Dr. Heather Burns Claimed

Dr. Heather Burns (she/her) has been a scholar and facilitator of eco-spiritual learning for over 20+ years as a university professor and through her business, Alderroot Healing & Renewal. She holds space for transformative learning and healing rooted in relationships and interbeing. With ANFT guide Irene Elle Bailey, Heather offers an Eco-spiritual Facilitation Training, a five month training for guides who want to gain confidence and tools for facilitating from spirit, rooted in earth wisdom. This professional development program teaches participants how to deeply trust themselves so that they can skillfully facilitate groups using earth-based practices, mindfulness, and relational awareness.

Heather has extensive experience teaching others how to design and facilitate eco-spiritual and sustainability learning, and she is an experienced designer and facilitator of participatory, experiential, contemplative, and transformative learning experiences. Over the years, she has deepened her intuitive facilitation skills through guiding retreats, forest therapy experiences, courses in spirituality and deep ecology, and coaching. 

​Heather holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership in Sustainability, an MA in Women Studies and Adult Education, and a BA in Psychology. She was the director of the Leadership for Sustainability Education graduate program for many years and has published numerous articles on transformative and eco-spiritual learning. She is the author of the book Transformative Sustainability Pedagogy: Designing and Facilitating Eco-Spiritual Learning.

Heather is also a certified forest therapy guide with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, a Reiki master, and a certified permaculture designer. Heather believes that we all need mindful support and inclusive spaces of gentle care and guidance as we struggle in these times of climate crisis and crumbling social systems. She knows healing is supported by remembering our connection to the living earth and by truly feeling our sense of belonging in this wise beautiful world. She supports finding renewal and joy in learning to listen to our bodies, and in direct re-connection to our spirits, the more than human world, and each other. 

Heather calls Portland, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest her home. She finds joy in her daily contemplative practices, tending her large polyculture garden, forest wandering, and ocean and river swimming. She is also an avid reader, writer, and creative designer of eco-spiritual experiences.