EARTH CIRCLE MINISTRY

SUPPORT GROUP

A Tel-Conference Supportive Learning Community For Earth Centered Ministry.

The first eight-week series of teleconference calls is offered:

        Monday , February 25th through April 14th,             11am – 12:30 pm.  

This teleclass is for the inspiration,support and empowerment ministers, therapists, artists of life who wish to open hearts, their own and others, to the larger family of life in which both we and our survival are embedded.

As Stephan Jay Gould, noted evolutionary biologist at Harvard notes, “We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well – for we will not fight to save what we do not love.”  Baba Dioum, Senegalese environmentalist sees it this way,“In the end we will conserve only what we love.  We will love only what we understand.  We will understand only what we are taught.”

Therefore those of us who have glimpsed this threshold on the spiritual path, are now called to minister, to ourselves and to everyone in our circle of influence, to awaken to the connection of love that awaits us amidst the larger family of life.  It is time to come HOME to the love of our mother planet.  Let's experience a common oneness and enhance the vision of heaven on earth as an earth centered community respectful of authentic spiritual mutuality and diversity.

This experience is referred to in all spiritual traditions as an inherent threshold on the spiritual path.  Our contemporary, Sue Monk Kidd describes it this way,

“One of the more unexpected gifts that I began to discover  (during her spiritual deepening) was the wedding of my soul with creation. It was no longer a matter of gazing at a mountain and being reminded that here is God’s footstool.  No, it was something else – a deepening sense of oneness wit the earth as the place where God cradles and grows life, where everything is contained, connected, and nourished.  It was as if I were a thread being woven into what Hildegard called “the web of the universe."

In The Color Purple, Alice Walker describes it like this:

"My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air.  Then birds.  Then other people.  But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me:  that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all.  I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all round the house.  I knew just what it was.  In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it."

We are at a point in our evolution as a human species that survival depends on taking this spiritual step as individuals.  We can no longer depend on the church, the government, the society to get us through.  Each of us needs to awaken to our part in the whole and to support each other in this spiritual opening.

The question we will address is "How do we foster and open our selves and those around us to this experience of no longer being separate from the rest of life: the trees, the air, the birds, other people what ever their color, country, beliefs.

Together we will explore earth centered spiritual insights and resources from Eastern, Christian and Native American traditions.  Supported by these traditions and guides we will open ourselves, our clients, communities and congregations to the divine knowing innate in our heart that connects us directly to each other and the whole family of Life.

Guided by our hearts, our common intent and our creative resolve, we will embrace and share the ceremonies, practices, meditations that weave us back into the intimate experience of the Earth's Love.

We have many mentors and guides, throughout history, now and in Spirit.  This teleconference is intended to support each of us through a community of intent and authenticity, to each take the steps in our own lives that will draw this experience into more lives. It is a matter of going home to the experience and power of the child of God that we are- a unique creation within the web of the universe.

With this intention we cannot lose, for as Julian of Norwich observed,

“Nature and Grace are in harmony with each other.  For Grace is God as Nature is God.  God is two in manner of working and one in love.  Neither Nature nor Grace works without the other.  They may never be separated.”

Some of the benefits of this 8-week learning community:

• Sharing with others of similar intent to experience and share earth centered spirituality with their clients, communities and congregations.

• Learning ways to use symbols, ceremonies, and daily practice to experience deeper connection with the natural world. We will draw on powerful Native American symbols and ceremonies, as well as those of the Christian Mystical tradition, Taoism and Buddhism.

• Exploring ways to weave such symbols, ceremonies and practices into our lives, communities and congregations.

• Processing and supporting each other through the challenges, insights and creativity involved in weaving our ‘world’ back into the family of life.

• A chance to be in touch and share with people across the country our same heart centered connection with spirit and life and learn from and support each other as we explore what works best for each of us individually.