“Don’t think a small group of people cannot change the world. It is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
Rev. Bonnie Tarwater and Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. invite you to join an Earth Crisis Support Group and Potluck Party as outlined in Cobb’s new book, Confessions. Cosponsored with the Home - Living Earth Movement and Our Common Home Counseling Center groups are beginning around the world. There are all sorts of small groups that help people to deal with particular problems. But we know of none that help people to deal with the threat to human survival. Everyone is welcome! There are all sorts of small groups that help people deal with particular problems. ECSG’s are modeled after medical and phycological support groups, Twelve Step Programs and the early house churches that gathered weekly and always shared a meal together. Come to a safe place to share your thoughts and feelings about the worst existential threat humans have ever faced, the 6th extinction of life on earth, the only one created by us humans. Too many of us have nowhere to explore our roller coaster of feelings from denial to grief, and from anxiety to rage. Facilitated local groups gatherings beginning around the world, sharing stories of hope and organizing for meaningful work together. Contact Bonnie Tarwater Our Common Home Counseling Center, www.churchforourcommonhome.com www.churchforourcommonhome.com cosponsored by the Living Earth Movement, www.livingearthmovement.eco. Contact Bonnie (858) 248-5123, revtarwater@yahoo.com. www.churchforourcommonhome.com Our Common Home, a church and counseling center.
Counseling Center services include; Support Groups, Short and long term psychotherapy, Ecologic and World Crisis Issues, Group therapy, Dream work for individuals and groups, Relationships and couple’s counseling, Family and children’s counseling, Trauma and Addiction Counseling, Pastoral Counseling, Spiritual Direction, Aging and Menopause issues, Hospice and Bereavement counseling, Pre-marital counseling, Art workshops and an “Arts Ministry” with an art studio with the animals in the barn, a barn mural project, ecologic building projects, Dance parties and weekly pot lucks, Retreats, Gardening, Social Justice Projects, Career Counseling.
Counseling Center Co-founders: Dr. Walter Rutherford and Rev. Bonnie Tarwater
Our human family is undergoing a spiritual awakening as we experience interconnected oneness and the sacredness of all life.
Bridging head and heart, male and female, science and religion, East and West, right and left brain, body and spirit…. It is time to be innovative, create community and learn how to do inner work for personal and collective healing and transformation.Hope is alive because every crisis offers the invitation for psycho-spiritual growth. Our human family is undergoing a spiritual awakening as we experience interconnected oneness and the sacredness of all life. We will not find solutions to our individual or global crisis with the same means we used to create our crisis. Too often we "disable the fire alarm" in our psyches or souls and go into denial and unconsciousness. We are in a psycho-spiritual crisis as a human family with an escalating global ecologic crisis and moral crisis with escalation wars, violence, greed and narcissism. Our Common Home Counseling Center asks what really matters and offers support and encourages truth telling personally and collectively as we seek meaningful work and service. Walt and Bonnie began doing counseling work together in 2015, beginning Our Common Home as a non-profit organization with a home church and counseling center.
Rev. Bonnie Tarwater believes that loving, caring and devoted relationships heal and provide the deepest of all psycho-spiritual practices. As a counselor and spiritual director she encourages raising of consciousness, truth telling as we create meaningful lives of purpose. The modern world is lonely and we need support to create community. As a wife, mother, grandmother, global citizen, social justice advocate, minister, artist and retreat leader she encourages passionate love of God, the natural world and one another for healing, transformation and creating meaningful lives.
Bonnie worked in the professional theater, as an actress, theater director and drama teacher. A personal crisis led to a religious search that unexpectedly turning into her new vocation as a parish minister and counselor. She has led weekly dream groups for many years. Using storytelling, ritual, and the visual and performing arts in her work she was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist in 1999 offering an Arts Ministry. She has led many different kinds of support and counseling groups and served as a hospital and hospice chaplain.
Along with Dr. John Cobb, Bonnie has created Earth Crisis Support Groups and Potluck Parties which are an offering of Our Common Home Counseling Center in order to create community and a safe place to share feelings and thoughts about the worst existential threat the human family has ever faced with escalating wars, the threat of nuclear holocaust and ecologic catastrophes.
Walt and Bonnie are exploring biodynamic farming and have created the Secret Garden Retreat Center on a five acre paradise in the fertile Willamette Valley of Oregon with an interfaith Secret Prayer Garden with twelve Tree Prayer Stations inviting prayers and love for the natural world locally and globally. BA, UCSD Visual Art, MFA, ACT Theater, CA Teaching Credential Art and Theater, USIU, M.Div. Claremont School of Theology, Certificate from Marin Institute for Projective Dream Work, International Association for the Study of Dreams Representative Pacific Northwest, and working locally with the Oregon Biodynamic Association and the Salem branch of AAUW.
Along with her counseling practice, she is the minister of Church for Our Common Home an untraditional Christian based church worshiping in the barn with the animals and on Zoom. As she often says “God (called by many names) loves you and there is nothing you can do about it
Dr. Walt Rutherford After life changing experiences serving in combat in the Vietnam war, Walt began working for peace and wholeness. Clinically, he has served veterans and other survivors of violence and abuse including those addicted and suffering from trauma. In 1979 Walt became the Director of one of the first Vet Centers in the nation, where he began his study of the phenomena later to be known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD.) Today, he is known as a pioneer in the research and treatment of trauma therapies.
In the 1980’s Walt began a study of Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy and its medical approaches. He has been fortunate to learn from many Tibetan masters in this field. With a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology he has taught Buddhist Psychology and created university courses in it.
Walt is known for his work with couples, relationship counseling and multi-generational issues. His approach is driven by the knowledge that warmth, empathy and love are necessary forces of healing. He believes in the need to treat the whole person – mind, body, and spirit. Having been involved in the fields of counseling, consulting, and academic teaching for over forty years, Walt credits the many people he has co-created change with as his teachers in becoming the person and therapist he is today.
After forty years of solo practice as a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Walt was excited to co-create a dynamic center with his wife Bonnie that models loving relationship. His approach is driven by the knowledge that warmth, empathy and love are necessary as the forces of healing. He believes in the need to treat the whole person – mind, body, and spirit. Having been involved in the fields of counseling, consulting, and academic teaching for over forty years, Walt’s interest in positive mental states, optimum health, and innovative forms of healing and growth inform his service to others.
Nancy S. Mahoney began the first Earth Crisis Support Group (ECSG) and Potluck Party in the Woodstock New York area. She is an active member of Church for our Common Home and earned a BA from William Paterson University in 1977. After raising a family she went back to college and received her MPS from Pratt Institute in Special Education Art Therapy in 1990. She later became a registered art therapist and was board certified in 1997. She became a licensed professional counselor in New Jersey in 2000 and a Creative Arts Therapist in New York State in 2012. In Nyack, NY she worked with Creative Response to Conflict as an art therapist with children whose mothers had been incarcerated. She has been an exhibiting artist in mixed media and collage. She finds the Holy in creating art and in the woods and farms of New York. She has 4 daughters and 9 grandchildren! If you're interested in joining her Earth Crisis Support Group and Potluck Party, please contact her at artnsm@gmail.com or (415) 939-7667 or (845) 321-2660.