Alight

Hear why and how to go on retreat with Earth. Whether you have half a day or a week available, you can retreat with Earth in your back yard, a city park, or a more distant location. 

Use your retreat with Earth to:

• Vision the regeneration you desire to see on our planet
• Inquire how you can contribute
• Find calm in this time of rapid change

If you would like to access the Co-create New Earth online conference from February, the talks remain available here: https://newearthone.com/courses/register-chara-retreat/ 

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I've created a new online conference: “Co-create New Earth to Renew Yourself & Our Planet” 

You can learn about it in this episode of Humans and Earth.

The conference offers insights and tools for creating flourishing for yourself, humanity, and all beings in the natural world. 

Our speakers range from spiritual teachers and plant and animal communication specialists to experts in soil regeneration, community revitalization, mentoring youth, and connecting directly with Earth’s consciousness.  

We are entering a new age of flourishing for all life. We’re all here for the united purpose of up-leveling our own thriving AND the thriving of every person, plant, animal, and ecosystem on Earth.

Join us and step more actively into co-creating regeneration for yourself and our planet.

You can gain access  in the post on my Instagram page, @schoolhumansearth or at https://newearthone.com/courses/register-chara-retreat/ 

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As we emerge from the recent climate talks, enter the holiday season, continue to deal with the pandemic, and observe our world continually shifting, you can turn to Earth as a source of stability. In this episode I discuss:

• Why historians will view our current times as extraordinary.
• How even beneficial change can feel unstable.
• A technique for accessing Earth as a source of stability as the world shifts.

I also share that the podcast is going on hiatus for 2-3 months while I produce an online conference that will be available to you free of charge in February. Make sure you're on the Humans and Earth mailing list at www.humansandearth.com for updates!

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You’re likely already contributing to the current consciousness shifts that are creating regenerative solutions for people and planet. This episode talks about the old types of consciousness we are outgrowing and the new types of consciousness that favor regeneration and well-being for all life.  Hear about three key aspects of consciousness shift and specific things you can do to participate:

• We are growing beyond beliefs in hierarchy to embrace the Unity and equality of all life 
•  The well-being of individual people and humanity as a whole is intricately intertwined with the well-being of the natural world. 
•  We create through positive visions of what we desire, not through fear or despair.

As you participate in the aspects of consciousness shift that feel wise, welcoming, and aligned to you, you contribute to the collective consciousness shift that is leading us into an era of co-creative regeneration for people and planet. Despite the troubles and turmoil we’re encountering on planet Earth, it’s a truly amazing time to be here. You are needed. You are included. You can help co-create a regenerative shift.

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Are you living according to your heart's and soul’s priorities or are you caught in the busyness buzz? It happens to most of us. It’s a cultural problem of workaholism that strains our minds and bodies and causes us to ignore the needs of Earth, our life support system. In this episode, I share insights on:

• Why it’s worth pausing to re-assess whether you’re living in alignment with your soul and Earth
• How being overly busy and out of alignment can harm both you and the natural world
• Global experiments favoring slowing down and living more deliberately and lightly on the planet
• Choices you may  make when you assess how you’re spending your time and resources
• 3 things to try if you are feeling drawn to a more Earth-connected and soulful life 

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Sam Pfotenhauer is a Human Design reader and intuitive guide.  Through her business Wild River, she facilitates spaces for inner inquiry and connecting to earth, body, and intuition.  Sam is also an environmental lawyer. After graduating from Tulane Law School in 2017, she practiced as a securities litigator in New York City, but left that role in August 2020 to pursue her environmental and spiritual interests. Sam currently works on a range of environmental issues, both in the private sector and in public service, but focuses on water-related issues and urban farming. She currently lives in Burlington, VT with her long-time partner and her cat, Dino. Find her at www. https://www.wildriver.live/ 

Sam opens our interview with a meditation to help you root into Earth. Then she offers thoughts on:

• How she 1st introduced spiritual practices into her law firm workplace, then left to create a more spacious life. She is now living her dream of practicing law half time.
• The subway epiphany that led her to realize how unsustainable her fast-paced life was. “The lifestyle that I wanted to live needed time.”
• What it’s like to be living her dream life of half-time intellectual work in law and half-time spiritually based coaching and mentoring.
• How Human Design helped her give herself permission to create the blend of types of work she craved.
• How Human Design can help us understand and cooperate with other people in a time when cooperation is needed to solve our planetary problems.
• A theory about how the Earth may need us to help generate energy for life along with her, but if we are depleted, we can’t fulfill that role.  “It’s very difficult to have the space to advocate [for the natural world] when you yourself are overwhelmed in the way that you live.”
• Her practice for fitting time in nature into every day, and how connecting to Earth can be as simple as a tea ceremony, spending time with your houseplants, or appreciating the vegetables you are eating.
• The more space you are holding for your own, other people’s, and Earth’s transformations, the more you need to be giving yourself time to ground, rest, and center. We talk about how our workaholism is tied to our abuse of the planet.
• A brilliant question for helping yourself move forward: “How would a higher version of myself feel empowered, and what’s standing in the way?”

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As I enjoy the late summer and early fall abundance of fruit in my garden, I’m reflecting that those of us who are not directly experiencing crisis right now need to hold a space of peace, love, and gratitude to uphold all who are experiencing crisis. Like most of us, I've had my share of crisis and tumult, but currently there is peace in my life.

As challenging weather and other national and global emergencies occur, it’s important to not stay endlessly in a space of upset.  The biochemistry of anxiety and fear is toxic for our bodies over the long-term, and also inhibits our creative responses to what the world needs.

When the world is tumultuous, there is a tremendous need for gratitude and peace. Gratitude and peace and being in love with the Earth nurture us and create the kind of energetic environment that fosters creativity, healing, and regeneration, both within us and in our actions.

I believe you owe it to those who are in crisis to maintain as much peace as you can.

We can pause and remember that it’s possible to be in love with Earth and feel vast appreciation for being here. I recommend two ways to fall in love or be in love with Earth:

• Notice that you are surrounded by beings you can appreciate
• Notice that you are surrounded by beings who need our protection. (Hear about the assistance I recently provided to a baby bunny.)

Whether you are experiencing ease and peace in your life right now, or tumult, you can take comfort and delight in being in love with Earth. No matter where you live you can probably see the sky, feel the breezes, and touch the ground. What if this is heaven or some kind of paradise and we forgot that was the case?

For more updates from The School for Humans and Earth, follow us on Instagram @schoolhumansearth 

Find a new free offering, 5 Steps to Shift from Eco-Anxiety to Eco-Inspiration, at our website.

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Amy Dempster teaches about the healing power of the earth. Her blog, Following Hawks, is a resource for learning how to communicate with nature and share healing gifts with the earth. Together with the Spirits of the Land in the mountains of northwest Montana, she tends seven portals on the land where she lives, along with any grid keeping work she is assigned. She also leads the Earth Tenders Academy, an immersive online journey to help others re-establish their connection with their ancient ancestors, learn to communicate with seen and unseen forces in their environment, and respectfully offer their healing energy to places in need. Amy is also the host of the podcast The Earth Keepers. Find her at https://followinghawks.com/ 

In our conversation, Amy offers her views on:

• Strategies for tending Earth’s well-being, from portal-keeping to toning.
• Bringing intuition rather than intellect to working with Earth’s spaces and needs.
• How to use your own body as an instrument for bringing balance or healing to the natural world.
• Why swimming pool water, tap water, and creek, river, or spring water are different and feel different to your body.
• A piece we miss when we focus on the benefits of Earthing or touching natural water is that the benefit is not only for us. When we touch the Earth, we affect her, and we can do so consciously. It’s a healing exchange that goes both ways: “everything feels me and I feel everything else.” Amy offers tips on how to watch and listen for the information being shared with you. 
• How to see our Earth tending less as an exhausting and gigantic task and more as a reciprocal, mutually supportive exchange between you and Earth.
• Accepting the ways things are on planet Earth is a path to a very uncomfortable future, yet daring to imagine the world you desire to live in is the path toward creating a healthier, more joyous world because “our reality is a lot more flexible than we’ve been led to believe.”

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You may know me through the Humans and Earth podcast as Helen Claire Harmon. It's a pseudonym I adopted when I launched the podcast in August of 2020 to differentiate my work in The School for Humans and Earth from my work in higher education. This brief episode explains why I've decided to return to using my real name, Chara Armon, in this work, and how that's related to bringing together 'conventional' and 'holistic' conversations. I also tell you what's coming up from The School for Humans and Earth.

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Ameya is the Founder of the Woman Rising Mystery School, an international school for women to re-member earth wisdom, ancient mysteries, and walk the Path of the Rose.  Through Ameya's extensive training and embodiment, she expertly guides women to activate their Soul essence and awaken the Grail codes within. She is also the founder of Gaia’s Wisdom, a line of plant essences. She first fell in love with plant medicine as an environmental studies major in Vermont. After writing a thesis on plant spirit medicine, she continued to follow the calling of the plants. They led her to studying plant spirit medicine, shamanic journeywork, and other spiritually healing modalities. Twenty years later, her journey with the plants has allowed her to support hundreds of clients as a Flower Essence practitioner, train hundreds of practitioners in her certification program, including Helen Harmon, and serve thousands of plant lovers through Gaia’s Wisdom’s Flower Essences. Find her at https://womanrisingmysteryschool.com/ and https://gaiaswisdom.com/ 

 Ameya discusses:

• When we have trauma, “we’re seeing through the imprint of pain. And that gets inflicted on the Earth” because “we’ve never been taught to put the Earth as primary in our decision making.” “Our biggest trauma, I think, is our disconnect from the Earth”
• Her curiosity now in this time of tumult: “What are we being fine-tuned for?” And are we undergoing a huge clearing of humanity’s past traumas? Now “we are inviting a restoration and a re-connection.”
• “Our return and connection to the Earth has to happen in order to create any kind of world that’s sustainable or thriving or serves the all and many.” 
• How flower essences work and why they support your true nature. “They are a gentle, beautiful way to work with the Earth and yourself. Every flower and every tree has specific wisdom that may relate to exactly what you are wanting to heal or expand into.”
• How many of us have experiences of communicating with plants but then believe we have to shut the ability down or make a joke about it. 
• A story of watching two people simultaneously hear the same message from a tree and being moved to amazed tears that they could experience that connection and its affirmation.
• Her own vivid experience of making a flower essence in Hawai’i, ‘losing’ the flower and her essence bowl in the forest when she returned to find it after a hike, and then learning that this orchid teaches that “truth is so often overlooked—we will walk right past it because what truth actually asks us to do makes us really scared.”
• How she has raised her young son with plant essences.

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