Bodhi-Farm on deep ecology

Profile: John Revington

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

John Revington was a volunteer with the Rainforest Information Centre (RIC) in Lismore, New South Wales, and editor of its quarterly journal, the World Rainforest Report. He lived from 1986 onward at Bodhi Farm, a Buddhist-founded intentional community on the NSW north coast, and completed graduate research through the School of Social Ecology at the University of Western Sydney (Hawkesbury), including an unpublished Master’s paper, Learning a Sense of Place (1997).

Essay: Intimate Places – By John Revington

Wed, 01 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000

By John Revington. Originally published by the Rainforest Information Centre; republished here with permission.

The author dates this account explicitly within the text: written in 1997.

There is a strong connection between our separation from the Earth and the harm we do to it. That’s old hat. It’s obvious; it’s been said countless times and it is not very useful simply to lament our alienation and stress the importance of ending it. Humans are not likely to develop intimacy with the places they inhabit just because ethically, it would be a nice thing to do. Changes made purely out of a sense of duty lack authenticity and are seldom sustainable. But there is a much more compelling reason to develop relationships with land. Intimacy enriches our lives, whether it is with the people we know or the places we inhabit. Conversely, if the places we inhabit remain mere acquaintances, our lives are impoverished every bit as much as if we never get close to the people we live with. So this paper explores the ways in which we can learn to develop intimacy with the places we know.

Essay: Don't Just Do Something; Sit There – By John Revington

Sun, 01 Jan 1995 00:00:00 +0000

By John Revington. Originally published by the Rainforest Information Centre; republished here with permission.

Publication date not stated on the original page; estimated from internal references (the author notes writing “nine years after moving to Bodhi Farm” in 1986).

TIME AND THE ENVIRONMENT

TIME AND THE ENVIRONMENT

“No psychology is complete unless it explores our relationship with our natural environment, and no study of that relationship is complete unless it explores our experience of time”