Global Outreach DRAFT
To resolve our ecological crises, human consciousness must expand to connect with all Life, with its multitudes of wisdom, intelligences, and spirit.
One of Earthfire’s missions is to reconnect humans with the natural world, an approach we call Reconnection Ecology®. As part of this effort, we offer both national and international presentations, publications, private visits, and retreats. Earthfire is a lodestar in the global movement to honor and protect all Life, utilizing a platform that includes storytelling, education, and conservation. Connecting with audiences across the country and around the world, Earthfire continues to challenge the current paradigm to inspire a joyful and practical way forward.
Reconnection Ecology®: A Path Forward
We are not alone.
How do we find our way to each other?
‘All Life is sacred’ is a radical statement because if we believe it, it means a profound reordering of how we live, consume, and function together as a society. But we need a radical shift. To resolve our ecological crises, human consciousness must expand to connect with all Life, with its multitudes of wisdoms, intelligences, and spirit.
To shift, we need to connect deeply—fall in love with—other life forms. Connection opens channels through which flows information, strength, and healing, leading to creative, practical solutions for solving our ecological crises.
This is the essence of Reconnection Ecology®, an approach that reawakens us to our deep natural connection to wildlife and nature, expanding our sense of community to include all living beings. This enriches our lives and moves us to protect thriving habitats for all of Earth’s inhabitants. It is the depth of connection that energizes us enough to make changes in our lives, institutions, or policies— to do what we must, for our Earth and for ourselves.
If we consider all Life in our decisions, we will naturally evaluate what we need versus what we want, and act accordingly. Leaving water, food and space for other living beings will result in a sustainable, healthy Earth. By supporting one another through sharing our profound experiences with nature and the insights that arise from them, we can open ourselves to creative thinking about how to make these changes, unleashed from the inner fears and outer forces that encourage those fears. Brilliant creativity and courage are part of our inheritance.
The sense of belonging that these experiences engender supports us and eases fear, anger, and alienation. They help us feel integrated within ourselves and within the natural world. We go from a sense of disintegration to integration, from disconnection to connection, from the incoherence and chaos we sense around us to a sense of coherence, which calms us. We are able to access not just the wisdom of nature but our own natural wisdom. We all have perfect pitch to tune to our own deepest wisdom when we feel safe.
It is through our individual experiences of genuine connection with nature that change is made. This is why Reconnection Ecology® is an integral part of the needed paradigm shift. Reconnecting to the Life around us reawakens us to our collective story, opening us to our profound relationship with all living beings and bringing us to a place where we can begin to add heart to our ecological decisions. This takes us beyond the limitations of the scientific world view, which is too narrow to truly be of service to Life. This sense of connection gives us a different framework from which to conduct our lives and make our personal and ecological decisions.
The stars are always dancing.
There is always wonder.
And Life is irrepressible.
After last year’s very successful presentations at Cortona Week: Science and Wholeness of Life in Italy and the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, as well as numerous interviews including National Public Radio’s HumaNature, we look forward to expanding Earthfire’s impact in 2025. This year, Susan will speak at the Sun
Susan was a keynote speaker at this year’s Cortona Friends Conference: 2024 Science and the Wholeness of Life. Her presentations focused on Reconnection Ecology®, in which she shared paradigm-shifting stories and videos of what is possible with wild animals and how that can help move us toward expanding human consciousness
Susan recently spoke at the Annual Oxford University Animal Ethics Summer School on the paradigm-shifting research of Frans de Waal. Through hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles and popular books comparing human and primate behavior, de Waal’s main interest was in what emotions are shared across species, especially cognitively, emotionally, and
Books
From the remote wilderness of British Columbia’s Muskwa-Kechika region to the rescued wild animals of Earthfire Institute, learn more about the experiences that shaped Susan’s philosophy and approach to conservation in her books Whispers From the Wild: An Invitation and Into the Space and Silence, both available now.
Magazines
Twice a year, we publish a magazine with updates about our work, both local and global. Free printed copies of the magazine are mailed to those who have donated to support our mission, and digital versions are made available to all here on our website.
