Earth-centric belonging

Online

While most critics of modernity/coloniality associate colonialism with the expansionist occupation of lands and the subjugation of peoples, many Indigenous peoples see these manifestations of violence as symptoms of a deeper and older form of violence that happens at ontological and metaphysical realms- the realm of “being”. This deeper, older violence is the imposed sense of separation between ourselves and the dynamic living land-metabolism that is the planet and beyond, as well as the theological separation between creature and creator. 

Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, Hospicing Modernity

Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash

In each of our lineages, at some point in the past, our people lived in relationship to their home place as a conscious being in a sacred way. However, somewhere along the way, amidst scientific objectivity, mainstream schooling and all things modernity, we have come to mistakenly believe ourselves to be outsiders from Earth’s Community. Instead of speaking with the other than human ones, as our ancestors once did, we have learned to objectify our bird, snake, spider, river and rock friends in our collective forgetting of the intimacy that is deep reciprocal relationality with the web of life. 

Earth-centric consciousness is a way of understanding and experiencing ourselves as intimately participatory in an ecosystem - and a call to act in ways of reciprocal relationship. Within power-over culture, with its continuous demand of making something commodifiable and sellable, eco-awakening (awakening to the fact that we ecologically belong) is absolutely of no value - in fact it is counter-cultural. At its essence, it is a fundamental shift in world view and consciousness. It is such a complete shift that it is often not possible to continue participating in what Joanna Macy calls ‘business-as-usual’. Rather than making us happier and better consumers or more successful entrepreneurs, eco-awakening has as its goal, the humbling force of true belonging.

How do we find our way back? How do we remember how to listen? How do we speak our longing into the waters, the winds and the grasses, that we might remember, might be remembered by them? How might we, together, create a culture of relationality with Earth and her creatures?

What we'll get up to...

  • be in imaginal conversation with our kith and other-than-human kin
  • make offerings of beauty to Earth 
  • be in the ceremony of remembrance and the dance of our belonging to Earth
  • receive  our dreams and  encounters with the wild others as ways the world speaks back
  • sit in virtual circle with the “time-based” village of humans 
  • explore somatic practices, earth-based ritual and ceremony 

In between sessions, you will be invited to spend solo time out on the land to discover unique ways of being and experiencing yourself as physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually home within Earth Community. Creativity, ritual, invitations and exploring ancestral ways of being with Earth Community will support us to say yes to Earth’s longing for us so deeply, that we know ourselves as Earth. 

Who is this for?

Canada geese flying in formation

This online program is specifically designed for change-makers, activists, therapists, mentors, coaches, spiritual practitioners, artists and visionaries who long to participate in crossroads consciousness at the threshold of inner and outer change on the journey of deep cultural transformation that are these times.

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