Rewilding Spiritual Companionship

Thursday, April 22, 2021

9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

How do we include the guiding presence and numinous voice of the Sacred Wild in our
accompanying practices? How do we facilitate space for the Holy to speak through the seasons, and more specifically, our bioregions? How do we meet the growing anxiety that is undeniably present with directees related to the ecocidal destruction of their homescapes and the Earth as a whole?

With the guiding framework of a sacred and animate earth, and that humanity is an integral part of nature, we will look to the ecological rewilding project for clues on how we will flourish spiritually when we heal through whole-ing, a practice of re-membering ourselves within the whole assembly of creation. When we sit with others in the context of a greater communion
of subjects, we begin to engage the potential for reintegrating our soul life with the very soil of
our belonging!

This Institute offering will explore:

• The Myth of Separation and how this impacts how we connect with the Sacred 
• Rewilding as Soul Practice—looking to the examples of the ecological rewilding project,
connecting how our human psyche and world psyche (anima mundi) are related and
interconnected. This opens up space to tap into eco-grief and eco-anxiety. 
• Mapping as Mirroring: Topography Within and Throughout—we will begin to task the
imagination with the work of seeing the external topography of the natural world in mirroring conversation with our soulscape, our inner world. This begins the work of recovering our interconnection to the natural world around us. 
• Attuning to the More-Than-Human World through Sensory Blessing (outside)
• Nature as Sacred Mirror (outside)
• Triad Mirroring (outside)
• Listening in Place: Finding Resilient Hope through Land-based Ceremony (outside nature mandala work)

Mary DeJong

Mary DeJong is a deep ecologist, ecotheologian, urban naturalist, and practitioner and guide of place-based pilgrimage. She specializes in the spiritual companionship of "rewilding." Mary facilitates retreats and pilgrimages in the Pacific Northwest and in Iona, Scotland that strengthen the unique and mystical interconnection of participants, the sacred, and the natural world. She has studied and practiced within the Celtic Christian spiritual tradition, her own maternal line heritage, for over twenty years, and is influenced by the lives of Celtic saints, Jospeh Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey and the emerging field of ecopyschology. Mary's theoretical and praxis focus within deep ecology, ecotheology, ecopsychology and specialization in Thomas Berry's Universe Story delves into why place matters, the sacramentality of creation, and how together this informs the development of our ecological self. Mary terms this work “sacred eco-awakening” and sees this as a critical and holy endeavor as it allows us to come to grievous terms of our human history and to posture ourselves once again side-by-side with the whole of creation. She lives in Seattle, Washington's Rainier Valley in Columbia City, at Hedgewood, a home that for over a decade has hosted community connection through the reclamation and restoration of a neighborhood forest.