About The Presentation

Often, too often in our culture, uninvited and enormously violent collective events such as the Aurora Theater shooting, Sandy Hook, 911 rips us open to a raw darkness that wrenches our souls. These disturbing events impact us, yet often remain as hidden wounds, often bypassed by personal concerns in therapy, leaving us ravished at a deep level without conscious relief. There is a healing path awaiting discovery. We have nature practices and ways of wilderness quests with which to turn. We can quiet our minds and open our hearts through immersion in the wild. In both solace and upheaval we come face to face with ourselves. Healing in the wild suggests opening into the landscape of our own psyche.

We will offer an overview description of the healing power of Nature. We bring a unique Wilderness Vision Quest story to illustrate how the integration of Qi Gong, contemplative practice, wilderness solo experience, story telling combine to clear and refine our perceptions, dissolve energetic blockages and open the possibility for non-dual awareness to arise. Through non-dual awareness, supported by alone (all-one) time in the wild, one experiences the unification of inner and outer nature as a continuum. Conventional subject/object separation dissolves into primordial oneness.

About the Presenter

Dominie Cappadonna PhD, CT received her Doctorate in Transpersonal Psychology in 1976, and offers a post-doctoral practice as a Transpersonal psychotherapist, Ecopsychologist and Death Awareness Educator under her work called, “Radiant Living~Luminous Dying®: Let your Life Shine!

She co-founded “The Center for the Study of Ecopsychology” at Naropa University in 2001, drawing from her previous experiences; Ecopsychology & Social Action Trainings with Brazilian rainforest activists/ healers and other groups. Created Mystic Journey Under Sail; vision quests at sea, and Wolf Wisdom-Arctic Vision, a pilgrimage to bring attention to saving the wolves in Arctic winter. Later she became a facilitator for Joanna Macy’s “The Work that Reconnects” and worked as a Senior Fellow for Future 500, a global citizenry non-profit in China.   Internationally Certified as a Thanatologist, (dying, death and bereavement) she teaches and counsels utilizing the research findings in the study of Post Traumatic Growth and it’s positive attitude in stabilizing resiliency in life passages. She offers wisdom trainings called, “Wild Buddha Bowing”, “Green Buddha” and other teachings which promote inner preparation for world work.

Howard E. “Bud” Wilson appreciates his interdisciplinary degree (Anthropology, Sociology and Psychology) from Harvard University during the tumultuous years of 1968-1972. In addition to his pro-peace/anti-war activities he was an NCAA All-Ivy League athlete. His extended studies include courses in ontological design, innovative education, social & environmental actionism combined with executive seminars at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. During Bud’s tenure in top management for John Denver’s Windstar Foundation, R. Buckminster Fuller referred to Bud as “an adaptive generalist / comprehensivist.”

Bud offers Qi Gong instruction, Awareness training and wilderness solo experiences as part of his leadership development work through Deep Nature Journeys. After participating in the Global Forum of Parliamentary and Spiritual leaders during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, he designed Eco Action, a training program for Rotary International’s Preserve Planet Earth Campaign for which he produced a documentary. He is also a facilitator for the Pachamama Alliance; Awakening the Dreamer Symposium.His views on society have been published in The New York Times, USA Today, CBS evening news and was a featured panelist on WGBH – Boston’s Campus Crisis Game. In 2011, Bud coordinated the first World Nature Quest with 35 adventurous groups simultaneously honoring the Earth in 17 countries and 5 continents. See: World Nature Quest .  He’s a frequent moderator for the Conference on World Affairs. He contributes his journalistic talents as a writer for The Elephant Journal and Next Culture Network.

Additional Resources