Workshops and Events
Wild Minds: Contemplative Practice as a Pathway Into Nature and Out of Climate Despair
A Workshop for Loyola Marymount University's Yoga, Mindfulness and Social Change Certificate Program (Online)
Saturday May 20, 2023 9am-12pm Pacific Time. Registration will open soon.
Climate crisis is not a future event. It is the backdrop where we are playing out daily life, and doing the work to evolve both in quiet solitude and within the global community. When we hear the news of deforestation, wildfires and rising tides, often the first inclination is to shut down or run out the door and attempt to offer help from a state of reactivity and hopelessness. Yet our practice is here for us, even - or especially - in a climate that teeters on the edge of collapse. Yoga conditions us for an alternate path: embodied practice unites us to the reality of physical, spiritual, spatial presence; meditation helps us to discern wisdom arising from the illusory and neurotic movements of thinking mind; and ethical teachings such as ahimsa and asteya offer banisters or guideposts for present and future choices.
From here, a renewed sense of belonging and clarity helps us forge a trail alongside all of our kin and kindred beings. In this workshop, we will reflect back on the minds that brought us here, ground ourselves in principles and teachings within nature and the yoga tradition, and visualize an iteration of enlightenment that is Earth-centered, awake and alive with embodied wisdom. A new paradigm is possible, by walking through this changing and beautiful world together.