ith more than twenty years experience of public speaking, Caroline values most highly what seems to be the lost art of listening. She is personable, persuasive, and thinks well on her feet, honoring the process of exploration and discovery in mutual partnership with her audience.
- Many of us despair that we have become a polarized culture, where rhetoric and vitriol hold sway. As a retreat facilitator certified by The Center for Courage and Renewal, Caroline is gifted in the art of creating safe space for people to explore the deepest longings of our hearts – for connection; for right relationship within our earth community; for the practice of justice in a world at peace. She defines that safe space as the space between . . .
- To enter the space between . . . requires that we let go of our claims of human privilege and human entitlement. We are an anthropocentric bunch, assuming rights and privileges that are not ours to claim. Caroline challenges our human-centered philosophy with a clear vision of what our common life could be, if we would allow our ethics and law to emerge from an eco-centric perspective. “Just as our morality of the earlier centuries mirrored the ways in which we understood our universe – as hierarchy – so must our morality today parallel what we know of the universe as an interconnected network of life forms.”
- Caroline challenges the institution of the church and its claims to be the sole purveyors of sacrament and ritual, reminding us that all life is sacred, and can be celebrated with the elements all life holds in common: earth, waters, wind, and fire. “The sacramental expression is the missing piece,” she claims, without apology. In her own words, “From the space between . . . where we have left our righteous opinions and self-interest at the door, a deep knowing has opportunity to awaken, from which emerge our stories, our art and music, our poetry and dance. These form the liturgical alphabet of sacred ritual for the healing of the earth community.”
- How might we re-imagine leadership from a biocentric perspective? How do we shape it?
- What practices might allow us to access our deepest knowing? Some call it intuition, others “the inner teacher”. The church names it sophia, our inner wisdom.
Caroline speaks to the marriage of intellect and heart, but the primary catalyst for this paradigm shift lies within our hearts. In her own words, “We simply cannot do harm if we can learn love from within the ecosystem(s) of our earth – if we can learn what it means to be in right relationship.”
If you are interested in a speaker to address contemporary concerns of this kind, contact Caroline through this website.
