August 2026 - Nature Gathering
August Message: Remembering We Are Nature
08/23/2026
✧ Featuring Heart Leader: Becca Langhough
Becca Langhough has a private practice offering spiritual direction, supervision, Reiki, yoga instruction and wilderness retreats. Becca completed her spiritual guidance training through the SGTP program at the Siena Retreat Center in Racine, Wisconsin and is now part of the SGTP teaching team. She has completed additional training in Internal Family Systems for Spiritual Directors as well as BrainSpotting Phases I and II. She holds graduate degrees in Statistics and Educational Psychology and loves probing the interplay between science and spirituality. Through her practice, she invites others to explore and experience expanding wholeness and greater connectedness.
✧ Becca is currently accepting new clients. If you are interested in connecting with Becca to explore any of her offerings, you can reach her in the following ways:
Email: beccalanghough@gmail.com
Phone: (608) 692-3033
GATHERING MESSAGE
✧ The morning was alive with birdsong and sunshine as our community gathered outdoors to turn toward a truth at the heart of our mission: we are not separate from the natural world, we are nature. We often speak about nature as something outside of us, something we visit or admire. But the earth beneath our feet becomes the minerals and elements of our bodies. The water we drink becomes our blood. Every breath we take is part of the ancient exchange between all plant life and every living creature. The land holds stories, memories, and wisdom, and in a very real sense, we carry the living world within us. Yesterday, we were invited to slow down, listen, and remember, not just that we belong to nature, but that we are nature.
Becca opened our gathering with the Invocation to Seamlessness by Lauren Artress, opening our hearts and inviting our souls to cross the bridge and join us in community.
Then, Jen led a shortened version of the Four Elements meditation to align us with nature. We attuned to the Four Elements, in both the physical world of form and the formless world of spirit. We began with earth, feeling the stone and soil of our own bones and flesh, and sensing the grounded qualities of balance, patience, and humility. We moved into water, feeling the waves and rivers alive in our own blood and lymph, and sensing the flowing qualities of intuition, compassion, and generosity. We turned to fire, feeling the flame and light of our body's own metabolic heat, and sensing the fiery qualities of passion, desire, creativity, and conviction. And we closed with air, feeling the sky and breeze moving as breath through our lungs, and sensing the airy qualities of buoyancy, freedom, and elation. We paused to notice the harmony of all four elements held together within us, grounded, flowing, fiery, and airy.
From there, Becca guided us through our spiritual practice - a Lectio Divina practice with a passage from the book “Embers” by Richard Wagamese. With the words ringing through our bodies, we set out on a wild wander along the trails and shoreline to notice what was most alive for us as our hearts and souls co-mingled with the water, the trees, the elements and the creatures of the park .
When we returned to circle, Becca offered another beautiful passage, the Invocation for Synergy by Lauren Artress, to open space for the group to share what had moved through them during the gathering.
We closed with a blessing for the living world that holds us.
Closing Blessing:
Great Mystery, Spirit of Life, Mother Earth, Father Sky, Creator,
We give thanks for this beautiful, living world that holds us, nourishes us, and reminds us who we are. May we carry this remembering with us, that we are not separate from the Earth, but part of her. Bless the waters that flow through us, the air that fills our lungs, the soil that feeds us, and all the beings with whom we share this home, and bless this community of Ancient Hearts. May we continue to be a place where hearts awaken, where wisdom is shared, where wonder is welcomed, and where we remember that none of us walks this path alone. May what we have received today ripple outward, in the way we live, the way we love, and the way we care for this beautiful world. May we leave here a little more connected, a little more awake, and a little more willing to be the love that the Earth needs.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
✧ Becca led us in a Lectio Divina practice with a passage from Richard Wagamese's book, Embers. During the practice, she read the passage slowly, four times, with meditative pauses between each reading. Each time she read the passage, she asked us to let the words meet our hearts in a new way, each round carrying a different intention.
"When I allow myself to feel my body, when I can inhabit it and allow myself to close off the world beyond my flesh, I become who I am, energy and spirit. I am not my mind. I am not my brain. I am stardust, comets, nebulae and galaxies. I am trees and wind and stone. I am space. I am emptiness and wholeness at the same time. That is when my body sings to me, a glorious ancient song redolent with mystery seeking to remain mystery. Connecting to it, living with it, becoming it even for a moment, I am healed and made more."
— Richard Wagamese, Embers
SPIRITUAL INVITATION FOR AUGUST
✧ Get out into nature at least once this week, and once every week this month. Let yourself notice the elements as you go, the ground beneath your feet, the water in the air or underfoot, the warmth of the sun, the breath moving in and out. Revisit the Four Elements Meditation whenever you need to come back to your body, and to remember that you belong to the earth.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
✧ What line or phrase from the Wagamese passage is still echoing in you, and why?
✧ What would it mean to live as though you are not separate from the Earth, but part of her?
PERENNIAL WISDOM SOURCES
✧ INDIGENOUS
"Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations" by Richard Wagamese
Order from alocal Rock County bookstore here.
✧ CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM
"Invocation to Seamlessness" by Lauren Artress
“Invocation for Synergy” by Lauren Artress
Subscribe to her Substack to read all her invocations and writings.
UPCOMING GATHERINGS
✧ Sun. 9/13 | 10-11:45 am: Sept. Indoor Gathering | Freedom in Forgiveness
Location: Atria Hall | 14 W Fulton Street, Edgerton
Map link here
✧ Sat. 9/19 | 1-5pm: 🍂 FALL EQUINOX FESTIVAL 🍂
Location: Janesville | Location shared upon registration
✧ Sun. 9/27 | 10am - Noon: Sept. Nature Gathering | Freedom in Forgiveness
Location: TBA
ANNOUNCEMENTS
✧ 🍂 FALL EQUINOX FESTIVAL | 🍂 REGISTER HERE
On Saturday, September 19th, we're gathering in Janesville for an afternoon of harvest, gratitude, connection, creativity, and release.
✨ 8 sacred experiences with 8 incredible teachers.
✨ 4 hours to explore them all.
✧Heart Leaders Wanted: Ancient Hearts is growing, and we're looking for a Music Director and Co-Leaders to help carry gatherings forward. If you're a trained teacher of the world's wisdom traditions, a spiritual director, or a practitioner ready to share your gifts with this community, we want to hear from you. Send an email to contact@ancienthearts.org to inquire.
✧ Founding Members: If this is the community you've been seeking and you want to help sustain us, we invite you to consider becoming a Founding Member in 2026. We hope to welcome 30 Founding Members into our Founding Circle this year. Reach out to contact@ancienthearts.org for more information.
