Teaching

I am a university Lecturer at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. I teach mostly for the Department of Global Humanities but occasionally for the School of Resource and Environmental Management (REM). Here are a few courses I have taught, regularly teach, or am developing:

• Introduction to the Study of Religion
• Great Religious Texts
• Environmental Ethics (Writing Intensive)
• Religion, Spirituality and Ecology in the Anthropocene
• Ecological Grief and Radical Hope
• Sacred Groves: Trees, Forests and the Human Imagination
• Auguries for the Anthropocene: Birds and the Human Imagination
• Forest Ecosystem Management
• Rough Gods: Death and Dying in the Global Humanities
• Heroes Journeys and Pilgrim Paths: The Spirituality of Walking
• Contemplative and Monastic Traditions Across the Religions
• As Above So Below: Religious Cosmologies and Astrologies
• Charged with Grandeur: Ecological Ethics, Theology and Spirituality

Talks and Interviews

I am sometimes invited to give public talks on a variety of topics including contemplative ecology, ethics in the Anthropocene, monastic land ethics and sense of place, the spirituality/mythology of forests, and ecological grief.

Forest Stewards Guild webinar series (2025) Tree People: Trees, Forests and the Human Imagination: Part 1: The Primeval Forest: The role of trees and forests in religion and mythology., Part 2: The New Forest: The rise of conservation, wilderness and the new science of tree communication and ecology, Part 3: The Known Forest: The ways in which we relate to and understand trees and forests on a personal level.

Your Forest Podcast Interview, Contemplative Forestry.

Monastic Land Stewardship Webinar Series (April-August 2024): 1: Dwelling in the Wilderness (my talk).

2: Samuel Torvend: Monastic Ecological Wisdom, 3: Brenna Anglada: Land Justice Futures, 4: Douglas Christie: The Desert Within.

Forest History Society talk (April 2024): ‘Contemplative Forestry: Lessons from Monastic Landscapes Past and Present’

CBC’s ‘What on Earth’ Newsletter.

CBC ‘What on Earth’ interview on ecological chaplaincy. Feb 4 2024.

CBC Early Edition clip on the Ecological Chaplaincy pilot Project at SFU (2024).

Forest Stewards Guild talk ‘Give me that old growth religion: Understanding the Diversity of Forest Cultures’ (2024).

Yale Divinity Alumni Profile (2023).

SFU Ecological Chaplaincy Project Announcement (2023).

World Christian Community for Christian Meditation Earth Crisis Forum (2023).

Institute for the Humanities talk on Cultivating Placefulness (2022).

Journey of the Universe Podcast with Sam King (2022).

Yale Forum for Religion and Ecology Podcast with Sam Mickey (2022).

In-Person and Virtual Retreats

Sacred Groves: Cultivating a Spiritual Practice with Trees and Forests

Introduction

The Holyscapes Project is about facilitating workshops that explore our own spiritual ecologies. This can have a variety of meanings, but primarily it means exploring the contours of and relationship between our inner and outer landscapes. In a wider cultural context, spiritual ecology is about reclaiming our sense of the holiness of the world as sacred activism.

The Sacred Groves workshop is the seed of a much more extensive academic course I teach at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. In this workshop we will look at the history of trees and forest in the human imagination mostly through the lens of myth, spirituality, philosophy and literature. As a workshop however, the emphasis will be on creating spaces to explore our own relationships to trees and forests, and to develop a practice of literacy and familiarity with these sacred earth beings and holy places.

Learning Objectives 

• Define trees and forests in relation to human societies
• Articulate issues facing forests and trees in urban and global settings 
• Explore the role of trees and forests in the world’s religious and spiritual systems
• Improve ecological literacy related to trees and forests
• Deepen one’s personal relationship to trees and forest spaces
• Cultivate a spirituality of trees and forests

Contemplative Ecology

This 3-5 session retreat focuses on broad themes of cultivating a contemplative ecology. Contemplative ecology may be defined as a perception of the world as a profound holy Mystery; a practice that seeks out a relationship with that Mystery; and an ethic that reflects a reverence for that Mystery. The retreat will explore the practice of “Placefulness”, cataphatic and apophatic modes of ecological literacy, contemplative griefcraft, and developing a personal spiritual practice around land and place that acknowledges the difficulties of climate change and Indigenous peoples’ losses. I draw from various scientific, cultural, mystical, poetic, literary and religious traditions, but am rooted in the contemplative catholic traditions (Celtic, Benedictine, Franciscan, desert) and draw significantly from those sources even though the retreat is non-sectarian. Host: Rivendell Hermitage, Bowen Island, BC. Past in person retreats Sept. 2022; August 2023

The Spiritual Ecology of the Desert: A Lenten Retreat

(Typically during Lent)

Retreat Overview

In this half day retreat, we will explore Christian desert spirituality from our own spiritual and ecological contexts. The desert ‘fathers and mothers’ were intense ascetics who fled the cities and towns for the presence of God in tombs, abandoned forts and later, the open deserts of Arabia, Cappadocia, Egypt and Syria. In this Lenten retreat we will explore the relevance of these desert mystics for our own times and places. Using the lens of spiritual ecology we will look at the convergence of inner and outer landscapes in the original desert ecosystems and apply them to our own (my own being the temperate rainforests of Cascadia). We will look at the ecology of arid places and discuss how it gave rise to a spirituality that emphasized silence, asceticism and apophatic (beyond words) knowing.

This retreat is rooted in a contemplative Christian understanding of the world, but is open to people of all faiths, paths, journeys and worldviews.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the teachings of the desert fathers and mothers
• Familiarize ourselves with the ecologies of arid and desert landscapes
• Experience the power of silence and stillness
• Deepen our connection to role of Kenosis and Apophasis in mystical theology
• Explore our relationship to the spiritual ecology of ‘deserts’

Advent and the Dark Night of the Soul

(Typically during Advent)

Introduction

What do Advent and the Dark Night of the Soul have in common? From the Latin Adventus, Advent refers to the arrival, the coming of the Incarnation as a child. During Advent, we also reflect on the coming of Christ at the end of time and in our hearts.

Christians are an Advent people, but human beings are a now species. We want the light right away. Advent teaches us about the holiness of waiting. St. Augustine’s famous refrain that ‘Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, oh God’ is echoed by the Advent call: Come, Lord Jesus!

Yet, there is another, perhaps deeper, meaning to Advent, the Latin verb Advenio means to develop. Thus Advent is also the slow ripening of God in each of our lives, even during times of apparent absence. For some time now, especially since my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, I have wondered how a spirituality of darkness can contribute to our spiritual development. Our ability to trust times of spiritual dryness, or even trials to open us to God’s mysterious grace at work within our lives.

Learning Objectives

• Explore the origins and purpose of Advent as a season of Christian liturgical life.
• Explore the overlap with the Pagan and secular winter solstice.
• Deepen our understanding of San Juan de la Cruz’s Dark Night of the Soul.
• Apply and explore our own connections to a spirituality and ecology of darkness, silence and waiting.

This retreat and workshop are rooted in the early Christian understandings of the world but is open to people of all faiths, paths, journeys and worldviews.