DEEP ECOLOGY with John Seed, Trudi Hayes & Carl Broman at Kyogle, July 2023

The Rainforest Information Centre presents DEEP ECOLOGY with John Seed and friends

Tickets are sliding scale from $150-$600 if you bring your own tent ($150 for students or unemployed, $600 if you're well off, or somewhere in between)

$50 to be paid on arrival for dorm accommodation if you bring your own  bedding, or an additional $35 for the venue to provide these

Vegetarian meals, gluten-free and vegan options by request 

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

Access to the site by 4WD or AWD only. If you are in a 2WD, we will shuttle you from the car park. To minimise the impact on the land, we  want the minimum number of cars possible and will organise ride shares

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.

Following the last couple of Deep Ecology workshops  at Arcoora the group was so deeply connected and enjoying the space together so much that nobody wanted to go home! Arcoora has now created an opportunity for participants to stay on and get involved in the Arcoora project, so this year we are following each Deep Ecology workshop with a week long Djedi Village immersion! Read on 

For more information, johnseed1@ozemail.com.au

Trudi Hayes  has worked with Deep Ecology and The Work that Reconnects over the past 25 years, individually in her own practice in connection with the earth, through one-on-one and group sessions with clients and through facilitating workshops and retreats both online and face-to-face.

Trudi is an accredited Mental Health Social Worker by trade and has worked in community development for the past 25 years. She has been part of the Australian Work That Reconnects Facilitators Network.

This work reminds us of what we need to nurture ourselves and the world we choose to live in. It not only connects us to country, but also each other. Through this connection Trudi has learnt, practiced and now facilitates Wayapa - an earth, mind, body, spirit wellbeing practice connecting people to their own culture through Indigenous and Ancestral wisdom. She is called to this position to support others to discover and rediscover this connection in times that are changing. She lives with her husband and 2 children on the Mid North Coast of NSW on a Bee Sanctuary affected recently by bushfires and floods.

Trudi currently works in the area of Perinatal care as a Counsellor, specialising in trauma and complex care. She has used this work within our wider community to connect women with country, culture and their experiences.

You can connect with Trudi through the following:

Website: https://trudihayes.com.au/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Trudihayescounselling
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trudihayescounselling/

Work that reconnects: https://workthatreconnects.org/user/trudi-hayes/

Wayapa: https://wayapa.com/nsw/

Little Star Bee Sanctuary: https://littlestar.net.au/

Carl Broman 

Carl has been exploring the innate desire to change current systems throughout his life. This has led to many pathways of attempting to disrupt and create transformation; including activism, political art, working in community development, systems thinking, then moving toward the realization that meaningful change starts from within. Carl has traveled around the globe studying ancient lineages of wisdom through the lens of modern Industrial growth society for over 20 years. Diving into spiritual traditions, modalities and embodiment practices such as buddhism, Daoism, yoga, Qigong and many earth based Indigenous cultures. The Deep Ecology movement synthesizes the essence of re-remembering our human desire for regenerative living and expanding our relationships to the interconnection of self and all life. He has been a trainer and educator for many years, currently supporting a range of retreats, rituals, rites of passage and ceremonies focused on changing people's inner and outer landscapes. Carl is completing the facilitator training for the ‘Work that Reconnects’ and is inspired to share these transformative processes co-facilitating alongside John Seed."