This is a 4 day event. Days 1 and 2 will be John Seed and friends DEEP ECOLOGY, Days 3 and 4 Peter Cock & Lesley Shuttleworth EARTH HEART.

You are invited to register for the entire 4 days sliding scale from $200-$800 ($200 for students or unemployed, $800 if you've got a great job or wealthy, or something in between)

or just for DEEP ECOLOGY $150 to $600

or just for EARTH HEART $100 to $400

This mountain top forest provides a generous space to receive deepening regeneration from the powerful energy of a forest, within a supportive community context. The extended retreat offers the time to be still and to draw on inner resources. Participants can grow and strengthen relationships while sharing with fellow Earth caretakers.

Together, we can ask how to build our courage, presence and power in the face of uncertainty.

DEEP ECOLOGY

The Rainforest Information Centre presents DEEP ECOLOGY with John Seed, Stephanie Campbell, Zoe Porter, Harry Bassett.

Bring your own tent or campervan or stay in one of the dorms or you can stay in your own home if you live nearby.

Tickets are sliding scale from $150-$600 ($150 for students or unemployed, $600 if you've got a great job or wealthy, or something in between)

25% of the proceeds will be donated to the Rainforest Information Centre.

Vegetarian meals will be provided, gluten-free and vegan options by request after booking.

FROM JOHN SEED:

I have worked for worldwide rainforests since 1979. Although many of our efforts succeeded, for every forest saved 100 have disappeared. Clearly, you can’t save the planet one forest at a time. It's one green Earth or a bowl of dust. Without a profound change of consciousness, we can kiss the forests goodbye, the ones we’ve "saved" alongside the rest.

Deep ecology is key to the change we need. To deep ecology, underlying all the symptoms of the environmental crisis lies a psychological or spiritual root – the illusion of separation from the rest of the natural world which stems from anthropocentrism or human-centeredness.

Conditioned since the Old Testament to “subdue and dominate” nature, the modern psyche is radically alienated from the air, water and soil which underpin life and this is reflected in the rapid shredding of all-natural systems in the name of economic development. Deep ecology reminds us that the world is not a pyramid with humans on top, but a web. We, humans, are but one strand in that web and as we destroy this web, we destroy the foundations for all complex life including our own.

While we maintain a self-image created in the matrix of anthropocentric culture, a shrunken and illusory sense of self that doesn't include the air and water and soil, we will experience nature as "outside" our self and fail to recognise that nature "out there" and nature "in here" are one and the same.

Many people INTELLECTUALLY realise that we are inseparable from Nature and that the sense of separation that we feel is socially conditioned and illusory.

But as the late Arne Naess, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Oslo University, the man who coined the term "Deep Ecology" wrote: "it is not enough to have ecological ideas, we have to have an ecological identity, ecological self".

But how can we nourish our ecological identity? In answer to such questions, Joanna Macy and I developed a series of experiential deep ecology rituals called the “Council of All Beings” and in 1986, with Arne Naess and Pat Flemming, wrote a book called Thinking Like A Mountain - Towards a Council of All Beings (which has been translated into 12 languages). Along with others, we have been facilitating these workshops around the world since then.

In this workshop we remember our rootedness in nature, recapitulate our evolutionary journey and experience the fact that every cell in our body is descended in an unbroken chain 4 billion years old, through fish that learned to walk the land, reptiles whose scales turned to fur and became mammals, evolving through to the present.

We further extend our sense of identity in the Council of All Beings itself where we find an ally in the natural world, make a mask to represent that ally, and allow the animals and plants and landscapes to speak through us. We are shocked at the very different view of the world that emerges from their dialogue. Creative suggestions for human actions emerge and we invoke the powers and knowledge of these other life-forms to empower us in our lives.

One of the rituals we will share is honouring our pain for the world: we grieve for all that is being torn from our world, the species lost, the landscapes destroyed. Only if we can allow ourselves to feel the pain of the Earth, can we be effective in Her healing. This is why the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, has said that in order to heal the Earth, "the most important thing that we can do is to hear, inside ourselves, the sounds of the Earth crying".

This workshop enables us to find an end to the illusion of separation and experience our rootedness in the living Earth.

Stephanie Campbell has been contributing to the challenge of how to realise socially-just transformations towards an ecologically sustainable future for 15 years, as an activist, researcher, and advisor to policymakers.
Her research focuses on the potential for care workers to act as a site for transformative ecological justice in Australia.
She also serves as an Associate Director at a female-led boutique public policy consulting practice, and is building a practice specialising in the socially-just transformations required to achieve an ecologically sustainable world, and providing advice and support to governments and NGOs on policy and advocacy work related to this vision.

For more information, contact katy@johnseed.net.au

EARTH HEART

Bring your own tent or campervan or stay in one of the dorms or you can stay in your own home if you live nearby.

Tickets are sliding scale from $150-$600 ($150 for students or unemployed, $600 if you've got a great job or wealthy, or something in between)

Vegetarian meals will be provided, gluten-free and vegan options by request after booking.

Theme of the earth-heart half is deepening receiving gifts from an ecology and the nurturing and empowerment with human community. Being held in human community with other species can give us new perspectives on our own unique gifts and vision.

You'll weave connections with new friends and people you work with, sharing laughter and nourishing meals. There will be space to debrief the big things about where we are at and how we feel.

Bring curiosity

Explore ideas about the deep belonging and community that our hearts yearn for.
Slow down with deep time perspectives on society and economy.
Play with ideas for being in right relation to land and embodied kinship with all life.
Reflect on your sources of power and strength for your life.
Confront modern patterns that trap us in urgency and disconnection.

A Forest Solo

Participants camp one night solo in the mountaintop forest, from dusk to dawn. We'll support you before, during and after your sol

This deep ecology-inspired ceremony drawing on science, psychology and spirituality, may be the retreat's most generous gift. It provides you time to be still, to draw on inner resources while being connected with wild nature around you. When you give service, it's hard to let go and receive each moment with presence. You may be surprised how powerful this ceremony is.

Strengthening Your Community

The last day we shift attention to ways of being in human community for your empowerment with and for life.

We will be sharing experiences of human community: Building your face to face relationships. Who and what has your back?

Building your sustainability of your power by honouring strengths and gaining support.

Leave renewed

Take home a renewed energy for your ongoing service. Going forward, how can I care for myself while being of service? How can we care for others in the face of uncertainty?

You'll leave with new maps for self-care, well-being and connection. New patterns of being with wild nature. And a renewed commitment to courageously care for the people you love and the people you work with, in the face of uncertainty, and grounded in wisdom, humility, respect and generosity.

Peter Cock is a pioneer of regenerative community and ecological citizenship. He co-founded Moora Moora cooperative and has lived in the community for 50 years. As a sociologist, he has researched, designed, and facilitated many community and small-group processes. He taught environmental decision-making and action, conserver society and eco-psychology at the Graduate School of Environmental Science at Monash. He is Vice president of the Sustainable Living

Lesley Shuttleworth works with the NED Foundation that supports projects for an ecologically sustainable world. With 25 years of community development in Neighbourhood Houses, Lesley explores community as an ecosystem underpinned by values and working with head (intellect), heart (feelings), hands (action), feet (groundedness) and guts (intuition). She holds a Master in Sustainability and Social Change. She is completing a book on community building using Moora Moora as a core reference.