Holding Ground
Inner Resilience for Environmental Changemakers
with Kirsten Rudestam, PhD, Mark Coleman, MA, and Yong Oh
Nourish the inner ground from which meaningful action can grow.
This five-month journey weaves mindfulness, compassion, and nature-based practice with the real challenges of our time—grief, burnout, and the overwhelm of intersecting crises. Through contemplative practice and community support, you’ll develop the inner steadiness needed for long-term engagement. Here, we cultivate a spiritual infrastructure that can hold our ecological activism. We will explore how belonging to the Earth and to each other becomes the ground for sustained, creative action.
Reflections from Past Participants
What You’ll Practice
- Cultivate Inner Resilience.
- Deepen Connection to the Earth and Non-human Kin
- Foster Joy and Collective Care
- Develop Skills for Navigating Challenging Emotions
- Strengthen Relational Capacities
- Sustain Long-Term Engagement
This Course Is Designed For You If…
- Works for ecological integrity, environmental justice, or collective well-being
- Experiences burnout, grief, or overwhelm in your activism
- Seeks practices that integrate spiritual depth with engaged action
- Wants to sustain your commitment for the long term
- Feels called to remember your belonging within the larger web of life
- Wants to build community with others who share your values and struggles
What You Receive
Live Sessions: Monthly gatherings
Personal Practice: Guidance for establishing a daily practice, and ceremony or ritual work
Community Connection: Small peer discussion groups, buddy partnerships, and an online forum for ongoing support
Special guest speakers
Lifetime Access to Course
Course Outline
Love and compassion form the foundation of sustainable activism. Through heart-based and nature-based meditations, you’ll explore what truly motivates your work and establish grounding practices. You’ll create a daily sit spot practice, articulate your deeper purpose within small groups, and identify sources of support for times of difficulty. This module invites you to root your activism in care rather than urgency alone.
This module offers tools for meeting grief, anger, and other challenging emotions with skill and tenderness. You’ll learn the RAIN technique for working with difficulty, hold space for learning from grief and anger, and engage practices that reveal interconnection and reciprocity. Through deep listening and relational presence, you’ll discover that belonging—to each other and the Earth—holds us through descent.
Joy is not a luxury but a necessity for sustained engagement. Here you’ll identify personal sources of pleasure and delight, practice muditā (empathic joy) through meditation and movement, and create practices that foster celebration and community. You’ll explore how joy strengthens resilience and deepens your connection to the vitality of life itself, even amid difficulty.
Equanimity allows us to stay present with what is, responding wisely rather than reactively. You’ll explore upekkhā (equanimity) practice, identify personal challenges to maintaining balance, and develop an action plan addressing: “What is mine to do? With whom? What vision and resources do I need?” This module supports you in finding sustainable rhythms for your work.
The journey integrates as you reflect on growth and insight gained over five months. You’ll articulate a vision for continued spiritual activism and community engagement, identifying and embodying the relationships and practices that will sustain you. This module honors what has shifted and supports your return to the world with renewed commitment, clarity, and care.
Meet The Teachers
Kirsten Rudestam, PhD
Residential Retreat Teacher
A dedicated meditation practitioner since 1997, Kirsten has been authorized and trained to teach in the Theravādan tradition by her mentors, Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella. Kirsten holds a PhD in environmental sociology, is a trained vision fast guide through the School of Lost Borders, and is a facilitator of Joanna Macy’s “Work That Reconnects.” She believes that practices of (re)connection are vital for cultivating the resilience needed to face ecological loss and embrace our inherent interdependence. She has been teaching meditation in the Theravādan tradition since 2002, and co-founded and co-teaches the Sati Center’s Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy Training Program.
Yong Oh
Residential Retreat Teacher
Yong is a Dharma Council teacher at the Durango Dharma Center and a core teacher for Sacred Mountain Saṅgha, and is also a visiting teacher for other community centers across North America. He teaches retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Insight Meditation Society, Big Bear Retreat Center, and Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center. He is a graduate of the 4-year Insight Meditation Society Retreat Teacher Training program, Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s 2-year Community Dharma Leaders program, the 2-year Nature Dharma Teacher Training, and the Sacred Mountain Saṅgha 2-year Dharmapala training, taught by his primary teachers Kittisaro and Thanissara.
Yong is also a retired acupuncturist, and he deeply loves mountains and forests and bringing the practice of meditation into nature. Nature and Dharma are at the heart of his path. He also has a particular interest in devotional expression and supporting caregivers as well as communities of color in the Dharma. For his full schedule, visit yongoh.com.
Mark Coleman, MA
Residential Retreat Teacher
Mark Coleman, MA, has a master’s in Clinical Psychology and has trained extensively in the Buddhist tradition, both in the Insight meditation and in the Dzogchen tradition. He is a senior teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and has taught insight meditation retreats since 1997.
Mark is a life-long nature lover and is passionate about guiding people into the beauty of meditation and nature. He has led wilderness nature retreats worldwide for over twenty years. Through his organization Awake in the Wild Mark leads year long nature meditation teacher trainings in the US and Europe.
Co-founder of the Mindfulness Training Institute Mark also leads year long professional mindfulness teacher trainings in Europe and the US.
He is author of Awake in the Wild – Mindfulness in nature as a path to self-discovery, Make Peace With Your Mind, From Suffering to Peace and his recent book A Field Guide to Nature Meditation.
He lives in Sausalito, Marin and likes nothing more than hiking, biking and kayaking in the outdoors.
Open Your Heart and Arrive in Your Body
- Guided meditations and movement practices
- Teachings on
- Readings, self-inquiry, and integration practices for daily life application
- Lifetime access to all recordings and practices
Frequently Asked Questions
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What is the course format?
All of our on-demand courses are offered in a flexible self-study format, so you can access the materials whenever is good for you. Readings, video, audio, and all resources are structured for sequential access in our Online Learning Platform.
Can I participate from a different time zone?
Yes of course! We have students from all over the world participate in our courses. These self-paced study and practice courses are available wherever you are in the world, and whenever works best for you.
How long will I have access to the course?
You have lifetime access to the course and all materials.
I have more questions. Can you help me?
Yes! Please email us at courses@spiritrock.org with any questions that you might have.
