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We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands and forests where we gather, and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. For tens of thousands of years this Country has been listened to, sung, and cared for. We offer this day in that spirit, as guests of a living dreaming that long precedes us.Dreaming as the Earth: Deep Ecology × Earth-Based Listening — a day of embodied sacred activism with John Seed & Rob Engels
21 November | 9.00am–6.00pm | Narara Ecovillage, Central Coast, NSW
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 an ancient practice of embodied conversation with the animate Earth — something our nature-connected ancestors once lived and breathed — remembered by Rob Engels and, in this incarnation, weaving Eugene Gendlin's Focusing with somatic ecotherapy.
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 $70-$300 | Concession and hardship places available ($70 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 [https://www.chuffed.org/project/cloud-forest-los-cedros]
https://www.ancientground.org/
https://johnseed.net/
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Event venue
33 Gugandi Rd, Narara NSW 2250, Australia, 33 Gugandi Rd, Narara NSW 2250, Australia, West Gosford
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