It’s Courtney Brook here coming to you from my office and sanctuary the forest.
Happy to be in here, as always.
And I wanted to share a little bit with y’all about an upcoming offering that I’ll be sharing at Earthaven EcoVillage in the fall.
So it’s called Deep Ecology and Yoga Retreat, and the body of work of Deep Ecology was founded and initially shared by Joanna Macy and some of her colleagues.
And it was developed in response to her noticing in herself and her own energy in her own body that she is tiring of of trying to make things better on planet Earth, tiring of activism and wanting to be able to keep on going with her efforts and seeing a lot of folks around her doing various, you know, all the different kinds of activism that we do, whether it’s being a school teacher or being a parent or being on the front lines in the forest or, you know, all the other 10,000 things that that we do to try to make life beautiful and good.
And she was noticing that she was needing to find ways to reconnect to herself and reconnect to the source of life and to her calling.
And so she developed this body of work called the Work That Reconnects or Deep Ecology.
And I remember the first time that I participated in Work That Reconnect Deep Ecology offering.
I left there feeling so much more connected to my sense of purpose and to my life and to the Earth that I’m working for.
So in the fall, I’m excited to be offering Deep Ecology and Yoga Retreat with my dear friend and amazing yoga teacher Garrell Bevirt, who is going to be facilitating the yoga portion of the retreat.
So we’ll be nourishing our bodies and nourishing our connection to ourselves and to each other and to all of life, to our ecological identities and to the reason why we do the things that we do.
So whether or not you are considering yourself an activist or wanting to consider yourself an activist or just really needing to deeply connect with your sense of purpose and your path, I really hope to see you there.
And, Yeah, may we find the things in our lives that really re energize us and refuel us and look to each other into the source of life itself when we tire.
So thank you very much, Joanna Macy for this inspiring body of work and hope to see you there.
Courtney Brooke (she/her) is an ancestor who was a Social Ecologist, Regenerative Designer, and educator whose work aims to reconnect people with a sense of belonging to place. Her work in the world aims to address the root cause of today’s overwhelming ecological challenges – that humans are starved of a sense of belonging to the places they live.
Courtney Brooke was raised on a small farm in North Georgia, and has been guided by a lifetime of living close to the land. Her greatest teachers have been the Appalachian Mountains, the land of Aotearoa, and Selu, the Corn Mother. She holds a degree in Ecology from the Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, and has 10 years of experience facilitating earth-based education, ecological landscape design, women’s rites of passage, and cultural healing.
Courtney Brooke has taught and facilitated environmental education curriculum, Deep Ecology, Permaculture Design Courses, hands-on craft and farming workshops, and Holistic Management to a wide range of audiences in nine countries from toddlers to adults and everyone in between.
Deeply committed to spreading the healing that comes from belonging to the places we live, Courtney Brooke is passionate about designing learning opportunities that celebrate life. She lives at Earthaven Ecovillage where she tends the land, raises food, participates in communal ritual agriculture, swims in wild water, enjoys the mysterious blessing of being alive, and tends her own wild Hearth. She loves cooking home-grown and wild foraged foods, playing her flute to the sunrise, running on mountain trails, making compost piles, crafting from natural materials, and bringing people together to create beauty that feeds the holy.