Whole Earth Animism: A Field Guide to the Future
With Perdita Finn & Clark Strand
36 Weekly Sessions beginning March 5th, 2025, Wednesdays 5-6 pm Eastern time
All sessions on Zoom, recorded, and sent to all participants each week
This nine-month immersion into ancient ways of perceiving and communicating with the Earth will transform our communal belief-sphere so we can each access the wisdom and guidance we need for the times ahead. Together, through guided explorations, we will recover what it means to be kin, not just with human beings but all beings—and discover how those lost intimacies can bring us profound experiences of belonging and healing, creativity and joy. Together, week by week, month by month, we will create a collection of eco-logia—anecdotes and observations about our journeys that will serve as future guidance through the mysteries of deep time.
Psychedelic medicine is again surging in popularity with the hopes that something can help us overcome the many traumas of civilized life. But what if there were easy, if unfamiliar, ways to expand our sensory and imaginative experiences, recover the soul guidance of our own intuition, and root ourselves back into the fertile wonders of ordinary life?
Each month we will enter into conversation with diverse beings—from trees and birds to stones and rivers—to help us remember the many different heart languages of the earth. We will practice methods for improving our awareness and enhancing our connections to all kinds of souls. We will learn how to hone the messages and guidance we are receiving into portable stories of resilience and sustenance. We will begin creating a “field-guide to the future,” both for our descendants and ourselves in lifetimes to come.
Whole Earth Animism is practical, life-changing, and urgent. We do not need go-bags or survival skills—we need to know how to be in collaboration and conversation with what Sophie Strand calls the “Animate Everything,” with the long story of our souls, and with each other, so we can be reborn into the generous magic of all that is.
Course Overview
Each month will include a practical investigation of some aspect of the natural world paired with a conversational modality which we will explore together. On the fourth session of each month, we will share our eco-logia in gatherings designed to empower our own voices, liberate our creativity, and create intimate community. There will be an ongoing online forum for participants to share their perceptions, questions, and stories.
MARCH: On Dirt, Deep Time, and Looking at the Ground Beneath Our Feet
APRIL: On Wind and Weather and Noticing the Ineffable and the Invisible
MAY: Asking Questions of the Green Ones and Receiving the Answers of the Trees
JUNE: Untangling Ecology from Theology with the Help of the Birds
JULY: On the Perspective of the Heavens, the Stars and All That is Above
AUGUST: Letting Our Furred and Feathered Kin Guide Us Back to Our Bodies
SEPTEMBER: Initiation into Mysteries through Our Rooted Dreams
OCTOBER: Rediscovering Belonging with Rivers and Raindrops
NOVEMBER: On Epochs of Change and the Long Story of Our Souls
Registration Fees & Dates
36 Weekly Sessions on Wednesdays from 5-6 pm Eastern Time Beginning March 5th, 2025 and ending on November 20th, 2025
All sessions on Zoom, recorded, and sent to all participants each week
$999 — For early registration in full before November 2nd
$1150 — For registration in full before January 1
$1300 — For registration after January 1 (payable in full or in 4 parts)
Deposits and Workshops fees are non-refundable
About the Presenters
Perdita Finn is a descendant of gardeners and dirt-lovers and women who knew how to speak to the dead in the dark. She is the author of Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World and the forthcoming Mothers of Magic: Recovering the Love at the Heart of the World. A lifelong teacher, she is committed to helping every being find their voice and tell their story.
Clark Strand is a lifelong haiku poet with a devotion to walking in the dark and speaking with owls and morning glories. A former Rinzai Zen monk and Tricycle Magazine editor, he has been searching for and cultivating the spiritual habits for decades that will help our species navigate climate change. He is the author of many books including Seeds from a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku as a Spiritual Journey, Meditation without Gurus, and Waking Up to the Dark.
Perdita and Clark are the co-authors of The Way of the Rose and the founders of the feral fellowship of the same name. This course is a culmination of a thirty-year journey back to the earth. They live together with their blood and soul kin in the moss-filled shadows of the Catskill Mountains.