Pilgrimage for Gaia

About Pilgrimage for Gaia

Since the COP 21 conference in Paris in 2015, we have been running Pilgrimage for Gaia workshops for faith communities in Manchester and beyond.

A Pilgrimage for Gaia workshop involves two hours of active reflection, witness and celebration of the natural world. We end by individual and community ideas for action.

The workshop includes silence, Art Installations, drawing, making and reflection to bring us closer to the natural world and what is happening to the more-than-human.

We are continuing to take these workshops out to faith communities.

It is our intention to deliver to a range of faith communities and then write up and evaluate, with a further piece on the Art Installations, before releasing the workshop through a Creative Commons Initiative. 

Further information

Charity GreenSpirit is a network of people who celebrate the human spirit in the context of our place in the natural world. In 2017 we wrote a series of articles on green spirituality in the community in GreenSpirit Magazine, Winter 2017, edited by Ian Mowell

The Forum for Religion and Ecology at Yale is an international inter-faith project providing resources in this area

There are many authoritative resources documenting the ‘Sixth Great Extinction’ of species.  You will find further information at:

An Inter-Governmental Report released in May 2019 details the “unprecedented” and “dangerous” decline in Nature and accelerating loss of species.

WWF publish the Living Planet Report, their biannual update trends in global biodiversity and the health of the planet.

The IUCN in Geneva maintains the Red List of species which details the current estimate of the conservation status of the population of each species and the threats facing them.

Workshops to date

The workshops have been held with members of GreenSpirit local groups in East London, Horsham, Exeter, North Lancashire and Pembrokeshire.

In the North West they have been held with members of faith communities:

St Brides, Liverpool (Church of England)

St Agnes, Reddish, Stockport (Church of England)

New Apostolic Church, Rusholme, Manchester

Muslim Family Faith Group, Didsbury, Manchester

St Margaret’s, Whalley Range, Manchester (Church of England)

Quaker Meeting House, Central Manchester

Sri Guru Gobind Singh Gurdwara, Whalley Range, Manchester (Sikh)