Reading Nature as a Sacred Text

WITH RYAN SHEA OF THE NATURE INSTITUTE

Saturday talk, October 5, 7:00 pm (open to all by donation)
Sunday workshop, October 6, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm ($80 to $180, including lunch)

The Saturday evening talk focuses on reading the plant realm by combining two analogous and cross-pollinating traditions: lectio divina and Goethean phenomenology.

Lectio divina, or “sacred reading,” is a four-stage practice (reading, meditating, praying, contemplating) developed by medieval monks to help them dwell with and be transformed by sacred scriptures.

Goethean phenomenology also has four stages that correspond to the traditional four elements (earth, water, air, fire) and can be approached as a practice for learning to read nature as a sacred text.

In the Sunday workshop, we will combine these two practices and systematically work through the four stages to come to a deeper experience of the meaning of plants.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER!

Ryan Shea is Associate Researcher and Educator at the Nature Institute in Ghent, NY (https://www.natureinstitute.org/). He taught at Providence College for eight years, including courses in philosophy of science, environmental philosophy, and nature writing. His research weaves together ancient philosophical biology (especially Aristotle), the scientific revolution, phenomenology, German idealism, and Goethean qualitative science. His main project is to learn what it might look like to read the “book of nature” in a participatory, contemplative, phenomenological, and poetic fashion.