Earth Spirit Dreaming: Shamanic Ecotherapy Practices - Elizabeth E. Meacham 2020

Introduction: Waking Up to Earth
Introduction

Just before the fall equinox of 1995, I found Thomas Berry’s book, The Dream of the Earth. His visionary environmental thinking ignited a profound longing to reconnect with life on Earth in ways that felt both new and remembered. In the first weeks of reading Berry’s book, I found myself sitting in my yard, feeling every filament in my body with acute awareness. My entire nervous system seemed to connect through bands of light to the bands of energy emanating from the Earth. I felt acutely connected, as if I had finally come home. A line from a poem that I wrote that same week captures my experience:

I touch hand to dirt and grass, skin to skin our love replenishes me Our relationship I am lost in, identity fades and I am one Arches of light, arches of life, extension of your cosmic being

Berry’s book catalyzed a spiritual awakening in me. Many unexplainable experiences of awe in nature followed. I found that I could not categorize these experiences through the lens of traditional Western thinking. I began turning over many stones, literally and figuratively, to expand, and learn to share with others, these life-changing experiences. During the first decade of my eco-spiritual study and practice, I was working through childhood physical and emotional abuse by my mother. My nature-based spiritual practices became an integral part of my healing. Lying on the Earth, immersing myself in rivers, meditating with rocks, I found safety and a sense of place within the web of the Earth community, though my human family remained painfully fractured. My yearning to contextualize these life-changing experiences took me to graduate school and the completion of my Ph.D, and then to work as a professor. I taught environmental studies through an experiential lens, often teaching in nature. I experienced shifts in myself and my students that went beyond what learning from books, and in classrooms, could offer. I discovered that teaching and learning through outdoor “spiritual” practices cultivated in my students a natural sensitivity to the Earth. More than just ideas, it was this inner shift that fostered an authentic environmental ethic of care. While much of environmental learning can be psychologically overwhelming, the Earth-connected spiritual experiences gave many of my students the hope and courage necessary to act for the Earth. Learning to feel their part in the web of life gave them sustenance to face the challenges of engaging in activism to heal the planet.

My work to foster Earth-care in others through experiential learning led to qualitative studies and careful experimentation. I wanted to find consistent teaching methods that could actualize profound moments of shift toward Earth-consciousness in my students. Through this research, I developed a combination of experiences that consistently encourages an opening to interrelationship with the Earth community. This method, entitled Earth Spirit Dreaming, is in three steps: Earth-connecting practices, Spirit-connection practices and Dream-connecting practices. Visionary environmental thinkers offer many ideas for restoring human connection with Earth systems. The Earth Spirit Dreaming method translates these transformative ideas into shamanic ecotherapy practices, making them accessible and applicable in everyday life. Further, the practices invite profound mindfulness, as we work to hold a vision of connection with the Earth and spirit realms, while choosing consciously to focus on joy, beauty, gratitude, love and healing.