Ecotherapy and Soul
I have experienced profound healing and connection when attuned to the wider presence of nature. If you are drawn to the ways in which nature could support you and wanting to explore your relationship with nature and soul, Ecotherapy could be a great fit!
Ecotherapy
Ecotherapy is a healing practice that centres around nature. It doesn’t exclusively focus on healing our relationship with nature, although that may be a part of it, but rather nature and the more than human world are included as participants in the healing process. Humans are intrinsically part of the earth. We belong to a web of relationships that extends far beyond other human beings. This is sometime called our Ecological Self. Each soul is an expression of the creative energy of earth and nature. In Ecotherapy, our healing is nurtured in the practice of our connection, care and participation in the health and well-being of the earth. We offer gratitude and care to the more than human world, and they in turn do the same for us. In Ecotherapy, nature is doing the healing work, and the Ecotherapist’s role is to help guide, to be a catalyst and container for the work being done.
Soul
Soul is the spark inside you that makes you uniquely you. Listening to soul is a deeply embodied experience. Soul communicates through heart, feelings, dreams, mystery and intuition felt in our body. The practice of being soul-led is to learn to listen to our bodies, and with an openness and vulnerability that requires nurturing and care.
Soul is the creative energy that connects us to the community of all beings and makes us distinctly ourselves. When we are attuned to soul, we experience connection with depth and purpose. We are relational beings rooted in our connection to the earth, other humans and the more than human world. Our capacity or effectiveness in responding to others is directly impacted by the extent to which we experience connection with ourselves.
What is an ecotherapy session?
Ecotherapy is practiced both indoors and outdoors. Ecotherapy sessions begin with exploring what is alive in you and what needs tending. Is it grief or feeling stuck in life. Are you feeling stuck in a relationship, conflict that is not shifting, frustrated about a situation, uncertainty about a next stage in life, or perhaps grappling with making a decision? Are you wanting more purpose and clarity in your life? We may explore this in conversation inside or outside, and at times the communication may be directed between you and nature and the more than human world. Sessions may include some earth tending, such as caring for a plant or gardening, or finding a particular space or being in nature such a as a tree or body of water that you visit with regularity and intention. Sessions can be ongoing and may also include some virtual sessions.
Below are examples of sessions that could be part of an ongoing series of sessions or could be single sessions, depending on what is most supportive to you.
Threshold Walk
A threshold Walk is an opportunity to explore how to be soul-led. It is a nature based walk, or forest bathing, with depth and intention. It opens our senses to learn to communicate beyond words with our more than human relatives. It is an opportunity to ask questions, commune with your heart and your soul’s calling.
Explore your Earth Story
Your earth story is the story of your life in relation to nature. What are your earliest nature based experiences? What are important relationships you’ve had with plants, trees and animals? Do you have any fears of plants, animals or particular geographies, or trauma associated with nature? What is your ancestral experience in nature? What are some of the characteristics of your relationship now with the more than human world? We explore these questions and more in writing your earth story.
Soul Exploration
Through a series of guided threshold walks, more than human encounters, journalling and dreaming you are supported to develop more clarity in your communication and relationship with soul. This might help in searching for clarity in deciding what choices to pursue in building the life you want to live.
“Nature is not a place to visit, it is home.” “Wilderness is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving beings flourishing according to their own sorts of order. When an ecosystem is fully functioning, all the members are present at the assembly. To speak of wilderness is to speak of wholeness. Human beings came out of that wholeness.”
Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild
Joel Regehr 