What we’re about
We meet to help one another be nourished by nature, including human nature, so that we can nourish the world. Our meetings will have spiritual and nature practices so that we can can connect more thoroughly with the beautiful world around us, which is also in us. We are a Nurture Nature Community.
We hold most our meetings at the Parsonage, a private home at 466 Rosedale Avenue. The meetings run for 2 hours and include approximately one hour of conversation and one hour of a walk around the 8.5 acre lot on which the house sits. During the conversation we review the contents of the monthly packet and share stories and thoughts of the monthly theme.
A Nurture Nature Community is for anyone who desires a better world for themselves and for others. Deep within we know that something is amiss, and that a more beautiful world is possible, for everyone. We know this because we are interconnected in beauty to individuals of all species that have inherent worth and dignity.
Nurture Nature Communities are groups that come together to support one another, engage in nurturing and naturing practices, such as taking walks or looking at birds, and have study, reflection, and discussion so as to grow communities of solidarity, resistance, resilience, and hope. With so much at risk on earth, we intentionally come together to increase our capacity to hold both the beautiful and tragic in this world. By doing so we live more deeply, more connected, and more in love with nature, including human nature.
Nurture Nature Communities are supported by One Earth Conservation founded by Rev. Dr. LoraKim Joyner, a wildlife veterinarian, Certified Trainer in NonViolent Communication, and a Unitarian Universalist minister.
As part of our Nurture Nature Program, One Earth provides packets for activities, learning, and discussion. A sample packet can be viewed here. Facilitators that wish to start a group will be supported and encouraged to deepen their Nurture Nature practice by joining the Nurture Nature Program. LoraKim will visit your area to help kick start your Meetup group with workshops and other events.
Nurture Nature Communities are committed to nurturing emotional, social, multispecies, ecological, and spiritual intelligence, all of which are basic natures of all humans. At each gathering you will experience greater belonging, beauty, reverence, wholeness, joy, and vitality, and so might your families, communities, and organizations.
One Earth Conservation invites people into a vision and practice of interbeing, based on:
1. All individuals of all species have inherent worth and dignity (all bodies are beautiful, have worth, and matter).
2. All individuals of all species are connected to each other in worth, beauty, and well-being.
3. We are also connected in harm. Without tragedy there is no beauty. What is done to another, is done to all of us.
4. Embracing this reality, humans grow in belonging to this wondrous planet and the life upon it, and so embraced and nurtured, can nurture in return.
5. This reality of interbeing makes us both powerful and vulnerable, therefore, we need each other to grow and to heal as much as possible.
6. Humans are adaptable and can change, both individually and as families, organizations, communities, and societies. We can become more effective and joyful nurturers and naturers. This is hard, deep, intentional, and a lifetime's work.
If this sounds like a community you would like to be a part of, please join us. You can also contact LoraKim Joyner or Gail Koelln (Co-directors) at One Earth Conservation's website.
