Blog
Cover Photo Credit: Colin J. McMechan
Giving Back When We Go
My father died on 11 March 2023 at age 98. He was a good man who lived a worthy life. There’s so much I could tell you about him, but this post is intended to share what happened shortly after he died. My parents were ecologically oriented during their entire life...
Expanding Our Community to Tend End of Life
It’s been seven years since I was asked to advise on the Living Well – Dying Well program for The Centre for Earth & Spirit. Dr. Robin J Hood, John Shields and Kim Holl held a series of community consultations in 2015 researching their hunch that folks just...
We Are Looking For A Treasurer!
Treasurer, Centre for Earth and Spirit Society (Volunteer Position) “Inspiring Consciousness for Human Responsibility to The Earth” Since its inception in 2003, the Centre for Earth and Spirit Society (CESS) has been offering life-affirming programs that inspire...
A Place to Be Seen
“A place to show up, to be seen and to see others. To listen with my heart and to feel myself heard in the hearts of others.”
Coming to Our Senses 2023
Photo credit: Alice Meyers Thank you to everyone who contributed to making last Saturday's ✨COMING TO OUR SENSES 2023✨ event a beautiful day of connecting to our sensing selves! It was an incredible afternoon of connection and learning through the Four Universal...
Introducing Conservation Burials
With increasing alarm about climate change, many of us are paying attention to lifestyle choices we make that contribute to this growing disaster. How we live makes a difference. So too with our death care practices. Have you considered how you would like your body to...
Join the Centre for Earth and Spirit – Seeking a Treasurer and Director at Large
Join the Centre for Earth and Spirit – We are Seeking a Treasurer and Directors at Large to Inspire Consciousness for Human Responsibility to The Earth! The Centre for Earth and Spirit Society is a charitable organization whose mission is to offer sacred...
That Stuff
“Now you two don’t need to worry, as your father and I have taken care of all of that stuff”, my mother said matter-of-factly to my brother and I. For the first time in many years, my parents, in their late seventies, my only brother and I were alone together in the...
What if we care for all beings with an equal amount of love and respect?
Photo Credit: Alice L. Meyers | Written by Alice L. Meyers, PhD"Land-based learning means a return to ancestral ways of being, nurturing whole beings, making space for emotion and spirituality." – Alice L. Meyers As I began to write this blog post, the magical...
In Memoriam: John T. Shields
Photo Credit: Leslye Davis | The New York Times"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? " – Mary Oliver. As John gently left on his return to his beloved cosmos, he revealed a world that was a little better, a little kinder. He...
Lean On Me
Written by Penny Allport We heard them first, voices – laughter and song, words indistinguishable. “These young ones are having such a difficult time with physical distancing!” I said to John, as we walked with our dog Sophia. It was mid-March, COVID19 our new...
Turning To One Another
Creating Circles of Friendship and Care in these Times Mondays, Starting Sept 21st 4:00 to 5:00 pm We invite you to join us once a week for connection, inspiration and mutual support. "This group is, to me, an entirely safe place in which to expand my being -- to...
Being Together
deepen our roots, open our hearts Wednesdays beginning September 16th 4:00 to 4:30 pm As these times call us to deepen our roots in home and open our hearts to the world, we feel called to offer an opportunity to be together in somatic and spiritual resonance. We...
The Ecological Footprint of Death
by Penny Allport "I don’t really care, I’m not going to be here," she said matter of factly. The question we had asked in our Living Well – Dying Well program was - what, if any, plans for the care of your body after death, do you have? As the talking stone passed...
Time Out of Time – Changing Wom(b)en
Mary Lake Nature Sanctuary | Victoria, BC A Quarterly Gathering for Wom(b)en meeting the changes of midlife and beyond!! Become an apprentice to the elements - Each offering will be held in a container of elemental care and wisdom. Earth - To Stay and be...
A Labour of Love
A Labour of Love by Robin J Hood We are excited to share John Shields inspirational story with the world through A Labour of Love, now in pre-production. John’s story will encourage people to link labour organizing with personal and global transformation. John’s...
Re-Wilding Death – an inquiry-based gathering
Re-Wilding Death: An Inquiry-based Gathering at O.U.R. EcovillageJoin Penny, Robin and Kim in a co-creative action research session on the re-imagination of death as an integral part of life within the intentional communities network. Learn about new practices for...
The INTENSIVE JOURNAL program for Prisoners at William Head Institute
Bill Israel continues to volunteer his professional expertise inside William Head Institution, a federal minimum security penitentiary on Vancouver Island. Under the title of The FOUNDATIONS COURSE, the Intensive Journal program is offered to prisoners on a voluntary...
Walk Around the Block
A Walk Around the Block by Penny Allport This summer I had the blessing of returning to the place of my birth in Ontario to celebrate my parent’s 60th wedding anniversary. 170 family and friends filled a community hall my parent’s had actually fundraised to build in...
Soul Story
by Kim Holl After years of tending to the dream, I have launched Through the Lens, dedicated to offering the spoken word on film for ordinary people to share their extraordinary wisdom. The stories that emerge offer a pearl of wisdom, a promise of hope, a seed dream...
Orca Sounding Rises for the Extinction Rebellion
People from around the world have been passionately reacting to the UN's news that we're currently nowhere close to hitting the 1.5˚C target. There has been a huge outcry from ordinary citizens around the world, pleading with their leaders to listen. ...
The INTENSIVE JOURNAL® program for Prisoners at the Federal Penitentiary – Updated January 15, 2020
As of January 9th, 2020 marks the beginning of a forth year of the FOUNDATIONS COURSE Bill Israel facilitates for prisoners, as a volunteer, inside the William Head Institution (WHI) on Vancouver Island. The FOUNDATIONS COURSE is a special title given to the INTENSIVE...
Thoughts on Dr. Progoff’s Journal Workshop
Thoughts on Dr. Progoff’s Journal Workshop by Signed by prisoner X (name withheld), who has been approved for release on parole from the federal Correctional Services Canada penitentiary on Vancouver Island, British Columbia In the past week I have been thinking about...
A Grateful Heart, Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude
A Grateful Heart: Cultivating an Attitude of GratitudeThe Centre for Earth & Spirit is please to present this 2.5 hour experiential workshop for the Yakimovich Wellness Centre. Join us for an afternoon to explore, expand and inspire the art of giving thanks every...
Attitude of Gratitude
In loving memory of Devine Eldenby Penny AllportWelcome to the hitch’n post, the bitch’n post and the psychiatric unit all in one, I heard a voice call across the busy store I had entered.It was November 1, 1988, when I ducked in off a street in Steveston,...
The Legacy of John T Shields Lives On
Reflections on the Second Anniversary of his Death by Kim HollJohn Bradbury's father once said: "Everyone must leave something behind when he dies. A child, or a book, a painting, or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere...
Ahoushat Holiday Drive
Ahoushat Holiday Drive by Nikki Sanchez Hood The word Ahousaht means "people living with their backs to the land and mountains facing the ocean" in the Nuu-cha-nulth language of the Ahousaht people. Located on remote Flores Island, the community is only accessible by...
March – a poem by Renate Nahser – Ringer
MARCH You are a time of transitions A porous border between winter and spring A fluid line between death and life Here in the North seeds are beginning to stir in the dark womb of Mother Earth You slowly loosen winter’s chilling grip Permitting new shoots of hope to...
Green Burial, Brandy and Cheese Curds
On a summer journey home in July to officiate a family wedding near where I was born in Ontario, I spent a day with my Aunt Beryl at her request. At 84, Aunt Beryl wanted to visit the Cemetery where she had pre-purchased a plot many years earlier, in hopes of...
A Plea from Our Resident Orcas
Video: Raincoast Conservation Foundation Dear Humans We are the matriarchs of the orcas, the mothers and the grandmothers of the pods who you call L, J and K, we protect the oceans and our soundings echo throughout the Salish Sea. We are putting out a fierce call to...
Re-Imagining Death, Befriending Life
Join us: Thursday, Sept 6, 2018 9:30 am - 12:30 pm Penny Allport and Bill Israel, facilitators of The Centre for Earth & Spirit’s Living Well - Dying Well Program, invite you to re-imagine death and dying as a way of befriending the whole of your life. Through...
Legacy Matters: Recognizing Your Life Treasurers
Join us: Thursday, August 30, 2018 9:30 am - 12:30 pm Penny Allport and Bill Israel, facilitators of the Living Well - Dying Well program created by the Centre for Earth & Spirit Society, invite you to an interactive exploration in recognizing the hidden...
Surrender: Death as an Emotional Path that Leads Us Deeper into Nature
by Randy Pearce That which permeates all, which nothing transcends and which, like the universal space around us, fills everything completely from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman – that thou art. - Sankaracharya Obviously, death has an...
A Modernized Version of Addiction and Trauma
by Bill Israel Here are the highlights of an article originally published in The Out of Bounds Magazine Vol 35, No. 2, a quarterly publication at William Head Institution. A publication for and by inmates. The “aim” of the publication is “…to provide an artistic,...
Following the Good River: An Update
AN UPDATE Following the Good River: The Life and Times of Cecil Paul As told by Briony Penn with Cecil Paul (Coming out April 2019) This spring Cecil and I travelled up to Kispiox with Cecelia Reekie, his daughter, to visit Roy Henry Vickers. The meeting was a...
Program Success Story
The LIVING WELL, DYING WELL program of the Earth & Spirit Society delivered its second year of workshops in April of 2018 at The Church of Truth. Twelve courageous participants from all over the CRD and Cowichan attended the four week series focused on...
In the Company of Strangers
by Kim Holl When was the last time you had the opportunity to enter into deep meaningful conversations in the company of strangers? When did you last have the chance to dive in and explore end-of-life issues, befriending death, green burials and...
Part 2: No Fuss, No Funeral, No Service
PART 2 No fuss, No funeral, No Service by Penny Allport | Life Cycle Celebrant No Fuss, No Funeral, No Service (please see previous newsletter for Part 1) Penny Allport Grief is a somatic experience, meaning our bodies, neurologically and physically are attuned to...
Changing Lives – One Journal at a Time
This past May, Bill Israel completed the 6th in a series of INTENSIVE JOURNAL® workshops at William Head Institution on Vancouver Island, BC. The program inside the federal minimum security prison is titled FOUNDATIONS For the Preparation of Personal Release Plans and...
No fuss, No funeral, No Service
PART 1 No fuss, No funeral, No Service by Penny Allport | Life Cycle Celebrant No fuss, no funeral, no service, are words I’ve heard for many years from parents and friends, to others nearing the end of life. Some feel this takes pressure off their loved ones and...
Intensive Journal Program
by Bill Israel The LIFE CONTEXT and DEPTH CONTACT workshops were delivered by Bill Israel in the serene quiet of the Church of Truth Sanctuary in Victoria the weekend of November 17-20. In attendance were 15 participants who were genuinely engaged in the creation...
A Multifaith Community Conversation: Befriending Death
by Kim Holl It is not uncommon to fear the unknown. Perhaps the greatest unknown is the end of our own life. But what if we could talk easily and openly about each and every stage of our life, each passage, including the final one? Might it reduce the fear? Might...
Poetry in Motion: An Introduction to Somatic Sovereignty
by Penny Allport I’ve long held a sneaking suspicion poets might have a better grasp of the human body than any anatomy specialist, medical researcher or other expert in the field. When I first heard Mary Oliver’s lines, You do not have to be good, you do not...
The Search for Thomas Berry’s Riverdale Papers
By Robin J. Hood The Centre for Earth and Spirit was influenced by several inspired earthlings who came before – Thomas Berry was central among them. A few months ago Kim Holl was surprised to field a call from Michael Dowd, a US Minister and Berry scholar...
Orcas Go to Court
THE PEOPLE vs KINDER MORGAN AN ORCA SOUNDINGS INITIATIVE by Ana Simeon | RAVEN Brilliant sunshine greeted the first day of the massive Kinder Morgan legal challenge in federal court in Vancouver. The morning opened with legal arguments from Tsleil-Waututh Nation...
EYE TO EYE: Whale Encounter
FROM THE ARCHIVES: A Journal Entry by John T. Shields On a cool August morning, I was sailing off south Oak Bay in my 30' wooden sailboat. In the waters off Trial Island the winds dropped and a dense fog rose. The morning light turned the cool fog into a golden veil...
William Head Inmates Heal from Trauma
The INTENSIVE JOURNAL Method at William Head Institution by William Israel As a member of the Restorative Justice Coalition at William Head federal penitentiary on Vancouver Island, Bill Israel spends one evening a week with fellow Coalition members and 15 - 20...
Living Well, Dying Well – At the Pool of Wonder
The world is round and the place that may seem like the end may also be the beginning. - Ivy Baker Priest We began as strangers and yet through the course of our conversation we revealed such intimate stories and feelings. There was tragedy, sadness and great joy....
Orca Soundings
Earth & Spirit now supports Orca Soundings, a creative grassroots initiative first 'dreamed up' by our own Board member, Dr. Robin J Hood. Orca Soundings brings the lifeworlds of the resident orca whales of the Salish Sea to the surface. It is an art project using...
Honouring Our Journey
by Briony Penn This May I traveled up to Kitimaat village to spend some time with Cecil Paul and his family to go over the stories that we are preparing for the book. I spent part of the month in the Kitlope where spring was just breaking through the snow on the...
A New Book by Briony Penn
Following the Good River by Briony Penn Who better to tell the narrative of our times about the restoration of land and culture than Waxaid, “the good river” or Cecil Paul, an Henaksiala elder, who pursued both in his ancestral home, the Kitlope — now the...
Earth & Spirit Launches Inaugural Eco Tour
Earth & Spirit is excited to announce the launch of our inaugural Touch the Earth Tours for the summer of 2016. These small, custom designed transformational journeys will focus on deepening friendships between communities and support local community-based social...