Alderroot Healing & Renewal
Eco-Spiritual Facilitation Training
A professional training in earth-based, spiritual, and relational group facilitation
Gain practical tools and embodied experience to help you guide groups with confidence, depth, and integrity. This 5 month professional development program teaches you how to skillfully facilitate groups using earth-based practices, mindfulness, and relational awareness. You’ll learn how to design and lead workshops, rituals, and immersive experiences that support personal and collective transformation.
Facilitators: Irene Elle Bailey and Dr. Heather Burns
5 month training June-October 2026
Live & Virtual, Personal & Profound
Training begins on June 10
Eco-spiritual facilitation is the practice of guiding individuals and groups through experiences that deepen their relationship with nature, inner awareness, and community. It integrates elements of mindfulness, somatics, group facilitation, and earth-based ritual to create meaningful, transformative spaces.
In this training you'll find expertly facilitated small group learning circles, earth-based practice sessions, and 1-1
eco-spiritual coaching to support your learning journey.
Open to all identities.
Who you are.......
You facilitate groups (or you want to), but you don't feel very confident, especially when it comes to integrating spirituality or nature-connection into your facilitation. You often show up nervous and unsure, either shrinking or taking up too much space as a facilitator. You wish you had more skills and confidence to guide others. You long to consistently embody eco-spiritual values and practices. You'd like to have more tools and more trust in your skills so that you can be a confident facilitator in your current work or in the work you are dreaming of and growing into.
We believe that you can grow your trust and confidence as an eco-spiritual facilitator in this online training program that teaches people how to facilitate groups using nature-based and spiritual practices. It is designed for wellness practitioners, educators, coaches, and any space-holder who wants to lead meaningful group experiences.
Can you learn facilitation in a virtual training?
Yes! We facilitate engaging virtual learning circles that will help you learn eco-spiritual facilitation tools and apply what you are learning.
Our sessions are:
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Participatory~ We all have lived-experience to share and we invite your insights and wisdom
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Experiential~We learn best by practicing and trying new things
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Relational~ We learn better when we know and care about each other
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Reflective~We offer guidance and space for reflecting deeply on what we are learning
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Place-based~ We offer practices so that you can connect with the land where you live, cultivating a personal connection with the earth
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Practice oriented~We invite you to practice eco-spiritual facilitation in your community and to bring your reflections and questions back to the learning group
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Personal~We offer monthly 1-1 coaching sessions where we can support your needs individually and offer in-depth relational support
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Invitational~We offer invitations to develop regular personal eco-spiritual practices at home that will ground you in earth-partnership and support your confidence
This training offers you…
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More capacity to trust yourself so that you can guide from a more authentic and confident place
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New earth-based practices and rituals that strengthen your connection to earth and spirit so that you feel grounded as a facilitator
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More confidence and ease in your own facilitation style so that you can design and guide meaningful workshops, retreats, and other sacred group experiences
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A greater capacity for mindful awareness and loving presence, so that you can meet these times with more stability and compassion
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A toolkit of eco-spiritual facilitation skills so that you feel effective and confident in your facilitation role
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Small supportive community of peers and mentors doing the work alongside you to enrich your journey going forward (group size will be 6- 12)
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Eco-spiritual coaching for personalized guidance for your eco-spiritual facilitation journey
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Eco-spiritual facilitation certificate to add your resume and website
In today’s world, where uncertainty and disconnection have become pervasive, the need for wise and compassionate facilitators has never been greater. As individuals and communities grapple with uncertainties, anxiety, and a sense of isolation, we can cultivate grounded steadiness and hold anchoring spaces.
Facilitators—whether we are coaches, healers, teachers, nature-based guides, leaders, or care givers—can serve as weavers of wisdom and re-connection to the web of Life.
Eco-spiritual facilitation is an invitation to create spaces where people feel truly welcomed, seen, held together, and empowered to honor their inherent connection to earth's wisdom.
Whether you are a long time facilitator or just beginning, you can gain confidence and learn new tools for holding space, fostering deep listening, and cultivating experiences that deepen relationships, honor grief, and invite joy, curiosity, and gentleness.
Are you ready to become the confident and skilled facilitator you are meant to be?
Maybe you've stayed on the sidelines, thinking you don’t have enough to offer, or not trusting that you have valuable gifts to share. You've questioned whether you are worthy or really have the confidence to guide others. You think that you're not ready enough, that maybe you’ll be more ready at some later time.
But there may also be a whisper and tug inside you to step into a deeper connection to earth and spirit. You are curious about learning new tools for guiding others. And you want to feel more confident and courageous, more grounded through the prevailing uncertainties of our time. You want to move toward meaningful work that feels more aligned with who you are.
It's okay to feel on the edge of being ready. You are welcome just as you are. We each have gifts to offer this unfolding story and your gifts are welcome and needed.
As a participant in this training, we'll invite you into a welcoming and gentle small group learning circle where we'll meet you just where you are. In our circle, we'll guide you toward eco-spiritual practices and tools that will deeply support you and those you hold space for. We'll also offer you ongoing 1-1 coaching guidance so that you receive the personalized support you need and don't ever feel lost along the way. We'll help you move easefully toward becoming a more confident, trusting, and skillful facilitator.
In this training you will learn....
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How to cultivate and commit to eco-spiritual practices that expand your connection to spirit and anchor you in earth-trust
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How to weave tools like contemplative practices, storytelling, ceremony, and micro-rituals into your facilitation
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How to use your intuition to respond to participants when facilitating, how to hold space for the emotional needs of a group, and how to guide with a trauma-informed lens (welcome, safety, choice, connection)
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How to facilitate with spaciousness, wisdom, and presence, knowing how to accept paradox and non-closure, and how to guide with a light touch
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How to create meaningful invitations that are aligned with who you are and your unique facilitation style
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How to actively cultivate confidence in yourself as a facilitator
Core Tenets
These tenets are foundational to our work and will be integrated into our learning throughout the training.
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Relationship & Interbeing: Our learning and lives are rooted in interconnected relationships. We can learn to trust that when our path is rooted in interbeing, we have access to intuition, earth wisdom, and deeper knowing. We are committed to creating inclusive relational spaces rooted in healing justice.
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Mindful & Compassionate Awareness: Our approach to our work and ourselves recognizes the need for our loving attention, presence, and compassion in a distracted and overwhelmed world.
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Ecological Wisdom: We work in partnership with the earth and access wisdom directly from the natural world. Emergent ecological design, ritual, and seasonal connection are tools in this unfolding relationship.
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Transformative & Experiential Learning: The learning we guide is participatory, intuitive, emergent, and holds possibility for transformative change. We use tools such as invitation, reflection, and embodied & sensory experience to enhance learning.
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Inherent Wholeness: We believe everyone is inherently whole and deserves to uncover and remember wholeness. We cultivate experiences that deepen relationships, honor grief, and invite joy, playfulness, curiosity, and creativity.
This training is for you if you want to...
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Cultivate your capacity to trust yourself, allowing intuition and wisdom to guide you and your work
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Be in a small supportive learning community with others who are exploring their spiritual paths and facilitator roles
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Receive support through 1-1 eco-spiritual coaching so that your learning is personalized and amplified
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Expand your personal well-being and groundedness through eco-spiritual practices
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Hold sacred spaces for others, with skill and confidence
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Learn practical and proven tools for facilitating eco-spiritual learning
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Integrate more self-reflection and spiritual growth into your life
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Move beyond our dominant cultural norms, dismantle systems of oppression, and live and work with more trust, confidence, and creativity
How we learn together....
Because we believe that learning is relational and happens best through experience and practice, you'll get to participate in expertly facilitated eco-spiritual learning circles with a small group of like-hearted participants. And because we know that each participant has their own unique challenges, we offer personalized coaching guidance so that you'll be able to show up to facilitate with more confidence and joy.
This training models eco-spiritual facilitation, providing a clear experience of what it feels like and looks like to be an eco-spiritual facilitator. You will also receive a toolkit of practices and have opportunities to practice what you are learning. This training will be small enough to provide the space to build supportive relationships and deep connections within our learning circle.
This training is rooted in research and wisdom from adult learning theories such as contemplative, experiential, and transformative learning, and is strongly informed by an understanding of Spiritual Ecology, New Science, Ecopsychology, Critical Theory, Relational Forest Therapy, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Ceremony, and Rites of Passage work. Additionally, our decades of practical experience as transformative educators and facilitators inform and guide this training.
Gain confidence in yourself and in your ability to hold space for others, knowing that you have the skills to be an intuitive and impactful co-spiritual facilitator
What's in the eco-spiritual toolkit? (specific tools you'll learn for eco-spiritual facilitation)
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Micro rituals
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Facilitation structure: Openings (helping people feel welcome, grounded and present) and Closings (making meaning together)
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Storytelling & deep listening
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Ceremony
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Contemplative practices
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Medicine walks & how to listen to the land for guidance and wisdom
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The language of invitation & how to create invitations
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Intuitive responses and holding spaciousness while facilitating
"This training was insightful, empowering, and a real confidence boost. I'm very excited to take what I have learned, to broaden and grow my own personal practice as well as my facilitation practice."
-2025 participant
"Through everyday rituals, interconnected presence, and surrendering to the art of slowing down, I have been able to be more present in my professional and personal life. I have learned simple, tangible skills with big returns - such as learning to listen when asking the land (and ourselves) for guidance."
-2025 Participant
"This Eco-Spiritual Facilitation Training opens a foundation of skills for those who are passionate about creating inclusive spaces that forge greater trust in ourselves and are led by the guiding wisdom of Nature. The skills learned can and will apply to your personal lives as well, instilling you with a priceless toolkit of learnings that will forge a greater relationship with the land, presence in your relationships, and intimate depth to your
life experience."
-2025 Participant
General Information
"Heather shows up so authentically and vulnerably to every class, it is infectious. Her teaching not only helps you see and understand the world better but helps you see and understand yourself better."
-Camilla
This training is for you if you are...
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A values-based practitioner or guide who would like to feel more confident facilitating groups
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Wanting to deepen your trust in yourself and the earth, and learn how to skillfully facilitate learning and healing in partnership with the earth
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Curious about how to facilitate transformative adult learning that inspires meaning and invites gentle change
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Appreciative of personalized 1-1 coaching guidance that will support your eco-spiritual path and facilitation journey.
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Needing the flexibility of virtual learning. You are able to commit to a relational learning process with fixed meeting times
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Looking for ways to commit time and space to your personal learning and growth
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Wanting to connect with like-hearted others in a learning process that is emergent, supportive, and deeply relational
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A nature or forest therapy guide, an organizational facilitator, a garden-based or wilderness guide, an outdoor educator, a healer, a coach, a teacher, or leader on a spiritual path
“One of the most nourishing, peaceful, reflective, and connected experiences I’ve had in years. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. I am so thankful for the wisdom of the teachers, the opportunity to practice being vulnerable, to slow down, and to connect with the land.”
-Steph
Format and Timing:
Each month there will be 2 weekday participatory learning circle sessions for focusing on key concepts and skills (on Zoom). There will also be 1 Saturday eco-spiritual practice session per month (meeting on screen with invitations to go outside/off screen and come back later to share). You'll also meet on Zoom once a month with either Heather or Irene for 1-1 coaching.
Learning circles: 2 Wednesdays a month: 11:00-12:30pm (PST)
June 10 & 24, July 8 & 15, Aug 5 & 19, Sept 9 & 23, Oct 7 & 21- Recorded in case you can't make it to all sessions.
Eco-spiritual practice session: 1 Saturday a month: 10:00am-12:00pm (PST)
June 13, July 11, Aug 8, Sept 19, Oct 10 - Recorded in case you can't make it to all sessions.
Coaching: 1 hour a month, flexible
We want you to participate as fully as possible and also understand that you may need to miss some sessions. We will record all group sessions and share the recordings.
Virtual learning circles are designed to be participatory, meaningful, and relational. These sessions will include check-ins, contemplative practices, earth connection practices, small group activities, somatic practices, reflective journaling, discussion, and more.
Each month we focus on a specific theme with learning that guides us into deeper knowing and skill in our eco-spiritual facilitation practice. Every month you will receive new tools and practices to support your learning and add to your toolkit.
Themes:
1) Rooting in relationship and opening to trust
2) Connecting to intuition & earth wisdom
3) Cultivating confidence & authentic practices
4) Holding spaciousness & invitation
5) Integrating imagination & reflection- moving forward with intention
Irene has a great way of making a gathering feel warm, welcoming and easy. I feel connected to myself, to others, and to nature....the perfect reset and check-in with myself, to notice how I am feeling, and where my energies are being spent.”
-Amy
Meet your Facilitators:
Dr. Heather Burns (she/her) has been a scholar and facilitator of eco-spiritual learning for over 20+ years as a university professor and through her business, Alderroot Healing & Renewal. She holds space for transformative healing and wholeness rooted in relationships and interbeing. She has extensive experience teaching others how to design and facilitate eco-spiritual and sustainability learning, and she is an experienced designer and facilitator of participatory, experiential, contemplative, and transformative learning experiences. Over the years, she has deepened her intuitive facilitation skills through guiding retreats, forest therapy experiences, courses in spirituality and deep ecology, and 1-1 coaching & mentorship.
Heather holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership in Sustainability, an MA in Women Studies and Adult Education, and a BA in Psychology. She was a tenured professor and the director of the Leadership for Sustainability Education graduate program for 15 years. She has published dozens of articles on transformative and eco-spiritual learning and is the author of the book Transformative Sustainability Pedagogy: Designing and Facilitating Eco-Spiritual Learning.
Heather is also a certified forest therapy guide with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, a Reiki master, and a certified permaculture designer. Heather believes that we all need mindful support and inclusive spaces of gentle care and guidance as we struggle in these times of climate crisis and crumbling social systems. She knows healing is supported by remembering our connection to the living earth and by truly feeling our sense of belonging in this wise beautiful world. She supports finding renewal and joy in learning to listen to our bodies, and in direct re-connection to our spirits, the more than human world, and each other.
Heather calls Portland, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest her home. She finds joy in her daily contemplative practices, tending her large polyculture garden, forest wandering, and ocean and river swimming. She is also an avid reader, writer, and creative designer of eco-spiritual experiences.
Irene Elle Bailey (she/her) is a designer and facilitator of nature connection and mindfulness offerings that support the remembering that we are intimately and inseparably connected to all life. As a creator of spaces for cultivating trust, courage, intuition, and wisdom, Irene has supported hundreds on their path to living a more connected, authentic, and joyful life. Over the past 20 years, she has worked with numerous environmental and sustainability education programs. She is the founder and director of Temenos Rising where she shares retreats, workshops, forest bathing walks, and mentorship, all held in deep relationship with the natural world.
Irene holds an MS in Leadership for Sustainability Education from Portland State University and is a certified Forest Therapy Guide with the Association for Nature and Forest Therapy. She has trained with the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies as a Buddhist Eco-Chaplain and continues to train in ceremony and rites of passage work with the School of Lost Borders.
Irene believes wholeheartedly in the transformation and deep healing that is possible when we allow the more than human world to be a wise teacher and cultivate a felt sense of interbeing. Irene supports the creation of safer spaces in the natural world so that others can get the healing and nourishment they deserve to live well.
Irene calls the Oregon coast home where she enjoys hiking, hanging out with big trees, surfing, practicing meditation, foraging for mushrooms and seaweed, and taking romps with her partner and pup. She brings her whole self to this work for the benefit of all beings.
In-person opportunities for learning with us:
If you live in the Pacific Northwest or can travel, we welcome your participation in our in-person events and retreats (at an additional cost). These experiences will help you to integrate what you are learning in this training, and will offer you a lived experience of masterful eco-spiritual facilitation. Observing other eco-spiritual facilitators and participating in eco-spiritual experiences is often best way to deepen your learning. As you are able, we encourage you to make space for this in your home area during this training.
Cost:
$1,495 or 5 payments of $299
Included in this Training:
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10 guided weekday learning circle sessions (Virtual) Recorded
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5 guided Saturday eco-spiritual practice sessions (Virtual+ outside) Recorded
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5 individual & personalized hour long coaching sessions (Virtual)
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Suggested monthly eco-spiritual practices to guide your learning
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A library of resources to support your learning including an Ecological Design Workbook (written by Dr. Burns)
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What’s App community for connection between sessions
Some of our past participants have used professional development funding from their employers for this training. We are happy to provide receipts to use for reimbursement.
To Register: Pay in full or pay the first month's payment of $299
Payment, Refund & Cancellation Policy: To honor the time and effort dedicated to this training, we’ve established the following cancellation policy. Cancellation received 30 or more days before training start date: Full refund minus $50 administrative fee. Cancellation received 30 days or less before training start date: We will not be able to offer any refund. * There are no refunds available once the training program starts. Payment Plans: We offer payment plans for no extra charge. You can choose a monthly payment plan for the 5 months of the training.
Inclusivity:
We ask that our participants be committed to the ongoing learning and awareness of how white supremacy negatively impacts all life, especially Black and Brown people. In an effort to support an inclusive space, we know this work, this dismantling of systemic oppression, is essential to sharing healing spaces and to supporting the collective liberation for all beings.
FAQs
“Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers may take many forms: Animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor…”
-Joy Harjo
