Rhythm of Earth: Summer Solstice

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Supper 6-6:30pm, program 6:45 – 8:30pm

$50, with supper

Facilitated by the Eco@Genesis leadership team.

Ancient cultures of all faith traditions learned first from the natural world. Spiritual teachers throughout millennia reference seasonal cycles and wisdom of nature to illustrate key aspects of the human condition.

This program uses guided imagery, prayer, and intentional time on the land to honor the coming of summer to earth and in our own lives. We introduce a model of human wholeness that is based on the four seasons of the year and we offer practices that support your embodied connection and intuitive knowing with Earth. We close with storytelling and a collectively generated ceremony.

Facilitated by Cary Gaunt, Ph.D. and Colleen Mollica, M.A.A.T. 

Cary Gaunt, Ph.D. is an ecospirituality scholar, teacher, and guide who offers retreats, workshops, courses, and nature-based spiritual formation programs around the country. Her engaged spirituality informs her vocation as a highly accomplished sustainability and climate responsibility professional with over 35 years’ experience leading organizations across all sectors to develop and implement award-winning watershed management, sustainability, and/or climate action plans, programs, and curriculum.

Two great loves comprise the heart of Cary’s life and work. One is a profound connection with the earth formed by her childhood spent exploring the water resources, limestone ledges, fields, and forests of her family farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Her childhood kinship with the natural world was strengthened through her spiritual and academic journeys and a lifetime of listening to the land.

Cary’s Ph.D. and post-doctoral research explore the life paths and formative experiences of Christian and Buddhist role models of sustainable living and leading. She weaves their wisdom into the programs she offers, and her undergraduate and graduate teaching. Cary is currently working on two books that highlight the life stories of these extraordinary role models and illuminate the specific ecospirituality practices that formed them.

Her second great love is a deep spirituality comprised of meditation, Centering Prayer and other contemplative practices, Soulcraft™, wilderness rites of passage and nature-based approaches to inner transformation and discernment. Cary offers programs in all these modalities. She has extensive training through the Animas Valley Institute, the School of Lost Borders, and Contemplative Outreach, Ltd.

Colleen Mollica M.A.A.T. is a level 1 Kripalu Certified Mindful Outdoor Guide, Interfaith Campus Minister, Teacher, and Recreation Therapist with over 25 years of experience facilitating outdoor leisure and educational activities. Colleen is passionate about protecting the more than human world and nurturing the human spirit. Colleen is open to the wisdom of the earth's spiritual traditions and believes that creation allows us to experience agape or unconditional love. Time in nature awakens us to our purpose, establishes our sense of well-being, and nourishes our transcendent spirit. Colleen is Campus Minister and Student Advisor in the Albert and Amelia Ferst Interfaith Center at Westfield State University.

After teaching social and environmental justice, rooted in Catholic Social Teaching, to middle and high school students and working as an interfaith campus minister at a university, she noticed that the more time people spent away from nature, the less connected they were to each other. Operating from an integrative framework of spirit, mind, and body, Colleen is dedicated to the work of healing our fractured relationship with Mother Earth and, ultimately, one another.