Wild Sanctuary
Wild Sanctuary is a new circle of Earth connection and spiritual immersion in the wild. This periodic gathering (6-8 times a year) cultivates a deepening presence to one another, to the Sacred/Wild, to our own hearts, and to the world in all its beauty, complexity, need, and kinship with us. All are welcome – come join us!
Our gatherings last two hours, generally on Saturdays. We spend time in circle together, welcoming newcomers and moving into contemplative centering and listening. Each gathering also includes a 20-minute “wander” on the HIU land (woods, river, or open grassy spaces with trees) for solo presence to plant and animal beings of all kinds, or waters, or winds, or whoever else shows up for you. This practice helps center our time together in our unfolding relationship to Earth and the fullness of life. Newbie Earth listeners and longtime nature mystics are all equally welcome. Please dress comfortably for whatever the forecast is, including sturdy footwear.
We often move from this two-hour gathering into an optional potluck supper for any who wish to stay. You are welcome even if you’re not able to bring anything to share!
Location: We gather in the meeting room of the Budd Building on the HIU campus (60 Lorraine Street). You can park in the main HIU lot and walk west to the Budd Building; there are also a few spaces behind the building for anyone with mobility challenges. (Lorraine is a one-way street, so if you want to park at the Budd Building, you need to drive up from Farmington Avenue to the south; you can’t drive east on Lorraine from Sherman Street or the main HIU lot.)
Wild Sanctuary is directed by:
Lisa Dahill, Miriam Therese Winter Professor of Transformative Leadership and Spirituality at HIU and director of the Center for Transformative Spirituality. She is a scholar, teacher, and lover of eco-spirituality in diverse forms across religious traditions and in many wild contexts, bioregions, and waterways.
Erik Assadourian, founder and director of the Gaian Way (gaianway.org), an ecospirituality organization working to heal humans' relationship with the living Earth we're part of and utterly depend on. He is also a sustainability researcher and has been studying the sustainability crisis and a variety of solutions for the past 20+ years.
If you would like to be included in regular communications about the Wild Sanctuary gatherings, please email Dr. Lisa Dahill at ldahill@hartfordinternational.edu.
Events
Upcoming Events
Our next gathering will take place at the Spring Equinox
Saturday, March 21, 2026,
3-5pm
We come together with land, water, creatures, and winds in this exquisite equipoise of darkness and light; we come to be held in this vast balance of Earth and sun, stars and space, the wild communion of all that is. Where are you out of balance? What energies do you – do we – hold in tension, in swing, in stillness, in harmony? Come taste and savor the wild spring stirring deep even now and breathing through all things.
Past Events
Saturday, February 7, 2026
Since our last gathering, we have moved through the longest night and into a new solar year. A few days later, we entered the new calendar year. I hope you have found much blessing and goodness in your holiday celebrations, solo nourishment, and/or time outdoors, and that your journey in these transitions has strengthened your connection to the mystery and sweetness of your life.
The new year’s dawning hasn’t brought global or national renewal – quite the opposite. Some of us are feeling vulnerable, disoriented, or terrorized with recent events and crackdowns; others, perhaps numb. For sure, we all need the solace of warm, heart-centered human connection and Earth-relation in the face of increasingly surreal and horrifying public events. How would (will, could, can) we live if we inhabited our Earth-belonging as fully as possible? How fearless could we be in the world, and in what ways – and in what other ways do we (you, I) need to step back and not engage?
Or: With the human world heading off the rails, we need places of sanity all the more to reorient us to reality and to keep us centered and connected there. Our time together is one of those places. I hope you can come to our next Wild Sanctuary gathering on Saturday, March 21, 2026.
Once again we will meet in the Budd Building (60 Lorraine Street) in Hartford, CT, adjoining the beautiful wintry riparian woods and Park River at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. We hope to include attention to Gaian spiritual practices, as well as to our connections to one another and to the land, water, wind, creatures, cosmos.
If you would like to be included in regular communications about the Wild Sanctuary gatherings, please email Dr. Lisa Dahill at ldahill@hartfordinternational.edu.
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