Deep ecology workshop

I spent the weekend at Solscape in Raglan, an awesome eco retreat run by two really lovely people, Phil and Bernadette. They were the hosts for a deep ecology workshop run by Daniel Nepia and Finn Mackesy. For those who have not heard of it, it is a process developed by Joanna Macy and John Seed to address the despair and burnout among environmental activists, but it has application to anyone who wishes to have an experiential emotional reconnection with the natural world and who seeks to reconnect with their inner wisdom and power. Hence it is also called "the work that reconnects'.

As a participant, I found it to be a very powerful series of processes that took participants out of their ego seperateness, deep into their inner world to experience and express their authentic emotional reaction to the state of the world we live in. The facilitators used various tools to empower people with their own wisdom and reconnect them with nature, culminating in a 'council of all beings'.

Daniel and Finn have been the only people running deep ecology workshops in the North Islnd for a number of years but now they are seeking to train new facilitors. That means that opportunities to participate will increase over the next few years. If you get a change, I totally recommend you go.