This workshop is part of Lindsay Branham’s doctoral research and a partnership between Cambridge University and the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies. Therefore, willingness to fill out short surveys (10 mins max) daily for a period of 8 days after the workshop is required for participation. Register for one of the two workshops. “In the end we will conserve only what we love.” This statement from Senegalese forestry engineer Baba Dioum speaks directly to what is the missing piece at the heart of the unfolding environmental megacrisis: the fact that human beings have been severed from our physical, emotional, and spiritual connection to nature. Are you feeling the existential impacts of climate imbalance and so much more? Are you seeking sustainable ways to care for both yourself and the Earth? This workshop, led by Cambridge University psychologist and eco-doula Lindsay Branham, will equip you with practical tools to explore your own relationship with the Earth. Learn meaningful and simple ways to connect with nature that can have large impacts on your personal, mental and physical health and then explore them in daily short exercises after the workshop to integrate them into your life. This workshop is experiential and blends ecological education with storytelling, meditation, and embodied practices to develop your own unique relationship with nature. Learn all about the benefits this connection can offer us personally and collectively, and then be supported to go out and build it! This is an invitation to become re-enchanted with nature, which will provide resource and ground as you find your center of gravity in a world amidst a free fall. The workshop explores the wondrous cosmic tenderness of interconnectivity. Please note that this workshop is part of a Cambridge University study on the human-Earth relationship which will explore and compare different ways to connect with nature to find those with highest efficacy. The findings will be disseminated to inform new evidence in the fields of psychology and nature connection science. Therefore, willingness to fill out short surveys (10 mins max) daily for a period of 10 days after the workshop is required for participation. About the Instructor: Lindsay Branham is a PhD candidate in psychology at the University of Cambridge investigating the human-Earth relationship. Lindsay is also an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker and has spent 15 years documenting ecological and human crises around the world. Lindsay trained to become a Buddhist eco-doula through the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies where she studied deep ecology, grief and meditation practice within the legacy of environmentalist and activist Joanna Macy. This workshop is informed by her decades-long contemplative practice and her personal love for the Roaring Fork valley, which is where she is from. She is currently writing a book about the interconnectedness of trees and what they have to teach us. This course is part of her doctoral research and a partnership between Cambridge University and the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies.
Please contact Aspen Center for Environmental Studies if you have any questions.