Time & DateMay 14  (2:15 – 5 pm – to be followed by potluck)
Venue: South Boulder home of Kritee & Imtiaz

rabiaDr. Elizabeth Rabia Roberts will join us for an interactive presentation where we will ask her wide ranging questions related to early influences on her life (including Martin Luther King & Joanna Macy), what creates the most imbalance and suffering in her own life and how she grounds and re-balances herself, importance of ego and egolessness, dark money and presidential politics, role of communities and where does she the most hope with respect to our planet’s future.

Elizabeth is a dynamic educator and speaker with extensive experience in deep ecology, citizen diplomacy, feminism, international justice and peace (see bio and detailed agenda below). We have asked her to share her life story to elucidate what has fueled and sustained her as an eco-spiritual activist for decades as well as details of her recent participation in Democracy Spring civil disobedience. Kritee will ask her questions pertaining to the three pillars of Eco-Dharma and will help bring out how personal practice has weaved into the community and organizational action for her. We will weave in questions that have arisen for our group during eco-spiritual journey of individual members of our Eco-dharma sangha as well as the evolution of the group itself.

The tentative schedule and program for the afternoon is below.
2:15 —  2:30   Gathering and tea
2:30 —  2:50   Meditation
2:50 —  3:00   Welcome and introductory circle
3:00 —  4:00   Interactive talk by Rabia (Her Story)
4:00 —  4:05   Brief bathroom/tea break
4:05 —  4:30   Interactive talk by Rabia (Implications for our group)
4:25 —  5:00   Check-ins on eco-dharma vows (with feedback from everyone present)
5:00 —             Optional potluck and informal discussions

Bio: Rabia began her activist work with Martin Luther King in Selma in 1965. In the 1980’s and 1990’s she studied with both Fr. Thomas Berry and Joanna Macy and became an educator in the fields of deep ecology and eco-psychology. In 1994 she took her spiritually-based approach to environmental awareness and education to Southeast Asia, training monks, nuns and tribal elders. In 1999, with her husband, Elias, she began an international pilgrimage of service and teaching for six years and traveled where she was called — teaching, leading interfaith retreats and solidarity walks, bearing witness to injustice and conflict, and testifying to what she experienced. After 9/11, she brought international attention to the plight of civilians in Iraq prior to the U.S. bombing and engaged in citizen diplomacy and peace building work in Syria, Jordan, Palestine/Israel,Iran, and most recently Afghanistan.

Rabia co-founded The Boulder Institute for Nature and the Human Spirit in 1994. Its Path of the Friend programs promote citizen diplomacy, cross-cultural awareness, spiritual awakening, and just relationships among people and between people and the land.The Institute sponsors a variety of educational and leadership trainings, interfaith pilgrimages, and wilderness journeys, and directs micro-grants to grassroots development projects. It seeks to create modes of activism in which a spiritual and moral witness can be brought to bear upon the political, social and environmental issues of our time and also serves as an incubator for new innovative international projects. You can read about her work here.