Kirsten Rudestam

Kirsten Rudestam (she/her) believes that practices of (re)connection are crucial in maintaining our capacity to face and respond to ecological loss and to embrace our inherent interbeing. Kirsten holds a Ph.D. in environmental sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she studied water policy and management, feminist political ecology, and environmental justice. She began practicing meditation in 1997, graduated from Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders program in 2005 and is currently in a four-year teacher training program with Andrea Fella and Gil Fronsdal of the Insight Meditation Center. She has taught meditation and dharma for Insight Santa Cruz, Mountain Stream Dharma, and the Insight Meditation Center, and she co-directs the Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy Training Program through the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies. Kirsten is also trained as a rites of passage guide through the School of Lost Borders, is a facilitator for Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, and has over twenty years of experience teaching for colleges and universities, environmental field courses, and nature-based meditation programs.