All IES members are heartily invited to participate in four Deep Conversations in 2025!
Unlike webinars where experts impart knowledge to listening audiences, these are more like a big café; a place for sharing and discussion that recognizes, and draws upon, the great gift of membership in IES: its potential for creating international connections and understanding about our shared field of interest. Together, we will explore ideas, experiences, and practices for creating the kind of world in which all peoples and all species can thrive.
The overall events will be facilitated in English, but the Zoom software offers real-time translation for both speaking and listening, so all participants can easily participate in their own language. In addition, small breakout rooms are held in English, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. Your voice is most welcome.
SAVE the DATES:
Deep Conversation 1: New Year Singing Circle with Dr. Tina Asherae Fields
Date: 13 January 2025
Time: UTC 16:30 – 18:00 – note the earlier than usual time.
The first Deep Conversation of 2025 is a special one that will not be spoken, but sung!
Our New Year Singing Circle will be led by Dr. Tina Asherae Fields, IES representative in the United States. Together, we will sing to the earth to warm our hearts and connect with the regenerative energy of nature, in a space of intimacy and communion.
You are invited to come listen and to also share one or two of your own favorite simple nature-loving songs. Please know that you do not need to be a “good singer” to participate! Singing is not meant to only be done by professionals; it is part of our birthright as humans, and it can also be a powerful ecopsychological tool to bring into working with groups.
If you would like to share a song or two, please prepare by writing out the lyrics/words ahead of time along with a translation into both English and Spanish, so you can paste them into the Chat for all to see. (We know it won’t be perfect, but Google Translate is fine to use.)
This event is a unique opportunity to celebrate the new year plus the seasons: winter in the northern hemisphere or summer in the southern hemisphere, and strengthen our connection as an international IES community. The circle will be a time of deep, gentle connection and collective expression through music.
Don’t miss it!
Deep Conversation 2: The Animate World.
“The stories we tell teach us how to be human. But maybe we need new stories…stories that remind us that we are not alone in the world, that we are surrounded by kin with a voice of our own.”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer
We invite you to a space of intimate and sacred encounter where we will share mystical or spiritual experiences lived in nature, moments where the world more than human spoke to us, embraced us or transformed us.
Have you ever felt a tree watching you, a butterfly guiding you, a rock protecting you or the wind answering you?
Come to remember and narrate those experiences where the border between you and the world was blurred.
Come to listen with an open heart.
Come and let yourself be touched by the memory of the animated world.
🌀 Word, presence and silence to honor the invisible that sustains us.
🌀 A circle where humans and non-humans cohabit the shared history of the soul of the world.
Date: 21 April, 2025
Time: 18:00 – 20:00 Rome
Deep Conversation 3: Practices to Help Calm the Nervous System in Difficult Times. Share and hear about useful ecopsychological practices. These may include creative, somatic, spiritual, mythic, and other dimensions. We need all of the tools we can get, right?
In times of crisis and transformation, our nervous system becomes overloaded by uncertainty, pain, and the speed of the modern world. Learning to care for it is learning to care for life itself within us. From the lens of ecopsychology, we understand that calm is not just an individual state, but a living relationship with the Earth and with others — a shared rhythm that restores our sense of belonging and safety.
This Deep Conversation will be a space to explore and share tools that help us regulate and find our center again. A gathering to recognize that we are not alone, that the wisdom to navigate difficult times already lives in our bodies, in our communities, and in the web of nature. We need all the medicines we can gather, and here we will remember and cultivate them together. ✨🌱
Date: 22 September, 2025
Time: UTC 16:00 – 18:00
Deep Conversation 4: Shamanism in Contemporary Ecopsychological Practice
📅 November 17, 2025 – From 18:00 to 20:00 Rome time
🌍 Click here to check your local time
We will share experiences, questions, perspectives, and reflections on the complex issue of including shamanic practices in ecopsychological work that connects us with nature.
Native American psychologist Dr. Leslie Gray has pointed out that shamanism is the oldest form of psychiatry: consulting the spirits of nature for information, guidance, and healing—in other words, ecopsychology.
But today, many ask whether we should continue to include this spiritual dimension in our work if we are not of Indigenous ancestry. If so, how can we bring these powerful techniques and perspectives to people of all backgrounds who need them today—without being accused of cultural appropriation?
Come with an open mind and a kind heart.
This intimate space is exclusive to IES members.
We look forward to sharing this time with you and will send the Zoom link one week before the event.
If you are not yet a member, join our community here:
🔗 Become a member
