“If liberation comes for anyone, it comes for everyone.” — overheard on a collective action call.
I go to the mountain just as the moon is becoming full. As is my custom, I introduce myself and pour water out near the roots of the manzanita bushes and old growth red-fir trees as a gesture of arrival and reciprocity. I’m trying to be a good guest.
Moon not only reminds me to not look away, it won’t let me look away. (See Moon Is Witness poem below)
Not away from war. Not away from the suffering of others. Not away from my own pain. Not away from my complicity. Not away from my own gifts.
Perhaps like you, I’ve been feeling A LOT. Feeling the heartache of so much unnecessary destruction, death, cruelty, and fear. I am also attempting balance and resiliency amidst outbursts of uncontainable grief and sacred rage. All the while, taking action and continuing to learn.
But I know if I am to remain grounded for empowered action, if I am to spend 
my privilege towards co-liberation, if I am to hold space for others, I cannot neglect my supports. So I am doing my best to cultivate moments of connection, curiosity, rest, beauty, and play, amidst the suffering. Not to escape, but to return more deeply rooted in my values, with more capacity to feel, and more ability to shape change. So investing in fungi frolics, friends, river and sunset therapy.
Liberation. I’ve been thinking a lot about what that means. And what it means in the context of Ecotherapy. Or rather, what ecotherapy means in the context of collective liberation.
Earlier in the fall, I followed the Klamath River from the headwaters to the dams that are being dismantled. It is being hailed as one of the largest river restoration projects in history. Salmon runs that had been interrupted, will return. People will be reunited with intact ecosystems.
This has the feel of liberation to me.
I’ve been hearing stories of creeks being daylighted in the midst of cities. An unburying. Berkeley has been talking about resurfacing Strawberry Creek right through Civic Center Park. I’ve been hearing stories of land back and re-matriation from Northern California to Minnesota.
This has the feel of liberation to me.
This is the same move we need to do with our hearts, having been paved over by Empire.
The movement for Free Palestine has brought about the most diverse and largest mobilizations I’ve seen in my lifetime. Jewish people in America have been among the most courageous leaders for a ceasefire and a just solution. This can be seen as acts of healing unprocessed ancestral trauma. Indigenous people from Minnesota to Aotearoa are raising their voices and chants in solidarity. It is a profound moment of disillusionment with Empire–Millions are deepening or awakening their “No” to colonialism. No one is free until all are free. No one is safe until we are all safe.
This all has the feel of liberation to me.
Free rivers, free people, and freedom from trauma loops and the cycle of blowing pain through others all speak to liberation.
Whatever Ecotherapy means, for me, it has to do with intimacy, inter-being, and collective liberation. These vitalities cannot be fully realized under the violent structures of empire/colonialism.
Following in the pawprints of ecopsychologist Andy Fisher and others, Ecotherapy must be explicitly anti-colonial if it is to serve Life and Liberation. If Ecotherapy is not held within a decolonial framework, I fear that at best it will be irrelevant to the Great Turnings that are emerging, and at worst it will be actively complicit in perpetuating harm. Ecotherapy will be most powerful when it embraces an explicitly decolonial commitment to solidarity and liberation. (We explore this more in our Level 3 training)
So: the most ecological thing we can do is compost Empire. 
Compost the ethic of domination and structures of supremacies. We likely won’t survive the Great Turning intact without it. It will require our dreams being bigger than our nightmares. It will require deep listening to elder trees and rivers. It will require the heat of truth-telling and the moisture of grieving. I know my nervous system alone cannot bear it. Nor can yours. So we must practice being with the trouble together in this threshold of momentous transformation.
Moon is witness. Rivers are flowing freely again. Creeks are being daylighted. Walls are coming down. People are facing unprocessed ancestral trauma. We are re-learning to grieve together. The season is turning and Earth is still sending invitations.
May we keep listening and learning and leaning into liberation. This is a deep ecology calling. This is earth dreaming through us, through our minds, hearts, and bodies. May we open ourselves up to it.
NATURE PRACTICE
As we enter the longest nights and darkest weeks of the year, it can be a good time to slow down and lean into the season. Befriending darkness can take many forms. In an over-illuminated world, could it be that we’ve let go of some of our ancestral connection to the gifts of night? You’ve heard of forest bathing. You’ve maybe flirted with rain bathing and snow angels. Dark bathing is a wonderful invitation to practice being with the dark.
Dark bathing is like sky-gazing but you sit or lay in complete darkness. Allow yourself to float on waves of darkness, becoming permeable to
its soothing waters. In darkness, our perception of form dissolves, which can allow us to awaken other senses and experience different textures inside and out. What do you notice there that the light of day hides?
As that dark-lover poet Rainer Maria Rilke puts it in an ode to darkness:
“You, darkness, that I come from I love you more than all the fires that fence in the world, I have faith in nights.”
From Ryan Van Lenning
NATURE PRACTICE
The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance As Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and ecological systems to reimagine currencies of exchange? Read the article here.
Turtle Island Decolonized
All across the continent, Turtle Island, indigenous place names are being resurrected and honored. Decolonial Atlas has just released a map, the fruit of 9 years of work, a collaborative endeavor involving hundreds of Indigenous elders and language-keepers across the continent to accurately document place names for major cities and historical sites. The Decolonized Turtle Island map, includes nearly 300 names are compiled here, representing about 150 languages.
Many of you know the seminal work by Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands. Now there is The Stories from My Grandmother’s Hands, a picture book for young children by Resmaa and actor T. Mychael Rambo. The book is a powerful lesson in contending with racialized trauma. With beautiful illustrations by world-renowned artist Leroy Campbell, this book features different pigmentations, gender breadth, and ableness within the Black diaspora.It is not available for purchase through retail outlets until late 2024, however the Addieun Foundation is giving away at least 6,000 free hardcover copies of The Stories from My Grandmother’s Hands (and accompanying soundtracks) to children, parents, educators, and libraries. Order your own free, postpaid copy of the hardcover edition of The Stories from My Grandmother’s Hands by going to https://thestoriesfrommygrandmothershands.com/
HOPEFUL NEWS & ACTIVISM
Decolonizing Thanksgiving
Bioneers has many resources to learn more about what it means to decolonize Thanksgiving, from articles to videos, and curriculum. Join the movement to celebrate the real history of Thanksgiving, start conversations with your family and friends, and create new traditions. Find more HERE.
#NODAPL – Take Action on the Dakota Access Pipeline
The Dakota Access Pipeline is a dangerous violation of the sovereignty of the Oceti Sakowin and Standing Rock Sioux. Three years after a federal judge revoked the permit allowing for the pipeline to cross the Missouri River and ordered an environmental review, the oil still flows as it has since the pipeline began operating in 2017. Now, with the release of the new — and deeply flawed — Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), which was written by a member of the American Petroleum Institute in a clear conflict of interest, the Army Corps of Engineers has finally opened a process for public comment. Send your comments HERE.
POETRY AND INSPIRATION
Summons
by Aurora Levins Morales
Last night I dreamed
ten thousand grandmothers
from the twelve hundred corners of the earth
walked out into the gap
one breath deep
between the bullet and the flesh
between the bomb and the family.
They told me we cannot wait for
governments.
There are no peacekeepers boarding planes.
There are no leaders who dare to say
every life is precious, so it will have to be us.
They said we will cup our hands around each
heart.
We will sing the earth’s song, the song of
water,
a song so beautiful that vengeance will turn
to weeping.
The mourners will embrace, and grief replace
every impulse toward harm.
Ten thousand is not enough, they said,
so, we have sent this dream, like a flock of
doves
into the sleep of the world. Wake up. Put on
your shoes.
You who are reading this, I am bringing
bandages
and a bag of scented guavas from my trees. I
think
I remember the tune. Meet me at the corner.
Let’s go.
Moon Is Witness
Ryan Van Lenning
Today Moon does not look away.
Today Moon bears witness.
Today Moon lends light to grief and the things we would hide.
Today Moon is beautiful even as it illuminates the horrors.
🌕Shining equally on all, there is no fleeing anymore.
🌕Shining on the children in the rubble who have their names written on their arms for identification.
🌕Shining on those whose last sounds are chants pleading to a merciful god.
🌕Shining in those whose last breath is ash.
🌕Shining on the mothers with lifeless babes in their arms.
🌕Shining on those who skin is aflame with white phosphorus raining from the sky.
🌕Shining on those millions whose hearts are utterly breaking by this failure of humanity.
🌕Shining on those in shock and numbness, not knowing what to do, what to say.
🌕Shining on those whose sacred rage is a compass for setting things right,
seeking to re-order the world.
🌕Shining on those whose rage is fuel for vengeance.
🌕Shining on those whose wounds are so deep, hearts so calloused, they now blow their pain and power through countless other bodies.
🌕Shining on the devastated land, whose countless more-the-human kin are blasted out of existence.
🌕Shining on the deep need for safety and peace, which all beings deserve.
🌕Shining on all the sacred longings for Life and Liberation.
Today Moon does not look away.
Today Moon bears witness.
Today Moon lends light to grief and the things we would hide.
Today Moon is beautiful and illuminates the horror.
Thank you for reading! We welcome your comments and questions. Contact EBI: earthbodyinstitute@gmail.com.
We acknowledge that The Earthbody Institute is located in Huchiun, in unceded Lisjan territory, now known as Oakland. We honor and support the ancestors and present Lisjan people. We encourage you to learn more and make a donation to support the return of their land and culture.