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PAST DHARMA TEACHERS
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Sarah Vekasi, M.Div. is the founder of the Eco-Chaplaincy Initiative, in Black Mountain, NC, which provides pastoral support for social justice and environmental justice activists throughout Central Appalachia and North Carolina. Sarah is a longtime student and colleague of Joanna Macy, facilitating and teaching the Work That Reconnects and Active Hope with her for many years. Originally from rural Montana, Sarah entered the world of direct action activism and community organizing as a teenager. She lived in a tree for nearly a year in Western Washington and helped organize large protests and movement spaces throughout the west coast in the late 1990’s. In her young twenties she needed answers about suffering and the Bodhisattva pledge, so she moved into a traditional Zen monastery in Japan for several years, practicing with Tangen Harada Roshi, before returning to the United States in 2004 to coin and create Eco-Chaplaincy. Sarah has a Master of Divinity from Naropa University, and has worked as a Chaplain within the movement to end mountaintop removal coal mining and towards a sustainable Appalachia since 2009.
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