EcoSpiritual Leaders: Encounters with Wholeness
An Eight Week Online Course
April 20, 2023 - June 15, 2023 • This course has concluded
Asynchronous content offered via an online course platform called Thinkific
Registration for this course is now closed. Please contact Ash Temin at ash@thebtscenter.org with questions.
We are considering offering this course again in 2024. Please complete this Interest Form if you'd like us to contact you with details.
In this course we will engage our minds, bodies, and spirits in explorations of ideas and practices aligned with EcoSpirituality. We will move through four sections — Gratitude & Grief, Forest Bathing, EcoSpiritual Practices, and Creation Care. Each section will consist of two weeks. Every two weeks participants will engage in a bit of reading to pique our curiosity, watch a video to expand our understanding, experience embodied practice to connect us with nature, craft a prayer to nourish our spirits, complete an “invitation,” and participate in a conversation to collaborate in our interdependent growth. The anticipated time commitment outside of the live sessions is 2-3 hours per week, but you are welcome to spend as much time delving into the content as you desire.
The course will be divided into four sections:
- Part One: a season of gratitude & grief – exploring The Work That Reconnects by Joanna Macy
- Part Two: a season of wandering & wondering – introduction to Forest Bathing and Nature Therapy
- Part Three: a season for thresholds & thin places – creating contemplative and creative spiritual practices
- Part Four: a season for harvesting & sharing – synthesizing our learning and serving Creation
The material and practices in this course draw on various sources and types of contemplative, creative, and embodied practices to nourish our delight in the gift of creation and equip us to care for each other and the planet.
This course will consist of five live sessions as well as asynchronous learning activities and an optional half-day online retreat.
Live session (online) dates:
Thursdays, 1:00 - 2:30 pm Eastern
- April 20, 2023
- May 4, 2023
- May 18, 2023
- June 1, 2023
- June 15, 2023
Optional Retreat Day:
Saturday, June 3, 2023 • 12:00 - 3:00 pm Eastern (Online)
Course objectives:
- Strengthen resilience in the face of grief for a climate changed world
- Deepen connection with the divine presence in Creation
- Inspire faithful practices honoring the earth
- Embolden active hope for lasting change
If you have questions about whether this course would be a good fit for you, please feel free to reach out to our Course Host, Ash Temin, at ash@thebtscenter.org
If you're curious about the course, or if you're not sure if it is for you, please check out the conversation below between Kimberly Knight and Ash Temin for answers to some frequently asked questions.
Course Guide
Kimberly Knight, M.Div lives with her wife in The Netherlands, where for the past five years she has worked at an international school while working on a manuscript that is due to be published late 2023. Since graduating from Candler School of Theology at Emory University, she has served as a CPE chaplain at a children’s hospital in Atlanta, minister of digital community for the United Church of Christ, a digital organizer for progressive clergy, Director of Digital Strategy at Agnes Scott College, gathering pastor of Sojourners’ Fellowship in Leiden, The Netherlands, and a Nature Therapy Guide primarily serving international residents of Holland. She is a certified ANFT nature therapy guide, a Veriditas trained labyrinth guide, and is certified as an outdoor life coach.
Kimberly notes that “The golden thread running through my life’s journey is a persistent calling to find, as Frederick Buechner describes, the place where my deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger. I hope that this offering will be one in which we can flourish and discern together how best to live into that fiercely tender calling on each of our lives. I’m here as a guide, honored to travel with you across an inner landscape, hoping to help you weave together overlapping strands of faith and a love for the natural world.”
Course Host
Rev. Ash Temin is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who serves as the Communication Manager at The BTS Center. She also offers spiritual direction through her independent practice in Portland, Maine.
Ash is a graduate of the University of Virginia (BA), the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin (MPhil) and Harvard Divinity School (MDiv). Her time at both the ISE and HDS sparked a passion for ecological theology and prompted her to begin delving more deeply into the experience of ecological grief. Prior to moving to Portland, she served as an Acting Associate Pastor at Hope Central Church, a UCC/DOC congregation in Boston. Before answering the call to ordination, Ash worked in various administrative roles at Harvard University. She also has worked as a hospital and hospice chaplain, an adjunct professor, and a freelance editor.
After time spent living in Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Ireland, and Massachusetts, Ash is grateful to make her home in Maine, where she spends part of most days walking on the shores of Casco Bay. When not absorbed in work, she can be found cooking with friends, laying in her garden hammock, hiking in the woods, playing in the ocean, or attempting to learn the Irish language with a cat on her lap.
