Learn more of what’s possible.
Climate anxiety and despair are fundamentally isolating experiences. Exploring them in supportive learning spaces reduces shame and numbness, increases possibilities for action, and builds honest and engaged communities of care.
All workshops, classes, and support groups below feature a blend of experiential learning and individual and group reflection. Some are more text- and theory-based; others include somatic practices or guided meditation.
Contact me to schedule a workshop, series, or support group, or to discuss a custom facilitation.
For invitations to teach in person, please note I am based in New Haven, CT.
workshops
Climate Anxiety and the Wisdom Our Bodies Carry
Much of our climate anxiety is propelled by the news and media we are exposed to, but the stories we tell ourselves about the future can also be rooted in inherited ways of thinking and fearing. In this workshop, we make space for climate anxiety and defang the shame and isolation that so often accompanies it. We explore how climate emotions show up in our hearts and bodies; reflect on how our fears may be shaped by our ancestors’ experiences; and expand our capacity for healing, connection, and action.
This 90-minute immersion involves reflective writing and guided meditation and can be tailored to Jewish, interfaith, or non-Jewish audiences. Zoom or in-person.
Working with Our Climate Grief
The poet Jamie Anderson once observed: ‘Grief is just love with no place to go.’ When unexpressed or unheard, the growing losses and anticipated losses of climate change can transform into despair, and from there into numbness, isolation, and silence. In this workshop, we explore how our ecological grief—in the forms of cumulative and anticipatory grief—are suppressed and disenfranchised. We reclaim our essential voices and map out new paths for expression and connection, giving our love ‘some place to go.’
This 90-minute immersion involves reflective writing and guided meditation and can be tailored to Jewish, interfaith, or non-Jewish audiences. Zoom or in-person.
adult education series
Spiritual Curiosity as a Response to Climate Change
The urgency of addressing and mitigating the climate crisis can have the effect of pulling us out of ourselves: the opposite of presence and mindful attention. And although climate change is a problem of present and future, Kabbalah—a centuries-old mystical tradition—offers a meaningful path for accessing our spiritual curiosity around climate change.
Through a Four Worlds framework, participants explore their physical, emotional, spiritual, and existential responses to the challenges of this moment, and learn to shift from an orientation of reaction to an orientation of expansive response.
This four-week series is for Jewish communities and involves text study in translation, guided meditation, and individual and small-group reflection. Zoom or in-person.
Wisdom and Presence for a Climate-Changing World
‘How do I live in this climate-changing world?’ It’s hard to think of a more contemporary question. And yet Jewish tradition is dotted with ancestors who wrestled with many of the same underlying issues: How do I imagine more than just loss? How do I act from a place of hope? How do I trust in the world around me?
Harness the hidden wisdom of our ancestors as we learn to navigate a changing world. In each session, we explore different Talmudic or aggadic midrash with an attitude of creativity and thoughtful play. Add your wisdom and expand your curiosity as we journey together from narrowness into expansion, fear into love, loss into possibility, and beyond.
This six-week series is for Jewish communities and involves creative writing and studying midrash in translation. Zoom or in-person.
support groups
Contemplating Parenthood in a Time of Climate Change: A Support Group for Exploration and Discernment
Given the realities of climate change, whether or not to become a parent is a decision more and more folks are wrestling with. It’s a tender, fraught, lonely, and often counter-cultural conversation, particularly for communities and ethnicities that historically have been targeted for oppression.
Over the course of 5 months, participants are guided to explore their feelings and beliefs with curiosity and self-compassion; connect with and witness fellow possible parents; access the wisdom of relevant texts; and leave with practical tools to reflect and communicate on this tender topic with self, family, and friends.
This 7-session support group is open to individuals of any gender, and can be tailored to Jewish, interfaith, or non-Jewish audiences. Zoom only.
Conversation Circles: Being Chaplains in A Climate-Changed World
Conversation Circles bring together participants from diverse sectors, faith backgrounds, and geographic locations, and are open to those who are seeking to explore with others the multi-faceted work of climate-conscious chaplaincy in community settings.
We intend for these groups to offer support for personal and professional well-being and community-building, even as we ourselves are deeply affected by living in a climate-changed world. Additionally, these Circles offer opportunities for participants to share existing skills and develop new ones.
Zoom only. Conversation Circles run February to July 2025, and are offered on behalf of the BTS Center in collaboration with the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab.
for chaplains and chaplaincy students
Climate Change Chaplaincy: An Introduction to the Field for Spiritual Care Professionals
How is the climate crisis transforming traditional boundaries of time and place in spiritual care? In this 75-minute class, learn about the emerging fields of eco- and climate change chaplaincy and understand how this work is both an extension of conventional chaplaincy and a unique response to the spiritual and emotional challenges of our time.
Through theory, discussion, case studies, and small group reflection, participants will learn to recognize climate emotions and the spiritual disorientations of living in time of climate change; experiment with real-time pastoral interventions; and receive an introduction to the growing field of climate change chaplaincy.
Zoom or in-person.
Introduction to Climate Change Chaplaincy for Chaplaincy Students
In this 20-hour intensive, students learn about the mental health, emotional, and spiritual impacts of climate change; reflect on how climate change is transforming the chaplain’s role and response; develop a broad understanding of climate emotions; reflect on the spiritual dimensions of climate grief and climate anxiety; and consider climate chaplaincy for key groups.
In addition to critical engagement with the above concepts, during this course students will deepen their understanding of the importance of pastoral care for a climate-changing world; explore practical possibilities and theoretical considerations for faith-specific, non-denominational, pantheistic, and secular climate change chaplaincy; and reflect on their particular roots, resources, and capacities to meet the spiritual care needs of a diverse, climate-changing world.
Zoom or in-person.