Deep Ecology, Ethics & Whole Community, Wellness & Spirtuality | January 4, 2011
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche conducted a teaching this summer at Earthfire Institute. Watch part two of three as the Rinpoche talks about cultivating compassion for all beings.
Deep Ecology, Ethics & Whole Community, Wellness & Spirtuality | December 7, 2010
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche conducted a teaching this summer at Earthfire Institute. Watch part one of three as the Rinpoche talks about cultivating compassion for all beings.
Deep Ecology, Ethics & Whole Community, Earthfire Stories, Wellness & Spirtuality | June 25, 2010
Susan, Executive Director of Earthfire Institute, was interviewed by mystic scholar Andrew Harvey on Hay House Radio. Please enjoy this interview and slide show talking about the mission, vision and animals of Earthfire Institute.
Deep Ecology, Ethics & Whole Community | June 23, 2010
A video short capturing the mission of Earthfire Institute.
Blog, Deep Ecology, Ethics & Whole Community | May 28, 2010
The gulf disaster is tragic. It is hard to grasp all the individual tragedies that go into such a large one…of course the people – our sympathy goes there naturally and easily. But each oil smothered or poisoned or starving bird, dolphin, tortoise is another suffering individual. As we focus on the stress on humans who are losing their livelihood, we should also focus on animals losing their lives, their mates, their babies. We just don’t see as much of that, as the cameras go where the people are. But out of sight, out of mind doesn’t erase the suffering.
I hear the President has asked for a “Listening Tour” of environmental organizations where higher-ups will travel around the country to hear environmentalists talk about how to connect children to nature. Part of that is helping them understand that we need to see, and value, each animal as an individual being with its own passion to live, its own griefs and tragedies that are vividly felt and also count. They are not just a “representative” of a species that we have to save - they are individuals in their own right.
If we truly enlarge our sense of community to include all living beings, and then treat them as members, that single shift in perspective would change many things, solve many “problems” that are a result of seeing only humans as individual beings. I would give a lot to be able to get that perspective across to the President in some emotionally impactful way. It is so easy to get lost in human politics and the need to save humans – but that will not do it. We need to understand that it is not just clean water and clean air…if we don’t learn to come from a place that values all life, we will not thrive in the end anyway because we won’t be attending respectfully to our place in the web of life and that respect is what will save us.
Blog, Deep Ecology, Ethics & Whole Community | April 22, 2010
I look out at the tall pine tree we planted at the corner of the office cabin, struck by all the movement around it. It stands by itself but is rarely alone, being visited constantly by birds. This time of year in particular it is like a way station, filled with comings and goings; with excited twitterings and meetings and courtings and arguments.
It wasn’t going to live. The tap root had been broken. That’s what two tree specialists told us when we asked why it had been cast aside. But seeing it lying there still alive was hard to bear. We got a truck and people to help load it; took it home; dug a hole; tucked it in firmly and cozily; watered it well. Then we braced it against the winter winds until it could stand on its own. It is now a handsome 20 foot tree. Warmed and nourished by the morning suns it is tipped with inches of soft green growth each spring.
I wonder why it is so extraordinarily full of birds. There are practical explanations of course, all probably true. But maybe there’s more. Does it call the birds…”Come visit?” Or do the birds decide to visit it, in a neighborly fashion?
Perhaps there is more poetry in nature and life than the sometimes dreary pragmatic biological explanations. There must be magic because the fact of life itself is magic. Maybe trees enjoy having life come and visit them, they who cannot move. We enjoy the companionship of other life forms – pets, houseplants. Why shouldn’t we accord that possibility to trees? Who says the birds aren’t coming to visits, bringing vitality and friendliness and news? Especially to one that stands alone, without a forest of companions around it.
Deep Ecology, Ethics & Whole Community, Earthfire Stories | April 21, 2010
Tashi Wangchuck and David Shlim talk about the “Earthfire Experience”, where one sees wildlife as whole beings rather than just fearful or aggressive creatures.
Blog, Deep Ecology, Ethics & Whole Community | April 7, 2010
The first step to changing things is to have a dream.
Muskwa-Ketchika wilderness by Wayne Sawchuck
Every Sunday afternoon a group of us meditate at the yurt to do just that — dream about how we can bring the animals’ voices to humans and find a better way for all of us to live together. We usually have Bluebell the buffalo at the foot of the stairs, MacDougal the Clydesdale and Foffy the mustang running past the window, and Windsong the Elder Wolf inside with us.
Kris spoke into the silence, of a reverie she sometimes has. What would things be like if we lived on another planet where all life was respected; where animals were treated well; trees revered, and people were kind to each other? How would that play out in daily life? We began imagining then what it might it be like on our planet if we built in harmony with the land; if subdivisions were almost invisible. If there was a different way of looking at things. If all life was celebrated and people would WANT to protect all living things instead of having to be convinced to. We would like to develop a full Dream of the Earth.
Would you join us with your ideas, dreams, pieces of dreams, writings you like?
Would you join our meditation circle from afar?
Animal Story, Deep Ecology, Ethics & Whole Community, Foxes, Wellness & Spirtuality | April 2, 2010
We visited Feather the red fox today after the deep snow of the night. She was her usual lovely sweet mischievous self, fur full and glossy. We brought her some guests, as she always likes to greet everybody, her little 
inquisitive black nose sniffing, examining, assessing. They were enchanted by her sweetness, agility, curiosity; by her eagerness to meet them and visit with them.
She is an elderly fox now, with the feel of wisdom that many living creatures seem to gain with age. Jean went to a fur farm some 11 years ago and bought her as a little kit. (It always astounds me that you can go “buy” a wild animal.) That is eleven years of life given to her; eleven years of life for that dancing diminutive piece of vitality. One out of 800 foxes!
So many questions: a Buddhist who visited her wondered aloud – what was her karma that she was picked out of 800 foxes, to come here and have a life? I don’t know, but I do know that she has done a splendid job helping people see the magic of foxes; of balancing the fact that yes they sometimes do eat chickens and cats. That difficult balance we have to find between loving a predator that is part of our family, say a cat, and also loving a predator that is not so close to us emotionally, yet acknowledging their right to live too.
So it comes down to family and tribal loyalty versus the recognition that we are all part of something larger.
Blog, Deep Ecology, Ethics & Whole Community | March 31, 2010
The delicate long-legged killdeer are back, flitting through the air with their haunting cries. The ground is still frozen under two feet of snow, but life, sensing the change in light, Life, is stirring. Excited. Getting ready for its ecstatic push for spring. I look up to the skies, my eyes caught by movement. In the whole huge empty western sky there are two geese flying close together in perfect unison, one unit. Two small life forms in exquisite harmony. It is music and dance and poetry. Why are they so close together? How do they stay in such perfect unison? What are they feeling? Perhaps the joy of being in such harmony with another of your kind; a completion that comes with a mate, with male and female energy combined? They emanate such joy; bursting with the anticipation of making new life. There is nothing more deeply exciting.
There is fascination and beauty in anything suffused with the life force, all of it leading in to the mystery of life. From an ant finding its way back to it’s colony, to two geese in the sky, to a grizzly bear standing on a hilltop surveying its domain, to the passion of a wolf pack adoring its pups, what joy, wonder, richness we are bathed in!!!
Earthfire Institute is a place to experience the profound connection between all life. 
Buffalo Connection
When we look for Bluebell the buffalo in the pasture, we know exactly where to…
Have You Ever Made Room in Your Bed for a Bear?
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The CactusI saw it on a dark counter at a camping store. There were a couple…
