Listening, Loving, Responding

Eco-Chaplaincy as Compassion in Action

Environmental educator, wilderness guide, and meditation teacher Kirsten Rudestam led this EcoDharma Exploration on June 25, 2023. A recording is available below. We welcome your support for this program.

Chaplaincy is the crucial work of providing spiritual care, frequently in moments of transition or crisis. In times like these, people often need forms of support that the larger culture doesn’t readily provide. A chaplain can serve as a trusted confidant, someone who will listen deeply to us and advise us, but not necessarily tell us what we want to hear.

What is it to chaplain one another, human and non-human, through the eco-social crises of our time? Kirsten Rudestam, a core faculty member of the Sati Center Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy training program, led this EcoDharma Exploration into how we might relate to one another and with Earth itself, as givers and receivers of spiritual nourishment.

Kirsten Rudestam is an environmental educator, wilderness guide, and meditation teacher. She has a PhD in Environmental Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz where she studied environmental justice and Indigenous water practices. She has fifteen years of experience teaching field-based and classroom-based college courses in environmental studies and sociology, is trained as a vision fast guide through the School of Lost Borders and is a facilitator for Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects. Kirsten has been practicing vipassana meditation since 2001. She, Gil Fronsdal, and Susie Harrington are the co-founders and core faculty for the Sati Center Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy training program. Those interested in joining the program in the future are invited to contact them at .

     Pieces on One Earth Sangha

This program is donation-based, with no required registration fee. We welcome your contributions to support this program and the work of One Earth Sangha.

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One Earth Sangha and our featured speakers offer these explorations on a donation basis, with no required registration fee. We invite you to participate in the tradition of offering dana, or generosity. Your support makes these gatherings possible, and any amount offered is greatly appreciated.

Another way to support us is to share what this exploration has meant to you in a way that we can use in our materials. We invite you to share a “testimonial” here! (select “EcoDharma Exploration Participant” from the dropdown menu.)

Recording

Additional Resources

An Invitation and an Inquiry

We invite you to incorporate a short break during this session, and during this time, see if you are able to spend time with a potted plant, with a tree outside, or with a cloud outside the window – simply tune into the earth quality of your body. Explore this question – What is it to listen, in your own way, to the more-than-human? And what might emerge as a response?

Additional Resources

More EcoDharma Explorations

Upcoming

Social Transformation Begins Right Here

What can open up for the beleaguered heart and mind when we slow all the way down and just breathe? What does this body already know about the magnificent compassion of this Earth, even as we might struggle to receive it?

Past

Meeting the Paradox of Inaction with Compassion

What if we better understood each other? We have a responsibility to investigate our own perceptions about how others are feeling the challenge of existential crises. What possibilities might such understanding open up for us all?

Past

Reflections on Practicing the Eightfold Path Together, Now

In a time of war, polarization and isolation, what do the teachings and practices of Right Speech offer as support? In this meditation and discussion, Rhonda Magee shares reflections on her efforts to continue working to increase connection and conversation in a time when free speech, commitment to human rights and other supports for speaking truth are under attack.