Bear Witness to the Living Earth
We are Earth.
Just like Earth, our bodies are 70% water,
with the same proportion of salt as the oceans.
Our bones are made strong by limestone
that comes from prehistoric shellfish.
Every atom of our body
has been a rock or a butterfly or a daisy or a lion.
What we call mountain, air, and ocean
are the bones, the breath, and the blood
of our most ancient ancestors
and our future descendants.
We belong to Earth.
Come together for the Earth--Our Mother & Home
MEDITATION CYCLE 1: INTRODUCTION & INVOCATION
14:00 – 16:45 UTC
Bearing Witness to the Living Field Between Us
with Elizabeth Debold, Rami Mukyu Efal, Thomas Steininger & Sach'a Sawila
MEDITATION CYCLE 2:
17:00 – 19:45 UTC
Bearing Witness to the Water of Life
with Rabbi Jill Hammer
Drawing on a powerful story from the Talmud about how King David’s curiosity led him to cause a devastating flood, Rabbi Jill invokes the power of water and our relationship to it. With poetry and music, she will bring alive the mystical truth of this tale that reminds us of our arrogance and the need for the right balance between ourselves and both the Divine and the Waters of the Deep.
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is an author, teacher, midrashist, mystic, poet, essayist, and priestess. She is committed to an earth-based and wildly mythic view of the world in which nature, ritual, and story connect us to the body of the cosmos and to ourselves. She is co-founder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, a program in spiritual leadership for Jewish women. As a leader of the Kohenet Institute, she creates and teaches embodied ritual and study that transforms Jewish conceptions of prayer and ceremony.
MEDITATION CYCLE 3:
20:00 – 22:45 UTC
Bearing Witness to Earth's Embodiment in Us
with Pir Zia Inayat-Khan
Pir Zia Inayat-Khan, PhD is the spiritual leader of the Inayati Order (formerly the Sufi Order International), a mystical and ecumenical fellowship rooted in the visionary legacy of his grandfather, Hazrat Inayat Khan. Pir Zia is author of Saracen Chivalry: Counsels on Valor, Generosity and the Mystical Quest and Mingled Waters: Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions. The son and successor of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Pir Zia Inayat-Khan is a recipient of the U Thant Peace Award and is a Lindisfarne Fellow. Pir Zia is president of The Inayati Order and founder of Suluk Academy. Now based in Richmond, Virginia, Pir Zia frequently travels.
MEDITATION CYCLE 4:
23:00 – 1:45 UTC
Bearing Witness to Our Love of Her
with Charles Eisenstein
Our love of Earth and deep recognition of Her as a living being is the wellspring from which transformation can truly happen. Her fathomless life-giving capacity has been an unending gift—it is the source of our own lives. Join Charles Eisenstein as he opens our awareness and hearts to the deep connection with Her that already lives within us.
Charles, author most recently of Climate: A New Story, is an ecologist, activist, and deep thinking mensch. He calls us to move beyond the Story of Separation and embrace the deeper truth of Interbeing. Charles speaks what our hearts long to hear: A more beautiful world is truly possible and helps us unlearn our disbelief in that possibility and embrace the mystery of Life with its endless creativity.
save the date!
December 5-6, 2020
Join us next year!
MEDITATION CYCLE 5:
2:00 – 4:45 UTC
Bearing Witness to Our Deep Time
with Pi Villaraza
Brain. Breath. Blood. What is our emerging awareness of the ancient future? As our hearts beat to the rhythms of Deep Time, our very breathing cycles back and forth yesterdays and tomorrows. Today, humanity witnesses the awakening of planetary consciousness as our capacity to perceive time shifts from the linear to the simultaneous. Pi Villaraza speaks of a journey into dimensions of Deep Time and Space, asking What is Story from the vast horizons of Earth’s memory.
Author of Conscious Trance: The Journey to the Dancer Within, Pi is a gifted healer who developed the process of “innerdance,” a guided internal journey and spiritual healing modality rooted in ancient filipino babaylan (shamanic) dance. Pi is founder and a spiritual leader of Maia Earth Village, founder of Emergence Convergence and co-founder for Transformation Medicine, in the Philippines. His work in healing and transformation has been published in media across the world.
MEDITATION CYCLE 6:
5:00 – 7:45 UTC
Bearing Witness to Light from Shadow
with Thanissara
Thanissara deepens the field between us by taking us on an inner journey through music and a form of breath and embodiment practice that is called tonglen in Tibetan Buddhism. Invoking the goddess of compassion, Quan Yin, she will help guide us to transmute the shadows and forces that are causing destruction in these times of climate chaos. In a true practice of bearing witness, Thanissara offers a parth to stand for the light in the face of the deepening shadows.
Author of Time to Stand Up, A Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth, Thanissara, from London, is vitally interested in the potential of connecting Buddhist dharma and climate action. She was a Buddhist nun for 12 years and has taught meditation retreats with her partner Kittisaro since 1992. Together they founded Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat in 2000 in South Africa and co-authored Listening to the Heart, A Contemplative Guide to Engaged Buddhism. She has also authored several poetry books.
MEDITATION CYCLE 7:
8:00 – 10:45 UTC
Bearing Witness to the Joy of the Mother
with Ruth Langford and Nayri Niara
Sitting at the original inter-tidal zone where the fresh water of kunanyi / Mt. Wellington, met the salt water of timtumili minanya / Derwent River, Ruth will sing from this place rich in nutrients, diversity and cultural heritage. She will sing in celebration of Mother, through an ancient song about the mother’s milk coming in to feed the newborn. Through this, she honors the Mother we all share who is still holding us and all of life through this enormous transition.
As a Song woman and Story Teller, Ruth Langford draws upon the cultural knowledge of her Yorta Yorta mother and the Tasmanian Aboriginal community where she was born and continues to live. She is part of Nayri Niara, whose guiding principles are “Connection to Country, Culture and to the Sacred.” Nayri Niara provides opportunities for people to realign with traditions and cultural practices which emphasizes the importance of hearing the voices of our Elders, reclaiming our traditional values of honor, respect and equality and listening to the voice of our Inner Healer/Sprit in order to promote healthier communities for the future.
MEDITATION CYCLE 8: CLOSING & GOING FORTH
11:00 – 14:00 UTC
Bearing Witness to Sacred Action
with Metsa Nihue
In this last cycle of One World Bearing Witness, our being begins to stir in contemplation of action–a fire burning in the Heart. We will be joined by Metsa Nihue who will help us to light that fire of connection and intention. He will call in the plants, the mountains, the Spirits and Energies that express the wisdom of the invisible world. As he says, “Hear the jungle, the wind, the plants, the mountains, the fire, the water. Hear the heartbeat – your own and that of the world. Allow the music to work on and in you. Allow the music to heal you. Allow the music to guide you. For these songs, your internal compass already knows the way.”
Metse Nihue, as he is known to many, is internationally renowned in the field of Amazonian plant spirit medicine. He calls himself a vegetalista (vegetalist) due to his direct relationship with plants in South America. The Shipibo people of Peru call him an Onaya (medicine man). Many call him a “shaman,” but it’s a term he doesn’t promote.