Remembering with Love Carol Hwoschinsky

We are deeply saddened to share that Carol Hwoschinsky, one of the beloved founding elders of The Compassionate Listening Project, has recently passed away. Her vision, wisdom, and presence shaped the heart of our community in countless ways. In remembrance, Leah Green, Susan Partnow, and Andrea Cohen have each written a tribute to honor her life and legacy. We invite you to read their reflections below and to join us in holding her memory with gratitude and love.

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A Tribute to Carol- Leah Green:

It is with both grief and profound gratitude that I share the passing of our dear friend and my co-visionary, Carol Hwoschinsky, who died peacefully on August 20th at the age of 92. Carol and I joined forces nearly 30 years ago and she had a foundational role in the early years of the Compassionate Listening Project as our first Director of Training. 

My journey with Carol began in the summer of 1996, at a Summer Gathering of the Earthstewards Network in Mendocino, California. Earthstewards was a global network of people committed to caring for the Earth and her inhabitants and we held large gatherings in the summer. We had circled up in a meadow on the first day, and people took turns stepping in to announce projects they were working on and to invite support and participation. I stepped in to update people about my project, Mid East Citizen Diplomacy. I had been leading citizen diplomacy delegations to Israel and Palestine since 1990 under the auspices of Earthstewards. 

Tired of the entrenched polarization endemic to this work, I was determined to steer the project in the direction of reconciliation work. I announced that I would be bringing an international peacemaker, Gene Knudsen Hoffman, with me on my ninth delegation in November, to guide us in practicing “Compassionate Listening” -  something Gene had been developing in her international reconciliation work. Gene had first learned this concept from her dear friend, the Vietnamese poet and peacemaker Thích Nhất Hạnh, who taught that listening with compassion to people on all sides of a conflict is essential for healing and transformation.

Carol walked up to me directly after the circle to introduce herself, and she signed up to join my November delegation on the spot. She was a therapist, educator, and mediator, and had recently been working on a dialogue project with Armenians and Azerbaijanis. She told me later that when she heard the two words, “compassionate listening”, she knew immediately that this was the missing ingredient in her conflict resolution tool kit, and she felt excited to come and be a part of our project. 

Carol participated in the delegation along with her husband Paul and her dear friend and colleague from dialogue work, Larissa. After fourteen days of listening in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, including long discussions with me and Gene about the power and potential of this approach, she was hooked. Carol and I both felt compelled to continue working together to integrate Compassionate Listening into the delegations that I had been organizing and leading since 1990. From this moment forward, Carol was woven into the very fabric of Compassionate Listening.

The following year, I organized my first all-Jewish delegation to listen deeply to all sides of the conflict, including meeting with the founder of Hamas in Gaza City. I had raised funds to bring a film crew with us, and Carol’s son, Peter, and I produced a film called “Children of Abraham,” about this profound experience (unfortunately, the film is still relevant today). As Children of Abraham made its way across the country, the interest in our work grew exponentially, and we began to create workshops for audiences in the United States. 

Carol traveled with me again and again to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, as we worked to apply and refine this emerging practice in one of the oldest, most protracted conflicts in the world. We began offering workshops for Israelis and Palestinians both during and after the delegations. It was during these years that the Compassionate Listening Project truly took shape. Her wisdom, grounded in transpersonal psychology, mediation, and dialogue, gave structure and depth to what was, in many ways, a practice that sounded simple but in reality was quite challenging, especially in a war zone. Carol had the rare ability to combine intellectual rigor with spiritual insight, offering clarity in moments of confusion and grounding in moments of overwhelm. (I had already established Mid East Citizen Diplomacy as a non-profit organization, and it was at this time that we changed the name to the Compassionate Listening Project.) 

In 2000, Carol published her first book, “Listening with the Heart: A Guidebook to Compassionate Listening”, written in response to the many requests for more information about our work. She organized the book around the core questions people were asking: What is Compassionate Listening? Why do we do it? What are its applications? When is it appropriate and when is it not? How do we do it? How can someone become involved? The book was written with the belief that Compassionate Listening should expand and become the basis of all dialogue. Carol described it as “an invitation to enlarge the community of people, worldwide, who know the importance of respect and compassion in all human interactions.” She intended it to be both inspirational and practical - and she donated all proceeds to the Compassionate Listening Project, ensuring that her work directly supported the growth of the movement.

Carol and I continued to meet with Gene Knudsen Hoffman in the United States, and we created gatherings and workshops for the community of people who had started to gather around us. My vision was to train other facilitators to teach Compassionate Listening and help to grow the work and the organization. In 2002, we created a “Core Council” of several people who were very close to the project, and together we launched our Advanced Training and Certification Track, with Carol as the lead trainer. We began with an invitation-only group of people who had been attending our events, and we met for four long weekends over a one-year period, from 2003 - 2004. Our Facilitator Certification program has ensured organic growth over the past two decades. To this day, we continue to attract remarkable facilitators from around the world for our Compassionate Listening Facilitator Certification program. 

Carol started writing her second book about 25 years ago. She would put it down for years at a time and then pick it up again. In recent years, even as her health declined, Carol was determined to complete the book. She persevered with remarkable focus and courage, and just three days before entering the hospital (she died the next day), she sent me the completed manuscript of her long-awaited book, "Conflict as an Evolutionary Force: A Personal Journey". She was very excited for me to finally read the book, in part because she had asked me to write the foreword. It was as if she had held on until her life’s work was complete, leaving behind a treasure for her family, friends, and for the countless people around the world whose lives she touched through her dedication to peace-building, and for those who have yet to discover her brilliant mind and huge heart, and her contribution to the field of conflict transformation and peace-building. 

For me personally, Carol was more than a colleague. Our numerous journeys together, the hours of conversation and collaboration, the endless planning and curricula creation, the risks we took, the terrifying situations we faced in the war zones of Israel and Palestine, and the laughter we shared - it all created a bond that runs deep in my heart. We spent a lot of time in each other’s homes and knew each other’s families. Her son Peter was very involved with the Project as well. She taught me to be a better mother to my son, who was four years old when we met. Carol enriched my life beyond measure, and my gratitude to her is indescribable.

Carol’s passing is felt deeply among all in our community who were blessed to know her. And, her presence continues. It lives on in every facilitator, every training, every circle. Her life was a testament to the belief that conflict, when met with compassion, can be an evolutionary force for transformation and healing.

We love you, Carol. We honor you. And we carry your work forward.

With love and gratitude,

Leah Green

Founder, The Compassionate Listening Project

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Honoring Carol Hwoschinsky- Susan Partnow

Our beloved elder, mentor, and friend Carol Hwoschinsky recently left this world, and though my heart aches with her absence, her presence remains deeply alive within me. I can feel her gentle sweet voice in my mind's ear.  To me, Carol embodied the essence of our calling—healing the world from the inside out. She truly lived the teaching to Be the Change. With her extraordinary mind, luminous spirit, and boundless compassion, she wove together brilliance and humility in a way that inspired so many of us blessed to walk alongside her.  She was also a lot of fun to be with and loved walking in the woods.  I remember one day when we were all visiting Leah in Indianola. When we reached the water's edge she stripped off her clothes and dove into (for me way too freezing) Puget Sound, relishing every stroke.  I was astounded and delighted.

Carol was a true guide for me personally. As a mentor, she entrusted me with the Compassionate Listening Advanced Training Curriculum, and with that, I felt so honored by her faith. Together, as part of our “Core Council,” we wrestled with the big questions—What does Compassionate Listening really mean in our lives? How can it help meet the desperate needs of our fractured world? Out of those conversations grew the very scaffolding of our work—including the five Core Practices that continue to guide us today. Carol’s mind was sharp and synthesizing, her experience and knowledge vast and deep, her heart wide and generous, her soul always rooted in gratitude. Every time we spoke, she showered me with appreciation, helping me feel both capable and cherished.

It is a rare gift to encounter a teacher who not only imparts wisdom but also models it deeply. Carol gave us that gift. She poured her life experience, her stories, and her insights into her forthcoming book—a final offering of love to our community and beyond. I will miss her deeply, but will also carry her forward—in our practice, in our relationships, and in the work of peacebuilding she so passionately championed.

Carol will always hold a sacred place in my heart, and in the heart of the Compassionate Listening Project. May we honor her legacy by living the compassion she embodied.

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Ode to Carol- Andrea Cohen

Carol was so many things to me for the past nearly 30 years. She was my Compassionate Listening teacher and mentor. She was someone I could always bounce ideas off of when thinking about the value of CL in my daily life. And above all she was my dear friend.

Carol was a part of my history with Compassionate Listening. I met her in the late 1990’s when we had met to talk about the upcoming all-Jewish delegation to Israel-Palestine during which I was going to be the director of the film Children of Abraham. The trip itself was a memorable one on so many levels…not the least of which for me was about navigating painful personal conflicts that impacted the film production aspect of the trip. We all made it through those times, with the beautiful film that resulted and continues in its relevance to this day.

After returning from that experience, the training component of what became The Compassionate Listening Project was formally birthed. And the practices we explored together in the very early days have remained with me. In preparing to write this ode I began re-reading some of Carol’s first book Listening with the Heart. The breadth of her knowledge based in transpersonal psychology, mediation and dialogue was just a continuation of her lifelong spiritual journey toward clarity, wholeness and peace.

My relationship with Carol was a deep personal friendship. On our annual visits to Ashland my husband and I would sometimes stay with Carol and her husband Paul. Their life together embodied their commitment to community, kindness, generosity, the beauty of nature, and environmental consciousness. They attempted to live those values.

Carol and I would talk on the phone regularly, including the week before I learned about her passing. We would talk about the Compassionate Listening Project, our families, our personal struggles, and the state of the world in these challenging times. We were comfortably vulnerable with each other - and shared openly about the state of our hearts. We lived our practices in our relationship.

When we talked the week before she died she told me she knew that her body was failing. She was intently focused on finishing her second book and getting the last few components taken care of. She barely had the energy to stay on the phone with me - and I told her to use her energy to finish - and then call me back at a later time. That time never came. 

I haven’t yet read all of her new book. Yet, I know that through reading it, she will continue to remain alive within me. 

To you, Carol, thank you for enriching my life in every way possible. I will miss your presence.