Reflection and Retreat in Nature: Walking on Sacred Earth
- Credits: 45 CPD hours
- Award: A Certificate for this course is available on request. If you wish to receive a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Certificate from the International College for Personal and Professional Development (ICPPD) for your portfolio, it is available on completion of the course. Please discuss with your tutor.
- Duration: 8 Weeks
- Course Fee: €100
Who is it for?
Tailored for individuals seeking personal renewal, mindfulness, and a restorative connection with nature through reflective practice.
This course is designed for anyone looking to step away from the pressures of daily life, recharge their emotional and spiritual well-being, and explore the restorative power of the outdoors. Whether you are a practitioner wanting to integrate ecotherapy concepts into your life and work or simply an individual seeking a mindful, supportive space for deep personal reflection, this retreat offers a peaceful pathway to reconnect with yourself and the natural world.
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Reflection and Retreat in Nature:
Walking on Sacred Earth
Have you ever felt Spirits whisper among the plants, flowers, trees in the woods, by a stream, river or the ocean, or in relation to an animal or pet, or perhaps in a bird or by listening to the wind. These moments or experiences often change us, inspire us, or clarify our thinking. Sometimes these encounters with grace awaken us and transform our lives; we remember them forever.
This 4 week online reflection and retreat in Nature: Walking on Sacred Earth provides guided opportunities for deepening our relationship and intimacy with the natural world and the elements of earth, wind, fire and water. When we experience ourselves as connected to all of creation and see all of life as sacred, we also experience ourselves as part of the web of life in relationship with all beings. We are encouraged to promote and establish a respectful connection with the Earth community so that we can move into a fair and sustainable way of being on the planet.
This is the goal of the movement known as eco-spirituality.
This 4 week contemplative retreat will help you to reawaken to your inner wisdom and become more aware of and learn a deeper appreciation of nature, experiencing the natural world as fully alive and spiritually vibrant. It is a way of invitation, intention, reciprocity, and intimacy with the world, others and self. It is walking the beauty way.
This retreat invites you to slow down and experience the natural world with open awareness. You will be invited into silence, stillness, deep listening, curiosity, appreciation, awe and gratitude.
These elemental themes will be covered:
- Having a sense of place, becoming grounded and relating to Earth
- Awareness of depth, being flexible and flowing like Water
- Listening to urges within, new ideas and freedom associated with Wind
- Extraordinary experiences in nature, that clear dross and encourage growth like Fire
Nourishing and promoting the above, you will receive suggested practices which are designed to support a contemplative engagement with nature.
Your leader for this retreat is Saille Fearn. Saille is a counsellor/psychotherapist, retreat instructor, workshop facilitator and teacher. Her writing, work and presentations focus on earth-based spirituality and the power of imagination and intuition.
Emailed lessons will help you explore and connect with the natural world within your own community and country. You will be encouraged to reflect upon your own history and relationship with nature, spend time outdoors as much as possible or looking out your window on days not safe to go out, be inspired by visual images and written words of nature, and you are invited to cultivate your ability to listen more deeply to your surroundings. This retreat invites you to slow down and experience the natural world with open awareness. You will be invited into silence, stillness, deep listening, curiosity, appreciation awe and gratitude.
Suggested practices will include:
- Journaling about your own journey during this retreat, your experiences in nature
- Reading nature poetry,
- Using guided meditations to be present where you are
- Doing some “Retreat Practices.”
- You will also be encouraged to do “Creation Activity” exercises.
All are meant to enhance your participation and experience on the course, and to ultimately connect you to nature and the wisdom inherent in it all.
When an applicant accepts a place on an ICPPD programme, any fees paid become subject to ICPPD’s Financial Terms & Conditions, which are outlined in the ICPPD’s Quality Assurance policies.
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”
Carl Jung
“ICPPD didn’t just give me a career; it changed how I see myself and the world.”
“Thank you so much for creating such a precious place where we are not seen as students rather as all being learners coming to know ourselves through such a powerful prism of wisdom and learning modelled by you and all the amazing members who co create such sacred space.”
“For me, this course has been a journey of discovery and rediscovery. What made me join this retreat was a longing for nature – for spending more time outside, the way I did when I was a child, and for developing more intimacy with the natural world, here, in the place where I live. The course has certainly helped me to do that, through a range of simple and beautiful practices. But I have also got to know a number of writers, activists and thinkers whose ideas I will explore in the long winter months that lie ahead: Satish Kumar, Thomas Berry, Margaret Fuller, John Moriarty, Mark Tredinnick… I did this course in autumn, but I plan to go through the entire course again in spring. For while this is a 4-week retreat, there is material here for a lifetime.”
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