“The cleansing of the earth starts with the cleansing of our minds.”
–Rolling Thunder
When I was considerably younger, I read a book called Rolling Thunder. It was a book about a Cherokee shaman and medicine man. I was fascinated with his world view and read the book several times. In 1979, when I was living in Pensacola, Florida, Rolling Thunder came to speak at the University of West Florida. Of course I attended the seminar.
During his workshop he spoke of a place near Carlin, Nevada called Meta Tantay (Chumush for “Walk in Peace”) where he and people of like mind were living a communal existence. It sounded like my kind of place, so I packed up my bedroll and headed for Nevada. I spent about a month there at the ranch, watching teachers from various native tribes and from other spiritual paths learn and share with each other. I had my first Vision Quest there under the tutelage of a Hopi shaman. I learned how people of different paths, different races and different nationalities could come together in spite of their differences and work for a common good.
Meta Tantay was disbanded in 1984, about four years after my visit. I was sad to see it go. I took my first steps into the world of shamanism there. I will miss the wisdom of Rolling Thunder, who died in 1997. He was a great teacher and a good friend for the brief amount of time that I knew him.
Meta Tantay, Rolling Thunder.
ABOUT THIS COACHING COURSE
In 2013 the Mindful Ecotherapy Center created the Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy program and workbook. This was a 12-week course and program for those who wanted to tap into the healing power of nature. In 2016, after many requests, we developed an online and experiential Facilitator Training course for this program. This training course was geared towards mental health professionals, and offers 60 hours of continuing education training for licensed behavioral health specialists.
However, there are many people who expressed an interest in running the program as a coaching program rather than as a mental health program. Coaches are people who have been trained in ecospirituality but who might not be mental health professionals. They are certified to do coaching, but not therapy.
Due to the overwhelming demand for a coaching facilitator certification course, this ecospirituality program was born. It offers all of the material in the Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy program, plus extra material for coaching. The ecospirituality program is oriented more towards coaches as a coaching program than towards therapists as a therapy intervention program. This course is a 40-hour online and experiential coaching facilitator certification as opposed to the 60-hour Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy program.
When you successfully complete this course, you will be eligible to receive a free listing on our Directory page, and you will be able to conduct certified ecospirituality programs on your own. You will also have all the skills you need to run an ecospirituality coaching group.
HOW TO USE THIS COURSE
The human race is consuming natural resources at a rate that far outpaces nature’s ability to replenish them. It is clear that we cannot go on with our present course of action if the human race is to have a future. The damage we’re doing to the environment causes widespread anxiety. What is needed to heal this anxiety is a grassroots paradigm shift to a new way of being in the world. Ecospirituality is one of the paths to help to make this paradigm shift. Ecospirituality is a 16-week nature-based spiritual self-improvement program. Each session meets outdoors for about 90-120 minutes and is guided by a trained Ecospirituality Coach. The workbook, Ecospirituality: The Way of the Coyote was written to accompany this 16-week program, which meets once per week for sixteen weeks (if you choose to run one-hour session), or once per week for 8 weeks (if you choose to run two-hour sessions). The text from this handbook was designed to accompany the 16-week program and is reproduced in its entirety in this course.
If you successfully complete this course, you are eligible for a free listing on our directory.
If you are completing this workbook as part of an ecospirituality program or workshop, your homework is to read the material for each session prior to participating in that session. The activities in each session will be done during the workshop, so don’t try to complete them ahead of time. Just read over the materials so you’ll have a good idea of what to expect in each session.
If you are completing the workbook on your own, feel free to do the activities at any time, at your own pace. Many of the activities require or suggest outdoor locales. You may use your own best judgment as to whether or not the weather is appropriate in your location for any suggested activities. If you’ve had to postpone an activity due to bad weather, make an effort to try it again when the weather is better. In doing so you’ll get the full benefit of each exercise.
A NOTE ON THE COYOTE STORY USED
The Coyote story used in this book is not of Native American origin, nor did it originate from any other indigenous aboriginal tribe. It is purely a product of my own imagination. While the story was inspired by Coyote lore from all around the world, it is not entirely true to the stories in their original form. The stories I used for inspiration are Coyote lore from Native American, African, South American, and many other aboriginal cultures. It is fascinating to find that in all of these myths and legends from across the globe, Coyote remains the Trickster. It is almost as if the spirit of the Coyote inspired these legends.
