Deepening into Nature
Winter 2025
with Ron Hays, Deb scrivens & Mindy Springer
Time Of Quiet Anticipation
January 25 - FEBRUARY 13
overview
Winter is a quiet time. Life is dormant - waiting for the energy tides to stream from the opposite hemisphere, bringing a new cycle of seasons. Life travels through the rhythmic pattern of abundance and quiescence, an infinity spiral over, back, and through itself again.
It is Winter now in the northern latitudes. It is the time of leafless trees—leafless, not lifeless. For a tree, growth never pauses, though it slows imperceptibly, adding compressed layers of cells and completing its ring of growth for the year. Buds are curled tight, waiting for the watery sap flowing from soil to root to rise and awaken them.
Winter is a time for holding and contemplation, a period of quiet. Soon, Spring unfurls, bringing new endeavors and opportunities.
Description
The theme for the Winter Session of Deepening Into Nature is trees. Trees have long lived upon Gaia. The lineage of the conifers, the evergreen trees, began 360 million years ago. Their more recent cousins, deciduous or leaf-dropping trees, appeared about 160 million years ago.
Individual trees live long lives. Many species have lifespans in the hundreds, even thousands of years. They bear witness to countless seasons and unrecorded changes during Gaia’s evolution.
When thinking of trees, strength and sturdiness often come to mind. Yet trees are supple, too, bending to howling winds storming through their branches. That ability to flex with the winds and stand tall is the shape of their wisdom. They carry the ageless wisdom of Gaia in roots, trunk, branches, and leaves.
This spirit of wisdom, the deep understanding of nature’s ways held by trees, animates the tree theme for this session. What is the wisdom of the body of the tree - of its incarnating spirit? What stories can trees tell us that can root us more deeply in our own incarnation?
Class Format
As with all the nature classes, our emphasis is on conversation. We emphasize the shared experiences that each one of us has in two one-hour “chat” sessions between each of our Sunday presentations. We get to know one another and process our work and relationships with nature.
We will have three 90-minute Zoom presentations that include exercises and time for group discussion: Sundays, January 26, February 2, and February 9 at 12 noon Pacific time. Our last presentation will feature project reports from class participants.
Our exploration of the natural world is the recognition and expression of embodying Incarnational Spirituality in the field of our lives. David expressed this well at a Commons Community meeting this past summer.
“As Incarnational Spirituality has developed, it’s become apparent that it’s only half of the picture. The other half is that we are here as partners in the Incarnation of Gaia, the incarnation of the world, as a great living being. And for that, we need each other. For that, we need nature. For that, we need the Earth. And for that, we need the subtle worlds”
Lorian Covenant of Confidentiality
Please Note: Your registration in a Lorian class confirms your commitment to uphold Agreements of Confidentiality and mutual respect which govern the spirit, the intent, and the practice of our education experience together.
REGISTRATION $150
* Scholarships for the Winter Session are available. If you are interested, please contact Susan Sherman at susans@lorian.org
Class Facilitators
Ron Hays
Ron is an ordained Lorian priest with a lifelong interest in spiritual disciplines. Having spent years in a spiritual community founded by one of G.I. Gurdjieff’s students, he went on to learn shamanic practices with Michael Harner. He holds a degree in environmental science with a focus in riparian ecology. From early childhood his passion has been the outdoors – camping, hiking, and observing the world around him. He lives in Eagle Creek, Oregon sharing a beautiful land with his wife Christy.
Deb Scrivens
Deb worked professionally as a naturalist and environmental educator for 45 years and trained as a spiritual counselor and healer since 1997. A graduate of Huxley College of Environmental Studies, her teachers and mentors include Tom Brown Jr., Jon Young, Sandra and Michael Harner and Sandy Ingerman. An avid outdoorswoman, gardener, and world traveler, she lives in Oregon on the Sandy River with her husband. and two cats.
Mindy Springer
A practical adventurer, Mindy has followed her inclination toward beauty across the country and throughout her life. She resides in the home she and her husband built at the confluence of the Klickitat and Columbia Rivers with her two kids and two cats. A diverse career path has given her the opportunity to develop her skills as a facilitator, commune daily with nature and weave her spiritual practices throughout.
Visit our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page for more information on our online classes, and our Policies page for information on late registration, refunds, and privacy.