Finding Beauty and Power in Wounded Places - Earth Action for our times,

All of us have a natural and finely-tuned relationship to the places where we live and love to visit – they shape our lives, our stories and our spirits in many ways.

When these places are damaged, by human or natural events, we often feel sorrow, anger and despair. And yet, in our culture there is no way to deal with such a loss. Often our tendency is to turn our back on these places because improving them seems an insurmountable task and facing them just too painful.

By deliberately turning towards these damaged places, by spending time there, getting to know them as they are now, giving them attention and affirming our lasting connection with them, we discover a new way forward for them and for ourselves.

Course outline

In this course, we turn with compassion and curiosity to places around Schumacher College that have been damaged both visibly and less noticeably. Through this process we discover ways of seeing, reconnecting with and developing new paths of creative and spiritual activism on behalf of these and other wounded places.

Elements of the course include exploring cultural and personal attitudes that prevent us from reconnecting with wounded places and discovering how to shift them in simple yet meaningful ways.

The week will include practices for listening deeply to nature, reflective time in selected natural places and storytelling. We will also focus on the concept of the gift, especially as it relates to making temporal and collective acts of beauty that benefit both the recipient and the giver.

Through this course you will:

• Develop a deeper awareness of how profoundly we affect and are affected by the health of the places around us. 

• Discover how venturing into places that have been damaged is an act of empowerment and creativity, rather than a depressing chore.

• Identify and begin to practice the unique kind of Earth activism that each of us carries and yearns to activate.

• Take the first steps toward healing the relationship between people and place.

• Recognise that we can greet the future of our planet with courage, creativity, community, and even joy

This course is for:

Environmental activists who long to discover ways of helping their planet in crisis that are not only practical but spiritual and creative.

Those who love the natural world and are disturbed by the crises facing it, yet feel that even confronting those problems, let alone solving them is impossible

Psychologists, ecopsychologists, coaches, teachers and counselors who recognise that the state of nature directly impacts the state of the human being and who seek a way to integrate the reality of ecological challenges with their clients’ personal experience.

You can read an article by Trebbe about her thoughts and work here.

For more information on the course and to book please visit;

http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/short-courses

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