Dreaming as the Earth:
We gather at the dawn of the sixth mass extinction — each of us carrying, somewhere in the body, both a great love for this Earth and a great grief for what is unravelling. Most of us carry a question, too: what is mine to do in times such as these?
This day-long ceremony offers a living pathway into that question — through the body, through the land, and through a listening older than words. Together we will explore a way into embodied dialogue with the sentience of the more-than-human world and open a doorway for the wisdom of the earth to be known through us.
The day weaves two lineages:
Deep ecology, carried by John Seed through four decades of rainforest activism and experiential ecology, invites us to remember ourselves as living expressions of the Earth — to act as her, from within the web of life.
Earth-Based Listening is a contemporary practice rooted in our ancient human capacity for embodied intimacy with the animate Earth. Remembered by Rob Engels, it weaves an inner sensing practice called Focusing with the relational approaches of somatic ecotherapy, opening a pathway into embodied conversation with the more-than-human world.
Across the day, in ceremony, you will be invited to:
Cross a threshold out of ordinary time into a contemplative, ceremonial container held by the village and the forest
Experience the foundations of Earth-Based Listening — settling the nervous system, tending what arises within, and inviting the felt sense of a more-than-human being to speak in the body
Sit in embodied conversation with a forest elder — an old tree, a lichen-clad boulder, the forest herself
Make space for honouring the grief, love and longing we each carry for the Earth in this time of unravelling — held by human and more-than-human kin, as sacred medicine
Wander the land with the question that is alive in you — and the deeper summons beneath it: the work that is now asked of each of us in this turning. As the old world composts and something unborn waits to emerge. Listen for what the Earth offers back
Sit in council, witnessing and being witnessed, as the day's encounters are woven into sense-making story
Begin to follow the thread of your own sacred activism — the particular way the earth is dreaming, longing and acting through you — and plant a seed of intention to carry forward
This is an experiential ceremony rather than a formal teaching. Everything you need, you already carry: the vast intelligence of the body, a longing to meet these times, and a willingness to slow down and be met.
Your guides:
John Seed OAM is a pioneer of the deep ecology movement in Australia. Founder of the Rainforest Information Centre and co-author, with Joanna Macy, of Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings, he has spent more than forty years in service of the world's rainforests and in helping people remember their ecological selves. He brings poems, stories, and a lifetime of listening to the dreaming of the earth.
Rob Engels is a somatic psychotherapist, Focusing trainer, ecotherapist, wilderness rites-of-passage guide, and co-founder of Ancient Ground. His work explores the body as a doorway into communion with the animate world. For decades he has practised deep listening on the land, and today shares Earth-Based Listening — an ancient, embodied way of conversing with the more-than-human world, remembered through the lenses of Focusing and somatic ecotherapy.
Practical details:
Held outdoors and in shelter at Narara Ecovillage and nearby forest. Please bring weather-appropriate layers, a water bottle, snacks [A vegetarian lunch will be provided], something comfortable to sit on outside, and a journal. Accessibility and dietary questions welcome.
Tickets are sliding scale from $50-$300 | Concession and hardship places available ($50 for students or unemployed, $300 if you've got a great job or wealthy, or something in between)
25% of proceeds from this event will go towards the Los Cedros reserve in Ecuador https://www.chuffed.org/project/cloud-forest-los-cedros
