Ecoutearth is a combination of Mindfulness, Ecopsychology and Expressive Arts Therapy.
Through Mindfulness we slow down and open to our senses.
Through Ecopsychology we know the health of our psyche is deeply interwoven with the animate world around us.
Through Expressive Arts Therapy we respond through the arts in languages of intimate reciprocity.
Combined we dance into health poetically, mindfully, holistically with person and planet.
In Ecoutearth practices, the slowing down to listen deeply to the world around you is just the beginning. Through mindful awareness and curiosity we begin to ask questions, to know more about our place, to research, to learn what is threatened and what can be protected. We fall in love. And we naturally protect what we love. Loving is a clear path beyond anxiety. Love opens us to responsiveness and the arts speak the language of aesthetic response. Through the arts we develop agency, and the desire and motivation to act. Activism is based on action, and for action to come, we must first move beyond the challenges that EcoAnxiety brings forward.
We invite you to move into these practices deeply. To move beyond the fear and into the dance of reciprocal intimacy with the place you call home.
Walking together
Through the forest
Both known and unknown
Come forward to meet us.
Above the dry river bed
Long fallen branches
Harken for life again.
We stack them
Moving in companionable silence
Listening to the wood
and each other
Each stick
A building block of trust
Slowly we build a boat
Prow stacked log over log
Into a shape of interwoven strength.
We listen with our bodies
Notice each other's placement,
Respond.
The boat takes on a life of its own
Tells us what it needs:
Pattern, contrast,
Finally color:
Rich turquoise finds its way to the mast
Dotting the stones ascent to the top
Our boat echoing the past water below it
Our boat built of love on the forest floor
Our boat built carefully
for the enjoyment of this moment
Our boat a Relation Ship
Built of care
listening
And tender
inclusive love.