The Healing Power of Nature
Immersion in Nature – Dwelling in the Senses – Opening the Heart
Reflections of a Buddhist Druid – Ratnadeva Seán Quigley
There is a long tradition of Druidry in Primrose Hill, as the plaque at its summit and the ongoing celebrations in the Hawthorn Grove attest (On the Hill article on Druids and PH)
Ratnadeva Seán Quigley is a Buddhist Druid who has helped run under-canvas retreats and festivals in the UK for over 10 years. In this talk, he will reflect on how immersion in nature can help us to expand our sense of self, taking us beyond the limiting self-view that is a fundamental cause of our dis-ease.
He writes: “Even in the midst of the metropolis, we have constant access to the natural world. Our bodies are nature, so we carry nature with us everywhere we go. Like many healing paths, the Nature cure starts with us coming back into present moment awareness, dropping down from our heads into the sensual realm of our bodies. The realm of the senses can provide a spacious refuge within which to experience our authentic inner world. There we can meet, greet and heal our aching hearts.
“From this place of greater confidence we can open up to and connect with the communities within which we are embedded, both human and non-human. This is the Druidic imperative – a tradition in which reverence for nature expresses itself in communal celebration of the seasons. A sense of connection, gratitude and the consequent impulse to serve may provide the antidotes to our very human habits of self-obsession, self-sabotage and worry.”
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Biography :
I was born in Dublin, where I immersed in Catholicism and qualified as a chemical engineer. After a few years as a production manager in the paint industry, I emigrated to the UK to take up a job as a paint and colour chemist. I left industry at the behest of a growing environmental conscience and took a degree in environmental management, which led to research positions at Sheffield University and then the British Geological Survey as a contaminant hydrogeologist. In 2009 I changed tack once again to deepen a long-standing engagement with spirituality. I took up full-time work for Buddhafield, a Buddhist charity that runs camping retreats and a Buddhist festival, mainly in the wilds of Devon and Somerset. This gave me an opportunity to weave together my explorations of Druidry, the nature-based Celtic tradition, and my practice of the Buddhist path. I was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2013. In 2019 I moved to London to work with the West London Buddhist Centre, where I combine teaching meditation and Buddhism with mentoring and administration roles. Whenever the opportunity arises, I flee the metropolis and re-immerse in nature.
Links :
Druids, Blake and Primrose Hill
On the Hill article on Druids and PH