Earth Intimacies: Apprenticing to Life

Often when we hear the word intimacy, we think romance. At the very least we think about humans. But what if intimacy with Earth was not only possible, but necessary for co-creating the world we want to inhabit and bequeath to future generations? For most of human pre-history, we lived intimately with the land and cosmos. Hundreds of years of modernity have severed us from from many of the ways of being and relating that formed who we are as a species. We can tend that severance and re-claim our intimacies.

Earth Intimacies is a 6-week interactive program dedicated to intentionally re-inhabiting the animate web of life.I created Earth Intimacies because I am tickled by a wondering: How do we, with curiosity and deep listening, practice remembering what we’ve forgotten, cultivate ecospiritual intimacies, and intentionally reinhabit the animate web of life?

The subtitle “Apprenticing to Life” indicates our commitment to more-than-human beings, to not only learn about them, but from them. We have a lot to learn.

What if we learned not only about tree or moon, but from tree or moon as Elders? What can we learn from lichen about life itself? How might fungi have wisdoms necessary for navigating these times of Trouble? Ooh, and Water – without which no one survives. Might we be a little more attentive and see what might emerge?

This third round of Earth Intimacies adds new other-than-human kin with whom we will apprentice, including those you choose in your own landscape, plus an exploration of soundscapes, and a new session on becoming “Emergence Aware”, the mirror of being ‘Collapse Aware.’ 

Over 6 weeks, we explore through Online Gatherings, Council Circle, nature practices, ecotherapy, Somatic & Soulful Practices, Creative Expression & Integration activities. The style is emergent, playful, curious, vulnerable, and honoring.   

Among the Foragings:

• Deepen our ecospiritual intimacies by tending sacred relationships with the other-than-human world (including water, slug, lichen, mycelium, moon, feathered friends, emergence, and more)
• Cultivate an earth-centered, purpose-anchored, and ecosensual life.
• Cultivate deep belonging to pace, place, pleasure, and possibility.
• Tend the imaginal buds in the chrysalis of our personal and collective transformation.
• Explore our inner wilderness and expand your toybox of exploration.

When: 6 Fridays – February 20 – March 27
Time: 9:00am – 11:00am PT (12pm – 2pm EST)
Where: ONLINE – Zoom (and practices with the land between classes)
Exchange: $179 – $249

If this sparks something in you, Register here or send your preferred exchange via VENMO: RyanVanLenning with a note “Earth Intimacies” and a good email for program info and links.