Cultivating wellbeing and connection for environmental activists in a mountaintop forest community

As environmental activists, organisers and community leaders work to protect land, water and climate from destruction, the Moora Moora Green Heart Retreat provides them with a sanctuary for rest, renewal, and reflection.

The Moora Moora Cooperative Learning Centre offers our unique community and mountain landscape in service to the wellbeing of staff and volunteers of the environment movement.

• What? A four-day retreat with a generously held space for rest, reflection, connection and being in nature, and in community.
• Where? Moora Moora community on Mt Toolebewong in Healesville, Victoria, on Wurundjeri country.
• When? Two options – Thursday night to Monday afternoon 23-27 November 2023 OR 7-11 March 2024
• Who? Join a facilitation team and up to 20 participants who work as staff or volunteers with a mix of different climate and environmental organisations.

To book your place, express interest to the person who is the contact point in your organisation.

The need

Confronting power and ecological destruction in the work for change is a huge load. Environmental campaigners, activists and organisers are conscious sufferers of the destruction of biodiversity and the climate’s stability. They understand our existential crisis and know what’s coming. The seemingly endless struggle to find ways to make a significant difference can be exhausting.

As climate and environmental impacts escalate, looking after the people who are working for change is critical. Their passion to make a difference needs care and support so that their love for the earth and its communities does not become overwhelmed by burnout. The culture and health of our collective movement is also critical.

Program purpose

The Moora Moora Green Heart Retreat helps environmental groups support their staff and volunteers with a space for rest and recreation, to connect as part of nature, to find mentors and to be in a community that understands them.

It offers staff and volunteers of environmental organisations a beautiful and powerfully held space for rest, reflection, meaning-making and being in nature. It is a generous space to receive deepening regeneration from the powerful energy of a mountain forest, within a supportive community context. The retreat offers the time to be still and to draw on inner resources. Participants can grow and strengthen relationships while sharing with fellow Earth caretakers.

They can leave with a rested body, renewed energy and connections, a deepened sense of purpose and new maps for self-care and well-being, supporting powerful and lifelong work for the earth.

Participants
The group of up to 20 participants each time will include a mixture of experienced and newer activists from three to six different climate and environment movement groups, organisations and networks, from grassroots to national scale. Program details can adapt informed by the ideas of the organisations involved and the needs of each group.

Program design
The program will be a mixture of relaxation and meaning-making – a dance between chosen individual and group experiences that build synergy between earth-care and self-care. All participants will be encouraged to commit to a night camped out in the forest.

Key components will be:

• Personal space for reflection, such as forest sitting, waiting for an encounter with life force other than oneself, bushwalking, meditation.
• Community engagement, such as story sharing around the fire, buddy check-in.
• Recreational happenings, such as music, dance or drumming.

One of the themes will be: Going forward, how can I care for myself while doing this work? How can my organisation care for its people? How can we care for others in the face of uncertainty?

Our Moora Moora community

Living in the mountaintop forest on the peak of Mt Toolebewong on Wurundjeri country, the Moora Moora cooperative is a 50-year-old intentional community. We are a learning community that lives in synergy with its environment. Established in 1974, Moora Moora is home to around 50 adults and 20 children living on 245 hectares, with 30 houses, a farm and a covenanted forest. There are two off-grid community facilities, with accommodation for up to 23 people and beautiful camping sites in the forest. Check the Moora Moora website for more information.

Costs
With significant in-kind and venue support from Moora Moora, program costs will be contributed by Moora Moora’s project partner, NED Inc, and the participating organisations on a sliding scale, depending on the size and resources of the organisation, so that individual participants can attend at no cost to them.

Team and facilitators

Peter Cock – Moora Moora Learning Centre Convenor

Peter is a pioneer of regenerative community and ecological citizenship. He co-founded Moora Moora and has lived in the community for 50 years. As a sociologist, he has researched, designed, and facilitated many community and small-group processes. He taught environmental decision-making and action, conserver society and eco-psychology at the Graduate School of Environmental Science at Monash. He is Vice president of the Sustainable Living Foundation. A particular passion is drawing on eco-psychology to design and facilitate 10 day and night camps teaching and healing within powerful nature scapes.

Yin Paradies – Moora Moora resident member and Professor of Race Relations 

Yin is an Aboriginal-Asian-Anglo Australian of the Wakaya people from the Gulf of Carpentaria and a resident member of Moora Moora. He is Professor of Race Relations at Deakin University where he conducts research on the health, social and economic effects of racism as well as racism theory, policy and practice across diverse settings, including online, in workplaces, schools, universities, housing, the arts, and health. He also teaches and undertakes research in Indigenous knowledges. Yin is a climate and ecological activist who is deeply committed to understanding and interrupting the devastating impacts of modernity.

Gabby Higgins – Moora Moora Learning Centre Coordinator

Gabby is a poet, bookbinder and community development worker, with a focus on mind-body connection and creativity as mindfulness methodologies. Her work experience includes wellbeing education, community development and community engagement. She holds a Masters of Strategic Public Relations from the University of Sydney, with a focus on deliberative democracy. Gabby is a Moora Moora member, who believes that, while we can create as individuals, we can create more in community.

Kathryn McCallum – Climate Action Network Australia strategy director

Kathryn McCallum works on climate movement collective impact and network health. She was formerly Climate Justice Campaign Director for GetUp and led communications and mobilisation with the Australian Conservation Foundation. With movement collaborations, Kathryn has worked on climate election campaigns and won new laws to support clean energy and regulate polluters. She’s supported First Nations-led campaigns against fracking and nuclear waste, and backed advocates from fire and flood-hit communities. Kathryn is a mountain hiker and nature connection mentor.  She’s studied tracking and rebuilding nature-connected communities. She lives on Wurundjeri country.

Expressions of interest

To book your place on one of the pilot retreats – 23-27th November 2023 or 7-11 March 2024, express your interest to your organisation contact.

Program contact

To discuss the program, contact Peter Cock on 0422 426 144 or phcock2@gmail.com