Description
“It can be dangerous to investigate what our lives depend on, to recognize that freedom requires a species-scale betrayal of our founding mythologies.”
—Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Queer Black Troublemaker and Black Feminist Love Evangelist, in Dub: Finding Ceremony
Dissident:
noun: a person who opposes official policy, especially that of an authoritarian state.
adj: disagreeing especially with an established religious or political system, organization, or belief
Presidents’ Day invites us to celebrate power, obedience, and Empire—often with a discount code attached.
Instead, we gather to propose a different precedent—to tend our inner Dissenter and to celebrate Dissidents’ Day:
A day to honor dissidents, those bound by duty to resist, to compost soulless norms, protect the vulnerable, disobey immoral laws and the violence of the State—the rebel abolitionists, the libelous liberationists, ‘criminal’ water and neighbor protectors, fugitive earth defenders, deserter peacemongers, regenerative re-dreamers, awesome apostates, outlaw bee whisperers, beautiful barbarians, badass resistance singers and mad poets and their pet dragons swinging us about on their traitorous tails and tales.
Dissent is a two-hour generative writing playshop honoring those with a soul that revolts and carrying a vision of something beyond Empire. Together, we’ll write to tend both our own holy fuck no and our sacred yes, and to practice regenerative re-dreaming rooted in land, lineage, and collective liberation. We’ll write with and as dissenters to remember outlaw lineages, grieve what empire crushes, and erect new altars. Through short ecosomatic grounding, guided prompts, and collective weaving, we’ll practice writing beyond the founding mythologies we inherited.
We honor the dissenters we know and the ones whose names never made it into textbooks. We honor all the past and ongoing victims and resisters of U.S. presidents from the headwaters of the Mississippi to the banks of the Mekong, from the Amazon jungle to the Amazon warehouse, from Gaza to Georgia, sacrificed on the altars of Empire and capital.
Dissent is not a lecture or a debate about strategy—it’s a collective living writing ritual, a place to remember that resistance has always been relational, creative, and alive. Think of it as a temporary altar for rejoining the animate web of life, with words as one tool/toy.
Come whether you write all the time or haven’t in years; come exhausted, yearning, curious, or committed. There’s no performance here—We’re just practicing being alive and human together in a time of Trouble.
Come as you are; bring a pen, your body, your truths, and open to whatever words might be ready to arrive.
DATE: Monday, February 16
TIME: 5:30-7:30PM PST
Online | Sliding scale $20-40
(Note: Limited to 10 to stay intimate)
If this feels like something that could be supportive of staying bouyed in this time of Trouble, you’re welcome to come surface words and sparks with us.
Register here, or VENMO: RyanVanLenning with the note “Dissent” and a good email for zoom link.
My name is Ryan Van Lenning, Founder of Wild Nature Heart, and I am an earth-lover with a deep desire to be of service in the work of re-connection, re-membering, and re-inhabiting the animate web of life. I started Wild Nature Heart to support people at a crossroads to re-connect with the wisdom of both inner and outer wild nature, to live their soul callings into the world, and to assist in the work of repairing broken belonging. If I had to summarize our work for this time: Compost Empire. I am a threshold guide and barbarian poet of the Great Turning (author of several collections of poetry, including Re-Membering, From Inside These Wild Ones, One Bright and Real Caress, An Ambitious Silence, Trust the Ceremony, F*ck the Ceremony, and Trust the Ceremony, Then Yeses Come Bubbling, Within the Cave Something Pulses, Moon Has a Long Memory, Kiss Me A Huckleberry, and High-Cooing Through the Seasons: Haiku From the Forest). I am trained as a rite-of-passage/wilderness ceremony guide through the School of Lost Borders, certified as an Ecotherapist through The Earthbody Institute, where I teach the Level 1-3 ecotherapy courses, and am a Certified Wilderness First Responder through Foster Calm. Prior to moving to California 18 years ago, I taught Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Environmental Ethics at Sinclair College in Ohio. I live among the forest and rivers in northern California, ancestral Wiyot and Yurok land. I like cinnamon ice cream, fantastic fungi and lovely lichen, and river ottering.
Recent Appreciations:
“Ryan is a purposeful, playful, permission-giving guide for creative quests! I had so much fun in this workshop! I sometimes surprised myself with the writing that emerged, and was inspired and delighted by my fellow poets’ writing and our collaborative creations. What a joyful journey that enlivened me and helped me birth something new into the world!” —Gemma Armstrong (Write Your Wild River, Spring 2025)
“Thank you so much Ryan for a wonderful two months together! Your course provided so much new excitement and inspiration for me. It was really eye opening and truly deepened my sense of ecological connection. Thank you for guiding us through this beautiful course.” —Nicola Gailits, Deep Belonging (Winter 2025)
“I have worked with Ryan in different courses and contexts, both virtually and in person on the land. I find him to be a skilled guide, gentle but powerful, who creates invitations to experiences that provide safety to swim in liminal spaces where deep work blossoms into growth, all in the absence of ego. Not only is Ryan very knowledgeable but he listens deeply and provides mirroring that leaves you feeling seen and honored. The spaces he creates encourage productive struggle and growth with a healthy dose of play.” —Kim Bielmann, Deep Belonging (Winter 2025)
“The writing class was really so great and I can’t thank you enough for that offering! I learned a lot about myself and enjoyed hearing your writing and the writing of other poets that you shared. I became inspired to write Limericks and it’s all just flowing out of me! —Erin (Write Your Wild River, Fall 2024)
“It’s been so meaningful to be connected to such fun and sincere energy that wants nothing from me but to show up as my Authentic self.” —Raina (Write Your Wild River, Fall 2024)
“The ‘Write Your Wild River’ course was so valuable in improving my writing technique, expanding my overall poetry knowledge, and providing inspiration and a creative catalyst for my writing. It also served as a very valuable personal development course through the prompts provided and sharing that was encouraged. The thought, care, and energy Ryan put into this course was evident and his warm and intelligent style made it a welcoming, comfortable, and effective environment to learn in. I highly recommend this multifaceted course!” —Anne Williams, LPC (Ecotherapist, Fall 2024)
“Ryan’s facilitation was superb. I felt his presence like a steadfast oak, and his ability to hold and meet everything that was brought to class was refreshing. He held the space with a lot of grace and created time for us to meet the grief & pain that lives beneath all that paves over it. It was more than just being given information – he invited us into embodied states of being with the wisdom, and created a structure which offered us to meander like streams through different ideas and concepts together.” —Participant, Level 1 Ecotherapy, Spring 2025
“Thank you for your dedication to this work and for modeling new/old ways of being in leadership and community! I gained a sense of companionship on the journey of exploring some of life and death’s biggest questions. The community formed in the group gave me a glimpse into how we can come together to unlearn, deconstruct, remember, and create more natural and balanced ways of being and relating. One of my biggest take-aways is understanding belonging as something inherent rather than “found” or “earned”. Being witnessed and witnessing others after our solo time on the land was very powerful and deeply meaningful to me on my/our journey.”—Leslie Hammer, Deep Belonging in the Great Turning (Fall 2022)
“This course turned out to be a transformative journey that nurtured intimate bonds with fellow humans while fostering a profound connection to the earth, instilling a deep sense of belonging. Through the exploration of the perils of industrial…it gently re-awakened and inspired me to courageously offer my own unique gifts in resisting systemic oppressions and championing the Great Turning.” – Participant, Level 1 Ecotherapy Course, The Earthbody Institute (Fall 2023)
“Ryan created a welcoming environment that fostered a culture of connection, curiosity, and creativity. I so appreciated the passion that Ryan offered in his facilitation; he models to us the possibility of bravely taking steps to live our callings!” – Gemma A., Participant in Threshold: Earth Intimacies (Spring 2024)
“Ryan is an amazing human being and teacher. This course will nurture your soul, challenge you, and open up new ways of seeing yourself and our wonderous planet. I will definitely be signing up for another Wild Nature Heart experience!” —Rob Daroff, MD, Deep Belonging in the Great Turning (Fall 2022)
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