Friday, September 29 at 4pm ET to Sunday, October 1 at 1pm ET

Facilitators: Laurel Dykstra

Cost: $350

The cost includes the programming, overnight accommodations, and meals Friday dinner through Sunday lunch. 

This course combines scripture study and spiritual practice in nature. Participants will:

• gain a broad understanding of how wilderness prophets and movements fit into the prophetic tradition,
• explore how wilderness prophets are relevant to spiritual care and action in a time of climate crisis,
•  increase their own watershed literacy and capacity to listen for the divine word in nature,
• practice contemplation and discernment in the more than human world, and
• discern their own prophetic vocation: speaking truth to power, performing sign acts, unleashing lament, igniting imagination.

Themes include gender and power in the prophetic, engaging violent texts, the prophetic in community, and plants and animals as spiritual teachers. There will be readings and individual exercises between group sessions and participants will be invited to share from their own experiences in ways that best fit their learning style and neurotype.

Facilitator’s Bio:

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.

Registration deadline: September 18, 2023