This month we’re delighted to be conversing with two highly experienced international facilitators, Brian Stafford and Rachael Duffy. Their collective craft is the skilful guiding of nature- and soul-led journeys. 

Join us for a Kwendalo Conversations Earth Day special as we dare to descend to the depths with what promises to be an enriching conversation about the unravelling and reweaving of our worlds through experiences of eco-grief and eco-awakening. 

Eco-grief is the profound sorrow, mourning and anger that arises from witnessing the loss of ecosystems, species, and wild spaces. For many of us who care deeply about this world, this can come with an increasing sense of urgency (and anxiety) about our role in ‘saving the Earth’. 

Eco-awakening is an experience of deep belonging to the Earth, a psycho-somatic-emotio-mystical experience of ourselves as nature, not separate or distinct from it, but absolutely intertwined, as integral beings in this ecological web of life.

This shift results in a shift of attention and consciousness and conscience from merely the self or the human to include – and perhaps put at the centre – the ecosystem to which we belong… and to Gaia. One of the pathways to ecological awakening is to hold our longing, our separation, and our grief.

We will enter into a participatory conversation around these two topics and see what emerges... 

About the Guests

Brian Stafford MD, MPH. is a guide to the wilderness of nature and soul. He was called out of academic medicine to serve as an agent of cultural awakening and transformation. He guides individuals and groups to the place where most people long for yet fear to go – to the numinous depths of soul.  A native of Colorado (USA) and former holder of an endowed chair and professor of psychiatry and paediatrics, he is an avid outdoorsman, teacher, writer, mentor, partner, and parent. He guides with humour, playfulness, compassion, discernment, and a deep remembering of the fullness of what each human life can, should, and was meant to be. Brian currently lives in Ojai, California.

Rachael Duffy is a Purpose Guide™, Rewilding Coach, Work that Reconnects Facilitator and mother of two teenagers. Her passion and calling is to support people to live conscious Soul-aligned lives, connected deeply to the natural world they are part of. Rachael has a deep love and reverence for nature. She believes that with nature as teacher, we will re-member the fullness and truth of our sacred nature: discovering our innate and unique gifts to offer as a service to the world. From this place, we can co-create the more beautiful world many of us dream of: one that works for all in supporting social-ecological healing and self-actualisation. Rachael currently lives on the Cape Peninsula. 

Event Details

Date: Tuesday 22 April 2025 (Earth Day)

Time: 19.00 – 20.30 | Please arrive by 18.45

Location: The Harmony Centre, Kwendalo, Plettenberg Bay

Contribution: R150 (includes coffee/tea, nibbles & refreshments upon arrival)

RSVP by Friday, 18 April 2025 

BOOK via [email protected], +27 44 004 0366 or +27 63 669 8006