Geneen Marie-Haugen explores an emerging dimension of the human/Earth relationship – a relationship in which the human capacity for imagination is an essential component of planetary ecology. We’ll consider the possibility that our manner of approaching the wilder Others make a difference – both reawakening the older mind in us that knows the animate nature of the world, as well as re-enlivening the wilder Others themselves. 

“A practice of celebrating the wild Earth and cosmos – like other practices – holds the possibility of re-shaping consciousness; the more our thoughts, words and gestures are intertwined with the beings among whom we abide, the more the world pulses with life, the more we hear the exuberantly singing Earth, and perhaps even the songs of starlight.” –Geneen Marie Haugen from her essay, “Thomas Berry And The Evocation Of Participatory Consciousness,” which appears in Thomas Berry: Dreamer of the Earth.

Dr. Geneen Marie Haugen grew up a little wild, with a run-amok imagination. As a guide to the intertwined mysteries of nature and psyche, she delights in multidimensional listening and in offering perceptive questions, ceremonies, escapades, and reflections that help expand a sense of our own possibilities as individuals (and as a species) and deepen our experience of participation with an intelligent, animate Earth/Cosmos. Her writing has appeared in many anthologies and journals, including Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth; Thomas Berry: Dreamer of the Earth; Written River; Parabola Journal; Kosmos Journal; Ecopsychology; and The Artist’s Field Guide to Greater Yellowstone. A former tipi-dweller and whitewater river guide, she now lives amidst the creatures and features of southern Utah’s sandstone labyrinth. She is exploring the awakening of what she calls “planetary imagination,” and the possible emergence of a new mode of the human that she has called Homo imaginans. She is committed to the world-transforming potential of the human imagination in collaboration with the Earth community.

To know more about Geneen’s work visit https://animas.org or see her offering this spring at Esalen.

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