Attending the Earth
Facilitated by: Trebbe Johnson
Available by: Watch Online Recordings
Price: General Public: $ 100.00 | One Spirit Graduates and Students: $ 90.00
When we consider the sacredness of the Earth, we tend to think of beautiful, awe-inspiring places like old-growth forests and snowy mountains. Yet hurt places like a landfill, a clear-cut forest, and a street corner where an act of violence has occurred are also part of the sacred Earth, and they are often shunned. In this workshop participants open up to the beauty and holiness of wounded places as they develop practices of ceremony, offerings, and meditative listening there. Praising, mourning, and creating sacred beauty for hurt places fosters respect for all parts of Creation, deepens compassion, and unites people of diverse races, religions, and ages around the love of place.
The course is especially designed for and relevant to anyone who is saddened by the many ways in which the Earth is under assault and wishes to develop a more sacred relationship with those and all places.
Through this practice participants will:
Visit a place near them between sessions, that they consider hurt, broken, or toxic, and spend time in this place., focusing each week on a different aspect of the practice
Appreciate that all of nature, splendid and spoiled, is sacred
Discover that, just as we can’t be whole, healthy individuals until we confront and befriend the shadow places within, so we can’t expect to live with a healthy planet until we confront hurt places
Explore how “othering” certain places corresponds to othering certain people, and shift old attitudes through compassion, delight, and spiritually-oriented antiracist, anti-colonial practices
Develop liturgies and ceremonies to help face ecological crises both local and global
FACULTY:
Trebbe Johnson
Trebbe Johnson is the author of “Radical Joy for Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth's Broken Places”, and other books, as well as many articles and essays that explore the human bond with nature. She is also the founder and director of the global community Radical Joy for Hard Times, devoted to finding and making beauty in wounded places. Trebbe speaks four languages; had camped alone in the Arctic wilderness; studied classical Indian dance; and worked as an artist’s model, a street sweeper in an English village, and an award-winning multimedia producer. She has led contemplative journeys in a clear-cut forest, Ground Zero in New York, the Sahara Desert, and other places. She lives in Ithaca, New York.