Being Nature with Dr. Thieu Besselink

A philosophical and practical journey to changing our life and relationship to nature. Following hermetic wisdom, the Book of Nature and regenerative practice to overcome ecological collapse and the crisis of being.

Perhaps one of the most fundamental questions of our time is not how we change the world, but how it can change us when we learn to perceive and live in it again. Many people intuitively feel that something essential is missing in how we treat and experience nature, even while we possess more knowledge and technology for healing it than ever before. This feeling is not sentiment, but the memory of our hermetic lineages that see the world as alive, and us as its microcosm.

When that memory fades, something deeper than ecology breaks: our very sense of who we are and where we belong collapses with it. The ecological crisis is the outward face of that inner fracture. The floods, the fires, the silence where birdsong used to be: these are not accidents of industry. They are the consequences of a crisis of being.

This lecture is an act of retrieval and hope in times of collapse. It traces the philosophical roots of our crisis, recovers the metaphysical remedies our own traditions have always carried, and connects them to the living practice of regenerative work in our culture, land, and ourselves. It offers orientation and a possible path forward, not escape from the world, but the tools to inhabit it differently.

About the Speaker

Dr. Thieu Besselink is a professor at Utrecht University and founder of the Academy of Place, teaching and practicing eco-philosophy and regenerative development of landscapes, community, and society.

His work draws on a rare combination of his teaching and academic work, the development of schools and transformative pedagogies for societal renewal, deep practice with indigenous communities, and two decades of hands-on landscape regeneration with farmers, governments, and communities. Against the loss of connection, he recovers a path of genuine hope rooted in the relational worldview of our western hermetic traditions — from the Book of Nature, Paracelsus and Goethe to contemporary ecological thinkers — and in the living practices of peoples who never abandoned it. His personal practice is the Nature Quest, a fasting solo retreat in the wilderness that invites a transformative experience of kinship with the wild.

This lecture offers an entry point into the ideas and practices that Besselink has developed over twenty years of practice and teaching. You will learn how the western esoteric traditions give us the ingredients for relating to the living world, how we overcome paralysis in the face of collapse, and what we can learn from, yes, dragons. You will leave with practical ways to locate personal hope in a time of loss, to understand your own place within a living landscape, and to contribute to the healing of community and the living world. 

Format

Presentation | Q & A | Drinks

17.00 | Doors open- buy a drink in our café

17:30 | Lecture by Dr. Besselink

18.20 - 18.45 | Q & A

18.45 - 19.30 | Networking- buy a drink in our café

Date & Time

Friday, June 12, 2026, from 5.30 to 7.30 pm

Language

The workshop will be conducted in English, with Dutch translations available on request.

Price & Admission

€20,- excluding drinks