Month: May 2024

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NOW AVAILABLE! Ecospirituality Group Facilitator Certification Program Bundle

Ecospirituality Workbook Cover Photo Ecospirituality Group Facilitator Certification Program

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THIS BUNDLE AT A SAVINGS OF OVER 20%!

GET AN ADDITIONAL $50 OFF DURING THE MONTH OF JUNE!

Regular price:

$299.99

For June, 2024 this bundle will be

$249.99!

What is the Ecospirituality Group Program?

This Ecospirituality Group Facilitator Certification Program teaches you to be an  Ecospirituality Program facilitator. The Ecospirituality Group Program is a 12-week nature-based spiritual self-improvement program. Each session meets outdoors for about 90 minutes and is guided by a trained Ecospirituality Facilitator. The word “spiritual” comes from the Latin spiritus, which means, “breath.” Originally, that which was spiritual was simply that which was breathtaking. From this perspective a spiritual experience is an awe-inspiring experience. People of all religions…or none…can experience such awe-inspiring events. You can be spiritual without being religious. Spirituality doesn’t rely on a set system of teachings or dogmas. Spirituality is the joy of being present in the moment and experiencing the awe and wonder of living. When a seeker of the ecospiritual path has completed such a journey, they will become an ecospiritual shaman. An ecospiritual shaman is a practitioner who integrates spiritual and shamanic traditions with a deep ecological consciousness, emphasizing a sacred connection between humans and the natural world. Such a person has become fully integrated within themselves and is able to live in their True Self as the person they were born to be.  

Program Description

This program certifies you to be a facilitator for the Ecospirituality Group Program developed by the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC. The Ecospirituality Program is a 12-week nature-based spiritual self-improvement group program. Each group meets outdoors for about 90 minutes and is guided by a trained Ecospirituality Facilitator. There is a companion workbook for the program that is available for purchase here. A FREE copy of this workbook in pdf format is included in the course documents section of the Ecospirituality Group Facilitator Course included in this bundle. This workbook was designed to accompany the 12-week program. Each course of the program includes ecotherapy and mindfulness activities and worksheets. There are also optional activities for each course of the program. This program bundle includes all of the three courses required to be a Certified Ecospirituality Group Facilitator. The courses in this program are:

There are no other fees or purchases required to complete certification. Once you have completed all three courses, email chuck@mindfulectherapy.com. When your completion of all three courses with passing grades has been verified, you will be emailed a Certificate of Completion in pdf format indicating that you are a Certified Ecospirituality Group Facilitator. You will also be eligible for a FREE listing in our Directory.

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Meet Your Instructor 

Charlton Hall, MMFT, PhD is a former Marriage and Family Therapy Supervisor and a former Registered Play Therapy Supervisor (now retired from both those roles).

In 2008 he was awarded a two-year post-graduate fellowship through the Westgate Training and Consultation Network to study mindfulness and ecotherapy. His chosen specialty demographic at that time was Borderline Personality Disorder.

Dr. Hall has been providing training seminars on mindfulness and ecotherapy since 2007 when he founded what would become the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC, and has been an advocate for education in ecotherapy and mindfulness throughout his professional career, serving on the South Carolina Association for Marriage and Family Therapy’s Board of Directors as Chair of Continuing Education from 2012 to 2014.

He served as the Chair of Behavioral Health for ReGenesis Health Care from 2014 to 2016 and trained all the medical staff in suicide risk assessment and prevention during his employment at that agency.

Dr. Hall is also a trained SMART Recovery Facilitator and served as a Volunteer Advisor in South Carolina for several years.

Dr. Hall’s area of research and interest is using Mindfulness and Ecotherapy to facilitate acceptance and change strategies within a family systemic framework, and he has presented research at several conferences and seminars on this and other topics.

Click here for instructor contact information

Course materials for all three courses in this online home study package are evidence-based, with clearly defined learning objectives, references and citations, and post-course evaluations. Upon request a copy of this information and a course description containing objectives, course description, references and citations will be given to you for your local licensing board.

All of our courses and webinars contain course objectives, references, and citations as a part of the course materials; however, it is your responsibility to check with your local licensure board for suitability for continuing education credit.

No warranty is expressed or implied as to approval or suitability for continuing education credit regarding jurisdictions outside of the United States or its territories.

If a participant or potential participant would like to express a concern about his/her experience with the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, NBCC ACEP #7022, he/she may call or e-mail at (864) 384-2388 or chuck@mindfulecotherapy.com. Emails generally get faster responses.

You may also use the contact form below.

Although we do not guarantee a particular outcome, the individual can expect us to consider the complaint, make any necessary decisions and respond within 24 to 48 hours.

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Call of the Coyote

the first threshold Coyote call of the coyote

The Call of the Coyote is a path to ecospirituality. Last week we talked about the emerging “dark green religion.” What is ecospirituality, and what does it have to do with a dark green religion?

The original meaning of the word “spiritual” comes from the Latin spiritus, which means, “to breathe.” So originally, that which was spiritual was simply that which was breathtaking. A spiritual experience is an awe-inspiring experience. Such inspiring events can be had by people of all religions, or of none. You can be spiritual without being religious.
In my personal experience, those breathtaking moments most often occur when I have made some sort of connection. It could be a connection with nature, or with others, or with my own inner self. Such a connection opens up a channel of communication, or perhaps communion. Such a connection allows me to feel that I am a part of everything, and everything is a part of me.

In this ecospirituality workbook and the accompanying program, we will be exploring the possibility of making such connections through the eyes of Coyote.

Coyote’s motto could well be, “If I weren’t crazy, I’d go insane.”

Many Native American tribes consider Coyote to be the Trickster, the one who teaches by becoming a mirror. Coyote’s tricks and jokes reflect our own folly and stubbornness back to us until we realize what is happening and learn from it, if we are fortunate enough to realize what is going on. Coyote will continue to hold a mirror up to us until we learn to see our true selves, or until we become so angry and frustrated that we lose sight of our spiritual paths.

The Way of the Coyote teaches us that wisdom is the twin of foolishness. In an insane world, the sane man must appear insane. When following the Way of the Coyote we learn to see our own foolishness in the antics of others, and we learn from their mistakes. Likewise, when we follow coyote medicine, we show others their own foolishness by our own antics. If Coyote is your teacher, he will frustrate you, anger you, and make you furious. But if you can learn to see through the rage and frustration to the lessons beneath, Coyote can teach you much.

Coyote’s Archetypal Energy

Coyote teaches through humor and the ability to laugh at life’s absurdities and ironies. The Way of the Coyote is to strip away the masks we all wear so that we may get to the truth underneath. Coyote teaches us to cast aside all the fronts that we put on for others and for ourselves.

Coyote’s humor also teaches us that what we do to others, we ultimately do to ourselves. He teaches us that we reap what we sow, so if we use Coyote medicine on our friends and family, we shouldn’t be surprised or offended if they do the same to us.

Coyote energy is reflected in the phrase, “Simplicity is perfection.” He teaches us to learn to distinguish what we need from what we want. Coyote won’t give us everything we want, but he will lead us to everything we need.

The Call of the Coyote stirs up something primitive and passionate in our souls, and reminds us to return to the place of the beginning; that childlike sense of wonder and fascination with the beauty of the world.

Coyote is a survivor, and is able to adapt to new situations by learning to bend and flow with skill and cunning. The Way of the Coyote is to understand that all things are sacred, yet nothing is sacred. If you have any sacred cows in our life, coyote will be sure to devour them. It has been said that, “insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting things to turn out differently.”

Another way to put this is that if what you’re doing isn’t working, then doing more of it isn’t going to work either. In fact, it may make things worse. So when we begin to walk the Way of the Coyote, we may find ourselves lost in the unfamiliar. Some of the things Coyote may ask us to do will seem strange, even weird. But that’s okay. If it didn’t feel weird, we’d probably already be doing it. If we stay on the path of the comfortable and the familiar, we are in danger of doing the same things in the same ways and getting the same results we’ve always gotten. If, however, we have the courage to step forth and try something different, we may find that our world will change for the better.

But setting about doing things differently can be a scary experience. We often fear the unknown, and Coyote loves to take us into the mysterious. That is the art of the Trickster. It is also the reason Coyote can often be frustrating. She asks us to leave our comfort zone.

If you have heard the Call of the Coyote, learn to look for things you may have been avoiding or refusing to acknowledge in your own life. This sometimes manifests in strange ways. Look at what you criticize the most in others, and see if you yourself have those same characteristics. For example, if you find yourself constantly judging others for their anger, could it be that you have a problem with anger yourself? If you are constantly demanding that other people be more forgiving, could there be someone in your own life that you need to beg for forgiveness? If you are constantly telling others to be more tolerant and loving, could it be that you may need to learn to be more tolerant and loving as well?

A danger to Coyote medicine is that Coyotes tend to spend all of their energy caring for others. Coyotes would do well to remember to take some time and energy for themselves as well. Another pitfall of coyote medicine is that those who don’t understand Coyote’s ways are often angered or alienated by the mirror because they don’t wish to acknowledge what it shows them about themselves. Sometimes the Way of the Coyote can be a lonely way because of this. If you have heard the Call of the Coyote, it could also mean that you need to look into your own mirror and see if there is something about yourself that you have been afraid to acknowledge. By refusing to acknowledge it, you give it power over you. But acknowledging our weaknesses and shortcomings is the first step to conquering them.

If Coyote has chosen you, look closely at ways you may have been giving energy to foolishness. This is especially true in relationships, since we often fool ourselves in relationships, and refuse to see what is plain to everyone else. As they say, “Love is blind.” Remember that Coyote’s ultimate goal is not to anger or frustrate, but to teach. In order for Coyote to teach, we have to be willing to learn. It helps to remember that sometimes the best lessons are also the most painful lessons. If Coyote is causing you pain, it is not out of malice, but out of love. It is so that you may grow on your own path.

To answer the Call of the Coyote is to be a strong protector of family, relationships, and connections. Coyotes often mate for life, and will fiercely defend mate and cubs. If Coyote is your ally, family is probably very important to you. Coyotes will often adopt cubs who have become parentless. They realize that family is not always a matter of blood, but of spirit, so for those of us who follow the Way, Coyote medicine is concerned with our spiritual families. To follow the Way of the Coyote is to realize that members of the same spiritual family rarely grow up under the same roof. It is also to realize that our family need not be restricted to our two-legged brothers and sisters, but it can include our four-legged brothers and sisters as well, and ultimately all of nature.

Sometimes Coyotes go to extremes to defend the family. In such a case the Coyote medicine has become too strong. Coyotes are fiercely loyal to their own, sometimes to the point that they may even alienate those whom they are trying to protect. In such a case, the coyote spirit is overprotective to the point of becoming overbearing. When this happens, Coyote needs to learn to let go.

The Way of the Coyote is about achieving balance. A dark green religion is also about achieving balance. All life on Mother Earth is in danger largely because of the greed of human beings. If we continue our pursuit of trinkets and baubles, always wanting more and never satisfied with what we have, we will eventually destroy everything. A life of rampant materialism is a life out of balance. Things can never fill the void inside. Only true spiritual wisdom can fill that void. The Call of the Coyote is about finding a balance between the material and the spiritual so that we cease to destroy our Earth Mother and each other. It is about learning to distinguish between our wants and our needs.

The only true necessities in life are food, clothing, shelter and love. Once those needs are met, anything else is a luxury. Material possessions are a poor substitute for love and spirit. When we learn this lesson completely, we will be embracing a dark green religion and learning to walk the Way of the Coyote. When we learn to share this knowledge with our fellow travelers along the way, we will have fulfilled our destinies as spiritual seekers. We will have achieved the ultimate in ecospirituality.

The upcoming Ecospirituality Group Program, due to be released on June 1, 2024, is a synopsis of what it means to answer the Call of the Coyote. It is a seeker’s journey of self-discovery. If you choose to purchase the upcoming Ecospirituality Group Program, it is my wish that, as with everything else in life, you take what is useful and discard the rest.

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Dark Green Religion

Plant A Dark Green Religion - Treebeard

“Empirical studies have begun to demonstrate that many people in advanced industrial cultures resonate deeply with what could be called nature spirituality or nature religion. Some of these people view the world as full of spiritual intelligences with whom one can be in relationship (an animistic perception), while others among them perceive the earth to be alive or even divine (a more pantheistic belief).”

–Bron Taylor, Dark Green Religion

As the human race has become increasingly urbanized, we have come to spend less and less time in natural settings. Many of us now live in cities. Even so, we still hear the calls of nature. The wildness cries out to something in our blood. Although the Industrial Revolution has forced us into an urban way of living, we were creatures of the wilderness for millennia before that. Evolution has hardwired our brains for the woods.

Bron Taylor is a professor of religion and nature, environmental ethics, and environmental studies, at the University of Florida. He coined the term “dark green religion” and is the author of a book by that name. According to his book, a dark green religion is one that has a set of beliefs and practices characterized by a central conviction that “nature is sacred, has intrinsic value, and is therefore due reverent care.”

The central theme of Taylor’s book is that the people involved in ecological awareness and the green movement display many of the characteristics usually associated with a religious or spiritual movement. Both are characterized by deeply-held beliefs about the nature of reality and our relationship with it. Both have ethical systems of behavior, and “prophets” who outline and discuss these ethical standards. Taylor cites Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as examples of “sacred texts” used by this Dark Green Religion.

Taylor differentiates between green religion and dark green religion. To him, traditional world religions that have added ecological practices into their worship services and holiday observations are green religions, but not dark green religions. So if you go to a church that recycles, or a temple that has a carpooling club, or a mosque that uses LED lighting, you may be partaking of green religion without becoming involved in a dark green religion. According to Taylor, the “dark green” part of dark green religion refers to what Arne Naess called deep ecology.

Dark Green Religion and Deep Ecology

Arne Naess was a Norwegian philosopher and founder of the Deep Ecology movement. He cited Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring as instrumental in his development of the philosophy of deep ecology, which states that humans are not privileged above other living things and that all living things should be treated with equal respect and ethical consideration. Naess believed that all things have an equal right to thrive and to survive. This is similar to the Gaia Hypothesis.

Although NASA scientist James Lovelock is credited with creating the Gaia hypothesis, which says that the Earth herself is a living thing, and we are all a part of the much larger organism that is Gaia, the Earth, Native Americans had such a concept for thousands of years before Lovelock came along. The Oglala Medicine Man and Shaman, Black Elk, once said, “The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”

The scientists have discovered what the Native Americans knew all along: That the Earth is a living organism and that we are all a part of the web of life. We are all connected. This idea of the interconnectedness of all things is what Naess meant by “deep ecology,” and deep ecology pursued with a reverent and sacred attitude is what Taylor means by a “dark green religion.” A tenet of this dark green religion is that if we are all connected, then what we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves as well. If we poison the water, then we drink the water, we take the poison into ourselves. If we pollute the food with pesticides, then eat the food, we take the pesticides into our own bodies. If we pollute the air, then breathe in the air, we take our own pollutants into our lungs. If we fatten our beef animals with hormones, then eat the beef, we take the hormones into ourselves. If we poison the minds and souls of our neighbors with hatred, anger, and bitterness, then interact with those neighbors in negative ways, we take the hatred, anger and bitterness into ourselves as well.

The deep ecology of a dark green religion teaches us to be one with nature. This is true even if we are agnostic or atheist. We don’t have to believe in supernatural beings in order to realize that nature is something larger and more transcendent than ourselves. The divinity in a dark green religion is nature herself. This is true whether or not we choose to personify nature as a separate supernatural and divine entity. We are all interdependent, and a dark green religion teaches us that if we cannot live in a sustainable, ecological way, then the human race will have no future. This planet has limited resources, and we don’t have anywhere else to go. Eventually everything will run out, and when this happens, how will we survive? The only way that the human race can survive is to embrace a way of life that honors all life on the planet. Such a way of life is what Taylor means by a dark green religion.

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The Tombstone Test

The Tombstone Test - living with confidence in True Self

The Tombstone Test can help you to live with confidence in your True Self. Your True Self is the person you would be if you were always living up to your best aspirations for yourself. It probably goes without saying that if you are living fully in your True Self, that you have a good sense of self-identity. True Self is who you would be if you could ‘get out of your own way.’ A life in True Self is a life with a sense of purpose and meaning.

Note that if you are living a life of purpose and meaning in a mindful way, you are living a life whose meaning you chose for yourself. Nobody else can assign your life meaning. Each person must choose their own reasons for living. Sometimes emotional aggression comes from allowing others to create our life purpose for us instead of doing it ourselves. Living in True Self in this case is taking back responsibility for our own destiny.

Confidence in True Self means having a good sense of self-identity. Confidence also means having the courage to avoid acts of emotional aggression. One way to do this is to realize that nobody else can ever tell us who we are or what we should be unless we give them that power, and there is no need to ever give anyone else that power.

Confidence and the Tombstone Test

I’m a history buff, so I can often be found looking at old buildings or roaming around in cemeteries. One day I was out in a particularly old cemetery doing some genealogical research when I started noticing the epitaphs. They all had something in common: There weren’t any that said, “Here lies Joe Smith. He had a two-story, five-bedroom house and a luxury car.”

Most of the tombstones I read there in the cemetery talked about how much the departed was loved and how much he or she would be missed. As I sat there reading all those tombstones full of kind words about the departed, I devised the Tombstone Test. The premise behind the Tombstone Test is to imagine yourself lying in your deathbed, looking back on your life. If you were doing that now, could you say you were truly happy with the way you lived?

The Tombstone Test will help you to clarify what your life means to you. When you are able to figure out your purpose in life you will be able to live confidently. You will be able to live a life of meaning from your True Self.

Imagine that you are lying on your deathbed, looking back on your life. What would you like to have written on your tombstone? What sort of legacy would you like to leave behind for your loved ones? The answers to these questions help you to determine your life’s meaning and purpose. When you have a purpose for your life, you are using the power of intention to live more fully in True Self as the person you were meant to be.

If you were on your deathbed looking back on your life, what would you like the overall theme of your life to be? What was your life’s meaning and purpose?

Think about some of the things that in the past have stressed you out and led you to act in emotionally aggressive ways. Now imagine that you are viewing these things from the perspective of someone who is looking back on their life. How important are those things from such a viewpoint? What could you change about the way you respond to such circumstances so that you could live a life of purpose in the future?

If your friends and family were going to give a eulogy at your funeral, what would you like them to say about you and the meaning of your life?

Imagine you could write out, in two or three paragraphs, your reason for being born and your purpose for living. What would you say in those paragraphs?

Think about your answers to these questions. Did the Tombstone Test give you the confidence to live more fully in your True Self?

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Mindful Confidence

mindful confidence

“If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re right.”

–Henry Ford

Mindful confidence is the art of living in True Self. If you know who you are and what you want to be, then you are living in True Self. Being centered in True Self is, by definition, mindful confidence.

An important characteristic of living in True Self is the ability to be non-judgmental with yourself and with others. Being non-judgmental means that you have realized that you are human, and that you’re going to occasionally make mistakes. Realizing that others are human as well, allows you to forgive and forget, and to start over. This ability to pick yourself, dust yourself off, and begin again is the essence of confidence.

We previously discussed the idea of implicit memories, and how narrative memories integrate all of our implicit memories together in the story of our lives, like fitting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. If those pieces fit together, we are able to make sense of our lives, and it is easy to avoid the temptation to engage in emotional aggression.

If, on the other hand, things happen to us that cause our implicit memories not to match up with our narrative, chaos is the result. Emotional aggression occurs when we feel our lives to be chaotic and out-of-control.

Another cause of emotional aggression is insisting on too much order in our lives. When this occurs, we tend to make too many rules for ourselves and for others, and the result is a rigid, inflexible life.

Having too much chaos in life is a problem. So is having too much order in life. The middle ground then would be to find a balance between chaos and order in our lives. Finding such a balance would give us the ability to live in Wise Mind. When we are able to live in Wise Mind, we are living in True Self, and when we are living in True Self, we are living life with confidence.

Mindful Confidence, Chaos and Order

Emotional aggression can occur on either end of this spectrum between chaos and order. The chief cause of chaos in life is overwhelming emotional responses to life’s circumstances. Chaos corresponds to Emotional Mind. When a crisis occurs, there is a natural tendency to respond out of the emotional side of our minds. It’s perfectly okay to have such chaotic emotional feelings. It is possible to have strong emotional reactions without letting them create chaos in our lives.

The way to do this is to understand that when strong feelings hit, we can choose to leave Doing Mode, avoid the temptation to try to ‘fix’ things, and move to Being Mode. In Being Mode we can sit quietly with the emotion until it dissipates, or until we are calm enough to make a rational decision instead of reacting purely out of emotion.

At the other end of the spectrum is the need for order. Order corresponds to the Rational Mind. At the extreme end of the Order portion of the spectrum, the rules for living have become rigid, inflexible, maladaptive, and unstable. At this other extreme end of the spectrum we are back into the Perfection Triad, in which we are making rules that insist on perfection from ourselves and from others in an attempt to shun personal responsibility for our emotional states.

Wise Mind is the middle path between these two extremes. It bridges the gap between Emotional Mind and Rational Mind, and between chaos and order. Wise Mind is the ability to be adaptable when we encounter too much chaos, and the ability to be flexible when we encounter too much order.