Home » deep ecology

Tag: deep ecology

Spiritual Ecology Retreat – Beaumont, Belgium – 28 June to 2 July 2023

Inner Work for Outer Change…
How can we integrate a spiritual response to the ecological, social and political crises we are facing? At this time of great uncertainty in the world, we need to find the strength to put compassion into action.
We welcome you to join us on this 5-day learning journey on the beautiful land of a Buddhist retreat centre, just 30-minute south of Charleroi in Belgium, to explore what compassion means in relationship to yourself, to others and to the natural world.
Together we will move through a spiral of the Work that Reconnects and engage in powerful practices to grow our ecological consciousness and empower our capacity to make a positive difference in today’s world.
We will explore how to manage strong emotions, how to engage with wisdom and how to stay connected to joy in challenging times. We will bring this inner work together with our outer environment, deepening our connection with Mother Earth, with each other, and also sensing into what wants to emerge in the larger system.
Beyond excited to be co-facilitating this retreat with Annick Nevejan.
More detail & registration here

Deep Ecology Retreat Experience

May be an image of 10 people
Throwback to summer 2021 when I attended my first spiritual ecology retreat in Belgium with the beautiful guidance of Annick Nevejan and Maaike Boumans.
On this picture a playful pose of our amazing group after an afternoon of learning & helping in the gorgeous permaculture garden of the Beaumont Buddhist retreat center cared for by Gregory.
This retreat felt like a coming home and brought me a sense of wholeness through deep connection with my core being, oneness with nature & soulful encounters with inspiring people caring for Life in their own unique ways. A sense of an Earth care community that I was thirsty for was born through our time together, filling me with a huge sense of aliveness, hope and the courage to step up increasingly to act on behalf of Life.
This process made so much sense to me, more than anything I had come across. I felt a strong call to deepen and share this deep
ecology work.
In autumn 2021 I trained with Roseaux Dansants (the French arm of the Work that Reconnects) and @transalquimia (Spanish WTR) after experiencing a 5 day retreat with them (The Council of All Beings).
Last Spring I further trained to facilitate Active Hope Circles with Chris Johnstone and Madeleine Young.
Since then I’ve been sharing with passion the Work that Reconnects through retreats & workshops for open groups as well as organisations of change makers & activists: Cityplot, the Transition Network of SW France, Ecofeminist organisation Shelter FR, Extinction Rebellion, Reclaim the Seeds Amsterdam and Climate Action NL (in the making).
This Spring, I started the first Active Hope Circle in Amsterdam which is ongoing & to be continued.
I was intending to assist facilitation for the Beaumont Spiritual Ecology retreat but this weekend I stepped into an unexpected fuller co-facilitation role as dear friend and colleague Flo from @mindful.change has her hands full with the launch of the second edition of the @plumvillagefrance online course “Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet” sharing Thay’s teachings.
Will miss her presence and also honoured for this unexpected opportunity. It feels like a circle coming round.
Our retreat will be held in Beaumont again in Belgium from 28 June to 2 July 2023, join us here

The Web of Life – A work that Reconnects meditation

Do you walk through life with deep appreciation and awareness of everything that sustains your life? The Earth that carries you, the air that fills you with life energy, the soil that nourishes you, the sun that warms you, the trees that offer cool, fresh air, timeless beauty and wisdom, your numberless ancestors laying the foundations on which you rest, billions of years of evolution weaved into your body, brain, nervous system. Who we are and what we do today as a species will determine the foundations on which future generations lay on for better or worse.

Imagine if we actually evolved daily with awareness of and reverence for this interconnectedness, the world today would look pretty different… it is time to integrate this knowledge and let it be our compass as we move forward in these chaotic times.

Here’s a meditation to integrate awareness of this interconnectedness inspired by Joanna Macy’s amazing work.

Live with the world inside of you, appreciating the rich heritage you inherited simply by being Human now and create conditions nurturing the well-being of future generations.

Marjorie Lumet on Instagram: “The Web of Life meditation Inspired by Joanna Macy – The Work that Reconnects This meditation invites us to sense deeply our…”

#interconnectedness #protectingLife

Active Hope – The Cairn of Mourning practice

I am currently following a training with Chris Johnstone & Madeleine Young to facilitate Active Hope Circles. This training will come to an end before the summer and it is my intention to start hosting regular Active Hope Circles in Amsterdam in the near future .

I shared the “Cairn of Mourning” practice together with one fellow trainee last week.

This practice in essence consists in spending some time (ideally outdoors) reflecting on the following question: What is being lost in our world that you mourn for?

As strange as it may seem for the uninitiated, having a space to mourn and share our pain for the world is perhaps the most powerful way to wake up and feel our interconnectedness, to start healing individually and collectively and to free us to take meaningful action or to continue doing so without burning out.

In this post, I wish to share with you some of what came up for me in this particular Cairn of Mourning practice I did recently. Sharing this is a gift to the Life within and around us. So here goes, prepare the tissues …

I mourn the loss of fresh air, clean water and healthy soil. I mourn the loss of purity of air, water, earth that we as humans have caused through our industries adding toxicity to all that is offered to us, sustaining our Life. I mourn that instead of appreciating and taking care, being guardians of these amazing elemental offerings we suffocate Life including our own human bodies made mostly of water, air and earth. I mourn the loss of vitality, the destruction of habitat, the disappearance of species happening at an unprecedented rate, almost 1000 times quicker than before we humans appeared. I mourn that these species aren’t properly mourned, that they disappear in a huge silence in the midst of our frenetic lives often unfolding in corporate towers through all sorts of digitalised devices.

I mourn that our activity and way of life has destroyed most wild mammals, 83% are the latest statistics I remember. I mourn that our once beautiful oceans are now overfished and full of toxic plastic that will linger there for hundreds of years. I mourn the loss of over half of the world’s colourful and magnificent corals due to the warming ocean, the loss of 90% of big fish and countless others.

I mourn that we spend more time on screens than outdoors. I mourn that we are so busy and disconnected that we barely take the time to pause and feel deeply what is happening to our world. I mourn our loss of freedom, we have become slaves to systems and modes of consumerism that do not serve us and are largely destructive. I mourn the many humans who suffer the consequences of “modern” lifestyles, the poor, the oppressed, the displaced, the indigenous people, the victims of climate change, of conflict, of discrimination.

beginner'smindI mourn the loss of wilderness, the loss of untouched natural spaces where one can go and not hear a human sound or the sound of some human-made machine for days. I mourn the melting ice, the flooded regions, disappearing under the rising oceans, the many lush and ancient forests being burned away, the desertification of so many regions losing their natural fertility due to rising temperatures, the loss of habitats, the loss of beauty, the loss of softness, the loss of feminine values, the oppression of the feminine, the disrespect of women who are sacred givers of Life, the loss of value we place in care and nurturing, the loss of treading lightly on this beautiful planet that is our mother, the source of all Life. I mourn the loss of life, the destruction of Life that we are causing directly through violence and wars or indirectly through the modern industrial lives we have created and come to think of as normal.

I mourn with all the fellow humans who have the courage to stop, to feel how much they really care. I mourn the loss of intimacy and community and places to mourn as well as places to celebrate, give thanks and rejoice through song and dance.

I mourn that we suppress and numb feelings of helplessness, despair, fear, sadness grief when faced with the state of our world. These feelings are natural and healthy, they make us human. Feeling them allows life intelligence to flow. It takes a lot of energy to suppress and numb then and cuts us off from our power to respond appropriately to the challenges we face.

I mourn the loss of meaning of what it means to be alive, to be a human at this particular time, to belong to this world.  

What is it that is being lost in the world that you mourn? I would like to hear and receive that and make space for your process. I know how much moving through our pain opens us to Life.

Our mourning is natural and healthy. Our tendency to resist pain is dangerous. Through numbing our pain, we cut ourselves from our life energy and our ability to respond appropriately to the challenges we face.. It is very draining to suppress difficult emotions & overtime causes dysfunction and disease.  When we allow ourselves to feel it all, Life flows again in us and all around, our hearts break open, we get in touch with the depth of our longing and from this incredible creativity can arise.

 

 

 

The Great Turning Towards Life – Summer Solstice Gathering on 20th June

The Great Turning is the name for the essential adventure of our time : moving away from an Industrial Growth Society that is incompatible with life on this planet to a Life-sustaining Society. This shift is happening and gaining momentum through the actions of countless individuals and groups around the world.
photo credits : Noah Buscher
We invite you to join us and celebrate this turning towards Life together at this special moment of the year. During the Summer Solstice, Life is at its peak and nature is abundant. Our own projects may be showing signs of blossoming or perhaps our motivation to create, serve and take action is rising substantially.
During this evening we’ll hold a nurturing space in which you can explore where you are called to in this Great Turning, honouring your unique longings & gifts and deepening your contributions. This vibrant time of year invites us to rise fully into who we are, who we are becoming and what wants to be born through us.
Our intention during this evening is to offer a space for support, celebration & inspiration as well as community sharing to nourish and empower us as we move forth into the Great Turning.
We (Marjorie and Suzanne) have connected through this beautiful course we are both following at the moment “The Great Turning Experiment” from the Findhorn community. The Great Turning Experiment. All the precious learnings and community received there have energised and inspired us to host this evening together, share our own journey and insights from the course.
Marjorie draws her inspiration mainly from the work of Joanna Macy (The Work that Reconnects) and Suzanne from the teachings of Michaël Derkse (pioneer and expert in transformation, founder of Pulsar Visie). We’ll be weaving some foundational practices from these sources into our evening together whilst bringing our own unique flavour to these.
You can expect an empowering and inspiring evening with:
• Deeper insight into your own journey and contributions to The Great Turning
• Celebrating the Summer Solstice and abundance of life and light
• Space to explore as a community our grief and concern for the world. Moving through these feelings opens up the door to deep connection and creativity.
• Connection & community as you navigate through this Great Turning.
“The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying our world – we’ve actually been on that way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millenia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other. This awakening makes the Great Turning possible.” – Joanna Macy, Coming Back to Life
Practical Details
Registrations : send an email to marjorie@experiencemindfulness.nl
Date: 20 June 2022
Time: 17h30 – 22h (including a potluck dinner, everyone brings something)
Location: Embodied Empowerment, Christoffel Plantijngracht 6,
1065 DA Amsterdam Nieuw-West
In the spirit of conscious contribution, as well as openness through hopefully accommodating diverse social groups, we are offering this evening on a sliding scale.
• €90 support fee (enabling us to offer student/low income fee)
• €60 standard fee
• €30 student / low income fee,-.