Well-facilitated sessions -- whether a business team meeting or a community creative workshop -- make optimum use of our time, expand our imagination, and help us discover and reach our goals. Leaders, creatives, entrepreneurs, educators, community organizers, and change agents all benefit from the lifelong art of facilitation. That's why we offer five holistic classes you can do from anywhere and an Art of Facilitation certificate program. See classes here.

Good Facilitation = Better Meetings, Workshops, Retreats & More

Let's make the most of our work together through more focused, productive meetings and more transformative workshops, classes and retreats. Our classes embrace both meeting and workshop facilitation because creative approaches enhance meetings, and people who do workshops find value in good meetings.

Why We Resonate With Aspen Trees

Like us, aspens are interconnected, regenerative, and resilient. They're able to bend instead of break and to send out new shoots for growth in challenging times. In fact, aspens are the largest and oldest living organism in the world. See more about how this translates into our guiding lights here.

Facilitating for
Love & Money

Join us for a dynamic workshop on how facilitating workshops, meetings, retreats, projects and more can help you make a living while doing something you love. We'll share some of the vast possibilities and have time for your questions and quests. Only $9.99 for this 60-minute workshop.

Tuesday, June 28

7 p.m. CST/ 6 p.m. MST/

5 p.m. PST/ 8 p.m. EST

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Who Our Classes Serve

Our classes bring together people who work in writing and the arts, business and entrepreneurship, public policy and social change, education and training, coaching and therapy, medicine and healing arts, spirituality and social change on the basis that we can learn far more from expanding our horizons. Some examples of people who have benefitted from our classes include:

Writers, artists, or expressive arts facilitators
Team leaders and managers
Therapists, realtors, and others ready to expand from one-on-one work to groups
Community and neighborhood leaders
City, county, or state staff
Clergy and spiritual teachers
Classroom teachers and college faculty

Join Us For a Free Discovery Call

About Your Facilitation Path

We're delighted to visit with you one-on-one to find out more about your facilitation experience, goals, questions, and quandaries. Our 20-minute Discovery Calls with one of us are a chance for us think through, discuss, and dream on your facilitation possibilities. We also can talk about your questions about our upcoming classes.

Discovery Call with Joy

Discovery Call with Caryn

About Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg & Joy Roulier Sawyer

With our combined over 50 years' experience facilitating workshops, classes, meetings, collaborations, and coaching, we bring to you our collective wisdom, warmth, humor, and curiosity as teachers and as lifelong students of the art of the facilitation.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, founder of Transformative Language Arts, she has been leading community creative, healing, and social change arts workshops for years, and she's trained and supervised many graduate students in facilitation. She studied meeting facilitation and organizational development through Quaker, bioregional, and grassroots traditions and teachers, and over the last 30 years, she's facilitated hundreds of meetings for groups and businesses and trained dozens of community groups and entrepreneurs. She is the past Kansas Poet Laureate and author of 24 books of poetry, fiction, and memoir. Read more here.

Joy Roulier Sawyer has been facilitating counseling groups, community gatherings, spiritual congregations, and writing workshops since 1995. A retired licensed professional counselor and poetry/journal therapist and supervisor, she now uses her therapeutic expertise to facilitate writing outreaches to those experiencing homelessness, mental health challenges, addiction, and women transitioning out of incarceration. A widely-published author and poet, she recently revised and updated the third edition of Biblio/Poetry Therapy: The Interactive Process, a seminal textbook for writing and healing practitioners. Read more here.

Transformative Classes That Meet You Where You Are

You can take one or more of our four-week classes from wherever you are! Our online and Zoom-based approaches provide you with ample guidance, supportive interaction with peers, ampe resources, and real-time human interaction. You'll also have access to our facilitation sources hub, a private online center with best practices bundles for workshops and meetings, plus links to tried-and-true and cutting-edge resources. Complete all five classes and earn a certificate in the Art of Facilitation.