Laurel Dykstra
Laurel Dykstra (no pronouns or they/them) is an author, ecojustice activist, amateur naturalist, and sought-after preacher. Their Flemish and Anglo Celtic forebears came to the land of Hul’qumi’num speaking peoples near the Salish Sea as part of colonization and resource extraction projects. Laurel is and Anglican priest and founder a Salal + Cedar, a church that worships outdoors. They have experienced a life-time of spiritual formation in nature, provide accompaniment and discernment for individuals and communities involved in direct action, and have received training and supervision in nature-based spiritual direction from the Center for Prophetic Imagination. Laurel’s writing includes books, articles, and anthologies mostly at the intersection of Bible, social action, and nature, with occasional helpings of parenting and racial justice. Most relevant to their time at Kirkridge, is their newest book Wildlife Congregations: A Priest’s Year of Gaggles, Colonies and Murders by the Salish Sea (Hancock House, 2023), a reflection on interspecies loneliness in a time of mass extinctions.
Events with Laurel Dykstra
Silent Wilderness RetreatSeptember 9 - 12, 2024
Limit 5 participants. The focus of this retreat is listening in nature. Your primary “spiritual directors” will be the creatures, beings, and elements of the more than human world on Kittatinny Ridge in the Appalachian Mountains, and you are encouraged to spend significant time out of doors. Each day will include a morning and evening circle and individual listening times with Laurel/a director. The retreat is open to everyone whether you are new to or experienced with silence, but LGBTQI2S+ folk might find that space held by a queer and gender queer practitioner particularly valuable. Kirkridge is a Christian retreat…
Wild Gender RetreatSeptember 12 - 15, 2024
What do creatures, plants, landforms and waterways have to teach us about stealth and fabulousness? How does the more than human world invite us to authentic gender expression? Often people with non-cis gender identities are pushed into urban spaces and find rural and wilderness settings dangerous, or we are told who we are or what we do is unnatural. This is an opportunity to reconnect with and reclaim wilderness as a queer space, to explore what the species, landforms, and elements of territory have to teach and share with us and revel in the goodness of our bodies. Retreat content…