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Graduate Initiative
For Lifework
The Wellspring Course
Created by The Graduate Initiative For Lifework
DIRECTOR: DEVON ALMOND, PH.D
Course Description: The Wellspring is a 5-workshop micro-course available at no cost. The course guides participants to appreciate the wellspring as a life-giving source of workâthat once accessed can sustain for all of life. Drawing on world wisdom traditions, adult development theory, and a robust framework for work-related knowing, the micro-course calls for a larger story of work than job-based skillsets (occupations) and career-based mindsets (professions). This everyday lifework is already alive and well on the alternative and integrative edges of the workaday world. Through this micro-course, participants are offered a glimpse into the everyday lifework that encompasses Me (individual), We (collective), and Thee (sacred integration).
Workshop 01 Welcoming the Wellspring
Workshop 02 Work-Related Knowing
Workshop 03 Attending the Wellspring
Workshop 04 Meaningful Livelihoods
Workshop 05 Work for the 2nd Quarter of the 21st Century
WORKSHOP 01
WELCOMING THE WELLSPRING
The wellspring is a life-giving source of work. Drawing on wisdom traditions from across the world, this wellspring of work—e.g., vocation, dharma, right livelihood, etc.—has a very different quality than job-based skillsets (occupations) and career-based mindsets (professions). To welcome the heart setting, the workshop introduces a wellspring question.
WORKSHOP 02
WORK-RELATED KNOWING
Work-related knowing is described through four seasons, three ways of knowing, and two worldviews that relate to a singular wellspring of work. Through this description, the workshop introduces a developmental process of growing-up into “somebody” (first adulthood), growing-down into “nobody” (emptiness) and returning back into the everyday world (second adulthood).
WORKSHOP 03
ATTENDING THE WELLSPRING
This workshop explores the role of attention in shaping work-related knowing. As the proliferation of data, information, and knowledge rapidly intensifies, alongside technologies designed to frack human attention, endless opportunities for occupational and professional prowess present themselves—but, at what cost?
WORKSHOP 04
MEANINGFUL LIVELIHOODS
Everyday lifework is a vital ingredient for meaningful livelihoods. Weaving together the well-known hero’s journey, adult development and work-related knowing frameworks, the workshop illustrates a larger story of work—an emergent narrative that is alive and well on the alternative and integrative edges of the workaday world.
WORKSHOP 05
WORK FOR THE 2ND QUARTER OF THE 21ST CENTURY
The final workshop brings together various threads to offer an emergent glimpse into work for the second quarter of the 21st century. From inherited, to industrial, to informational, to integrative eras, work is well-situated to evolve from work/life balance into an everyday lifework that encompasses Me (individual), We (collective), and Thee (sacred integration).
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