Nature as Co-Guide in Spiritual Companioning

“You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer.” -Thich nat Hanh

This intensive launches a new program, a collaboration between the Wild Church Network and Stillpoint, to integrate the wisdom of wilderness into the process of spiritual companioning.  Wilderness is any member of the natural world, the waters that flow from the sky, the crow calling from a nearby tree, the sun that rises every morning.  Her wisdom is offered to us and to our directees every day.  And her grief, the groaning of the creation, impacts all of us, whether we have the words for it or not.  

 In a culture that has separated us from one another, and from the land and climate and nearly all forms of life that sustains us, the practice of reconnection and re-membering our place in the Whole is urgently important.  At a time when ecological and social collapse is happening all around us, most people are processing grief and fear far beyond their own small stories.  They are also experiencing support and affirmation from the natural world every day, and are longing to make the connections.  We, as Spiritual Companions, are not normally oriented to integrating our relationships with the land and creatures of our watersheds into our practice.  

Through solo wanderings among the red rocks and encounters with lizards and sage brush and the stars, participants will be introduced to the practice of listening to nature, soul-to-soul, in a relationship of sacred reciprocity.  Through one-to-one and small group spiritual companioning, you will learn the practices of Eco-Spiritual Direction, integrating the voices of the larger world, into your spiritual direction practice.  And you may just fall more deeply in love with the world yourself in the process.