In indigenous cultures, the primary role of the shaman was to maintain the delicate balance between the human and non-human worlds through rituals and trance journey work, for the health and harmony of the community. Through their rituals the shamans would remind the human community to honor the sacred dimension of the greater Earth Community of which the humans were just one part. In the modern secular West, we have largely forgotten this perspective or usually reject it as primitive superstition. Yet the consequences of our failure to respect the intrinsic worth and sacredness of the non-human worlds have, of course, become alarmingly clear in the reports of the mass extinction of species, vast deforestation, global warming, and other deeply troubling dimensions of the global ecological crisis. Furthermore, there is now considerable research from the field of consciousness studies that strongly suggests that our prayers, meditations and intentions do have non-local healing effects.

 

Accordingly, we believe that convening community healing circles that explicitly honor the sacred dimension of ourselves, our communities, and our natural environment is a vital element of a truly integral approach to community development. These circles could involve shamanistic healing ceremonies, collective prayer and/or meditation, or any other form of spiritual practice that resonates with you and which is directed toward healing and blessing the community at large. Like many things in life, the most important elements are the intention you bring to the work and the consistency of your practice.

 

 

Organizations and resource centers

 

Institute for Deep Ecology (www.deep-ecology.org)

Deep ecology is a philosophy and practice that emphasizes the intrinsic value of human and non-human life on Earth and supports a widening of the identity of the ‘self' to include the natural world in which we are embedded (e.g., "I am that part of the rainforest that is defending itself.") The Institute for Deep Ecology conducts workshops and trainings in the principles and practices of deep ecology, and disseminates deep ecology literature.

 

Joanna Macy (www.joannamacy.net)

Joanna Macy, a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory and deep ecology, has developed (with Australian activist John Seed) a profound experiential approach to deep ecology that enables participants to access and release unresolved emotional responses to the social and environmental tragedies of our times. Joanna brings "The Work that Reconnects" to many countries around the world through weekend workshops or longer intensives. Joanna and John also co-created "The Council of All Beings," an experiential process in which participants take on the roles of various beings with a stake in the outcome of a particular social or environmental issue, including various animal and plant species. The practice helps to radically expand the perspective of human participants about what is really at stake.

 

John Seed (www.rainforestinfo.org.au)

John is the founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia. Since 1979 he has been involved in direct actions to protect Australian rainforests. With Joanna Macy he developed the "Council of All Beings" process and other experiential deep ecology practices. He travels the world extensively, lecturing on deep ecology and facilitating experiential workshops.

        

Arwyn Dreamwalker (http://morningstar.web109.discountasp.net/index.html)

Arwyn Dreamwalker is a shaman of Irish and Native American descent who travels extensively offering workshops that link sacred ceremony with individual, community and Earth healing. She is trained in a Native American lineage as well as holding a PhD in psychology with thirty years experience as a psychologist and family therapist. In March 2006, Arwyn came to our local community in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California, and facilitated an amazing weekend workshop that brought together local environmental activists and spiritually-oriented healers in a powerful ritual to protect a local redwood forest targeted for logging. We spent the weekend alternating between high tech presentations from the activists about the details of the logging proposal and working in sacred ceremony to shift the dynamics on subtler planes. A taste of the integral activism of the future!

Permanent Peace (www.permanentpeace.org)

This site sets out an innovative vision for achieving peace through creating large "peace-creating groups" of meditators throughout the US and the world. This vision is based on the research conducted by the Transcendental Meditation movement into the effect of large groups of meditators on indicators of social health in nearby cities (the evidence is summarized on the website). Over a thirty year period, they ran dozens of experiments in which they gathered a large group of people (anywhere from 200 to 3,000) in one place to practice Transcendental Meditation every day for an extended period of time (usually two to four weeks), and then measured things like official crime rate and car accident statistics in the cities in which the meditation events took place. In some instances, they measured reports of terrorist activity and war deaths. The results showed a consistent correlation between the occurrence of the group meditations and improvements in the relevant social indicators, even after applying rigorous statistical procedures to control for alternative explanations. While the results are clearly contradictory to our culture's usual mechanistic understanding of cause and effect, and have tended to be rejected out of hand by mainstream scientists, the fact is that fifty such studies have been performed now with consistent results, and many of these studies have been published by credible peer-reviewed scientific journals (including one by Yale's prestigious Journal of Conflict Resolution). From their results they claim that it only requires a relatively small number of meditators (the square root of one percent of any given population) to have a measurable impact. So, for example, in a community of 10,000 people, according to the TM research, it should require only 10 people to gather together in meditation to achieve the so-called "Maharishi Effect" (although the meditations would have to continue consistently for a few weeks to replicate the experiments).

 

 

Books

 

Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings, John Seed, Joanna Macy, Arne Ness 1988. New Society Publishers.

John Seed, Joanna Macy and Arne Ness set out a tapestry of poetry and prose about Deep Ecology.

 

Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World. Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown.1998. New Society Publishers

Joanna Macy and Molly Brown provide a collection of experiential processes drawn from Joanna's "The Work that Reconnects" that help us deal with the pain we feel for the world - pain that keeps us from acting on its behalf.

 

Spell of the Sensuous, David Abrams. 1997. Vintage.

This beautifully written exploration of the problem of the modern West's estrangement from the non-human world and how we might overcome it has become an instant classic in eco-philosophy.

 

Making Magic with Gaia: Practices to Heal Ourselves and Our Planet. Francesca Howell. 2002. Red Wheel.

Francesca Howell brings a Wicca perspective to Deep Ecology, setting out Pagan spiritual practices and perspectives in service of environmental activism.

 

Blessing: The Art and Practice. David Spangler. 2001. Riverhead Books.

David Spangler brings a wonderful balance of intellectual rigor and spiritual wisdom to the topic of working with subtle energies and group fields for personal and collective healing.

 

Permanent Peace. Robert Oates. 2002. Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy

Robert Oates sets out in scholarly detail the evidence of the Transcendental Meditation research into the social and cultural impact of "peace-creating" groups of meditators.

 

Healing the Heart of the World: Harnessing the Power of Intention to Change Your Life and Your Planet. Dawson Church (ed). 2005. Elite Books.

This book is a collection of essays from leading writers and spiritual teachers such as Thich Nhat Han, Jean Shinoda Bolden, Carolyn Myss, Peter Russell, and others about how we might see the connection between our own wounds and the wounds of our planet Earth, and participate in healing both.