Earth Dream Walk
“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, and activates you to defend, protect, and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”
- Robin Wall Kimmerer
We often find ourselves at a crossroads in life. We search for inner guidance to help us take steps toward something new. We long to take those steps without our usual fears, doubts, and concerns. Or we might long for meaningful work but not know what that might look like. We find ourselves sitting in the discomfort of the unknown.
I believe we have this wisdom and inner guidance within us, it’s often just obscured. What’s needed is space to open ourselves up to these insights. Maybe you know this. Perhaps you’ve spent time in nature and have experienced how the worries and doubts often fall away when you immerse yourself in the experience of time in the outdoors. Or you’ve been able to take a vacation or some kind of sabbatical where clarity arrives and your next steps feel clear.
I’ve written about unfolding. This beautiful process is suited to integrating these kinds of clear, open, and expansive states. As we unfold your experiences, over time, you’ll deepen your access to your innate resources which perfectly support you in navigating the complexities of transitions, your work, and life.
We can create this kind of experience together through a process I’m calling an Earth Dream Walk. It’s a way to deepen one's connection to yourself and the Earth and re-engage with life. Entering a walk with an intention allows nature to communicate with us like a waking dream. These messages can be explored as symbols, metaphors, images, emotions, or tones. This process will help you uncover what is most meaningful so that you can take steps toward your intention with clarity and courage.
What To Expect?
An Earth Dream Walk is an intentional exploration in nature. You begin the walk with a question. You set out with an intention to discover a new insight, find guidance, or experience a deep resource or wisdom.
We’ll spend 2 sessions preparing for your walk. What is happening in your life that currently makes this meaningful for you? Together we’ll uncover the question or intention you can bring with you on your walk.
I’ll provide detailed guidelines to prepare for your Earth Dream Walk. Nature is a vitamin we need regular access to. How often do we allow ourselves quiet and reflective time spent in nature? Here we discover some freedom. We find space and the external judgments and limiting beliefs of our everyday lives fall away.
Finally, we’ll integrate the Earth Dream Walk. Integration involves making sense of the experience and incorporating the insights into your life. We’ll spend at least one session unfolding your walk, like a dream. I find these walks provide many powerful “moments” that can be explored and unfolded together.
The integration process can lead to significant personal transformation that can expand beyond how you see and interact with the world. Through this process, you discover some of your most important core values. You discover the inner resources and capacities that allow you to see the next steps with clarity. And begin taking those steps.
Here are a few inspirational poems to read as you consider planning a walk like this.
Who Is This For?
You are at a life transition, a crossroads, or are feeling stuck.
You are looking for deeper access to creativity, inspiration, meaning, or purpose.
There is a current situation in your life that you are struggling to navigate.
You find yourself in a situation that you want to experience more deeply.
You are searching for inner guidance.
You want to deepen your connection with nature.
Coaching Options
via Zoom
An Earth Dream Walk can be incorporated into a 3 or 6-month coaching engagement.
3 Month Engagement
Includes 6 one hour coaching sessions.
6 Month Engagement
Includes 12 one-hour coaching sessions, with additional closing and completion session.
I am happy to offer a sliding scale range for sessions. Please consider your access to wealth, inheritance, and working income to determine your rate. If you’re financially thriving or supported by your workplace, please pay the higher end. If you feel financially stretched, I invite you to pay anything within the range.
Out-of-pocket rates:
3 Month Engagement (6 sessions): $600-$1050
6 Month Engagement (12 sessions): $1200 - $2100 (plus bonus closing & completion session)
Workplace-subsidized:
3 Month Engagement (6 sessions): $900-$1500
6 Month Engagement (12 sessions) plus bonus closing & completion session: $1800 - $3000
Coaching sessions can be scheduled as needed if we’ve worked together in a prior coaching engagement.
Why Do We Need Practices Like This?
Some benefits of taking an Earth Dream Walk.
Belonging: We remember we are part of the web of life and belong to the Earth. The idea that humanity is separate breeds imbalance and disconnection.
Sustainability: Walking with the Earth can help us make sustainable changes to our way of life.
What Else?
Nature might be the missing relationship we need to solve the most complex challenges of our world and lives. Nature helps us ask, what does life need most from me now? What’s mine to do?
Take the transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly. The caterpillar's innate instinct directs them to overconsume. Simultaneously, inside the molecular structure of the caterpillar, something called imaginal cells become active. They wake up! They look for each other and cluster together inside the caterpillar's body. When enough of them join, even though they're not in the majority, they become the genetic directors of the future of the caterpillar. At that point, the imaginal cells create the miracle of the butterfly.
Walking with and listening to the earth might suggest that instead of overconsumption, we are the imaginal cells on the planet right now and the Earth is waiting for us to wake up and transform.