Full Ecology

REPAIRING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE NATURAL WORLD WITH MARY CLARE AND GARY FERGUSON

WHAT IS FULL ECOLOGY?

“Mary M Clare and Gary Ferguson offer an eloquent truth: To be disconnected from the rest of nature is to be alienated from our true selves. The health of all life, and the planet itself comprise one health, indivisible.”

Richard Louv, author of Our Wild Calling and Last Child in the Woods

Founded in 2014 by social scientist Mary M. Clare and best-selling science writer Gary Ferguson, the Full Ecology project is devoted to reclaiming our human nature. Drawing on what science and other traditions have learned about the brilliance of the natural world, Full Ecology reveals those same inclinations to be hard-wired into each of us. Full Ecology suggests that healing the planet depends on tending our social ecologies – those within us, and between us. And further, that the natural world, of which we’re unquestionably a part, is a reliable guide.

Dear All,
Here we are in 2025. Times appear chaotic and unpredictablity is directly in our faces. Fear arises.
The impulse to meet aggression with aggression dances with the impulse to withdraw and give up.

Full Ecology has a plan.
Our programs draw directly on the fact of humans as nature. And it turns out that, on the whole, the natural world isn’t fussed. This isn’t due to any lack of consciousness. On the contrary, nature has the wisdom of billions of years to rely on — the guarantee that, one way or another, life always persists. Come spend time with us, in person or virtually. Check out our Summer 2025 Retreats. Read the Full Ecology book. Listen to the How it Looks from Here Podcast. Sign up for the Newsletter at the bottom of this page, and then come to one of our free monthly Deep Dives on Zoom.

Yes, it’s a mess. But don’t let the destruction, disrespect and foolishness steal the fire of your life. Take a moment in comfort, knowing that it’s the natural world that keeps our hearts beating.
Interdependence is our lifeline — nature, our reliable guide.
Together, we act from here.

~~

JOIN US ON RETREAT

RESERVE YOUR SPOT FOR
2025

~1~
SUMMER SOLSTICE IN SOUTHWESTERN MONTANA

June 17-21

Gifts of Full Ecology –
Meditation, Right Action and Food 

We’re in chaotic times. Uncertainty is up close.
How can we possibly see our way through?
And most immediately, what can we do to help? 

Our plan is for you to get a break. To reconnect with your deep center. To immerse yourself in wild nature.
To be still. To be nourished. To be inspired.
Five-days over summer solstice in the Centennial Valley of southwestern Montana
– anchored in meditation, wandering, and thoughtfully crafted food. 
We’l draw on the precepts of Full Ecology to open doorways to right action. We’ll take on uncertainty, 
fear and frustration and reveal their antidotes in deep relationship with nature.

 ~enrollment limited~

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A FIVE-DAY RETREAT FOR NATURE WRITERS

June 29-July3

The Nature of a Writer’s Life
Full Ecology & the Written Word

What is it that we as writers can do to meet these calamitous times?
How can we craft a clearer, more resonant voice when writing about nature?
What stories might help for navigating these difficult circumstances?

Bring your passion for writing to these five days in southwest Montana’s incomparable Centennial Mountains.
Each day we’ll drop into the craft of writing, even as we forge new creative perspectives through our time under mountain skies,
with wildflowers, and in the company of animals and our winged relatives.
Don’t give this year to anger and frustration.
Come weave your authentic wild heart into the beautiful craft of storytelling. 

~enrollment limited~

~~

Also, we’ve been producing a Podcast –
HOW IT LOOKS FROM HERE – Life in the time of Climate Change.


Listen in on these lively and timely conversations with people from all walks of life.
Each offers insight and refreshing uplift.
Check them out here.

~~
Gary & Mary

Full Ecology Update

Early each month, we’ll post a publicly accessible video with an update on what the natural world, including humans, is up to. What we know now that we didn’t know last month. What you can be doing this month to support and live from the best of your human nature.

Full Ecology Focus

Online courses focused on the fundamentals of the 4 Behaviors & the 8 Instructions. These LIVE and pre-recorded courses provide opportunity for personal inquiry and practical experience with cultivating your human nature.
Check out our current course offerings and introductory pricing.

Full Ecology Deep Dive

These monthly conversations offer a deeper dive into bridging learning with action to meet the challenges of climate change. Interactive sessions are live streamed. Deep Dives happen the second Tuesday of every month @ 6:00 p.m. Mountain Time. Inquire for more information.

Full Ecology Connection

The Full Ecology Connection is a membership that offers a cyber portal through which you can connect with us and others in active community. Together we’re better able to reclaim and live well from our human nature.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?

NATURE KNOWS YOU BETTER THAN YOU KNOW YOURSELF. LEARN ITS LESSONS.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
~T. S. Eliot

Building from the 8 INSTRUCTIONS of the natural world Mary & Gary create customized workshops, keynotes and retreats for professional organizations, community groups, businesses, and higher education. As Eliot suggests, the truth that is most our own can be the thing that is most foreign to us. Full Ecology reveals 4 BEHAVIORS natural to humans that make the lessons of the natural world available for guiding and inspiring our lives. Mary & Gary show how these lessons support the expression of human nature in action and in relationship.

“Kudos and massive gratitude to Mary & Gary for bringing the concepts of Full Ecology to the general population.”
Linda Grimm, certified public accountant

ON BOOKSHELVES NOW!

Full Ecology is one of the most important books ever written on the climate crisis. Honest, eloquent, touching, free of acronyms and jargon, it goes straight to the heart of cause and cure, the profound disconnect from each other and the natural world. Mary Clare and Gary Ferguson enfold our hopes, fears, and confusion into the splendor and beauty of the natural world from where we can see, feel, and understand how to meet this extraordinary moment in human history.” PAUL HAWKEN, editor of Drawdown: The most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming and author of Blessed Unrest and Regeneration

NOTEWORTHY

A riveting manifesto for the millions of people who long to forge a more vital, meaningful connection to the natural world to live a better, more fulfilling life.

POPULAR FAVORITE

Award-winning. “The beauty is on every page. A big-hearted soul-searching memoir about grief and ritual and identity.” LA Times

Science writer Gary Ferguson has been exploring the natural world and sharing it through writing for over thirty years and 26 books.  Across those same years, Mary M Clare was deep in investigation of social, cultural and developmental psychology as they apply to supporting people in everyday lives.

With Full Ecology, the two combine their considerable forces to address the increasingly urgent realities of climate change. 

Full Ecology at the International Brainwash Festival: Amsterdam

Join Mary Clare and Gary Ferguson in their exploration of our relationship with the natural world at Amsterdam’s Brainwash Festival.

Full Ecology TEDx Talk: Bozeman Montana

Watch the TEDx Talk that introduces Full Ecology. Mary & Gary urge us to reclaim our human nature. When we live from connection, we are better able to support each other and the living world that supports all of us.

Join the Journey

Sign up for our email list and receive a download of Restoration—a list of eight simple actions that will guide you in incorporating basic principles of Full Ecology into your day-to-day life. We respect your privacy and will never sell your information or spam you.

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