Cary Gaunt

Cary Gaunt, Ph.D. is an ecospirituality scholar, teacher, and guide who offers retreats, workshops, courses, and nature-based spiritual formation programs around the country. Her engaged spirituality informs her vocation as a highly accomplished sustainability and climate responsibility professional with over 35 years’ of experience leading organizations across all sectors to develop and implement watershed management, sustainability, and/or climate action plans.

Two great loves comprise the heart of Cary’s life and work. One is a profound connection with the earth formed by her childhood spent exploring the water resources, limestone ledges, fields, and forests of her family farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Her childhood kinship with the natural world was strengthened through her spiritual and academic journeys and a lifetime of listening to the land.

Cary’s Ph.D. and post-doctoral research explore the life paths and formative experiences of Christian and Buddhist role models of sustainable living and leading. She weaves their wisdom into the programs she offers, and her undergraduate and graduate teaching. Cary is currently working on two books that highlight the life stories of these extraordinary role models and illuminate the specific eco-spirituality practices that formed them.

Her second great love is a deep spirituality comprised of meditation, Centering Prayer and other contemplative practices, Soulcraft™, wilderness rites of passage, and nature-based approaches to inner transformation and discernment. Cary offers programs in all these modalities. She has extensive training through the Animas Valley Institute, the School of Lost Borders, and Contemplative Outreach, Ltd.

In May 2021 Cary left her position as the award-winning Director of Campus Sustainability at Keene State College to prioritize her Eco-spirituality work. Cary offers (1) scholarship and teaching on ecological awakening, nature-based leadership, and Eco spiritual role models, (2) myriad programs on eco-spiritual formation and nature-based leadership development, and (3) consulting services to faith-based organizations, churches, and retreat centers seeking to develop holistic responses to the climate crisis, including program design, goal setting and planning, and facility transformations to meet the growing global call to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become free of fossil fuels.

Cary is currently working with Genesis to help reinvigorate its legacy and commitment to eco-spirituality. She also is a lead teacher and guide with the Center for Nature and Leadership. In everything she does, Cary is committed to supporting organizations and individuals in moving beyond sustainability to restoration and flourishing.