Field Guide to Your Wild Side

"In wildness is the preservation of the world." - Henry David Thoreau

A Field Guide to Your Wild Side is both an experiential and theoretical way to mine for a deeper human-nature connection, and help us reawaken to our birthright of belonging to a wider community of beings. C.G. Jung said that human consciousness is how the universe reflects upon itself.

Indeed, we are not just living on this earth, we are a part of how it lives, are living elements of it. Rather than being apart from it, we are a part of it and therefore, what we do to the one, we do to the other in a planetary sense.

Topics and Experiences:

• Waking our animal senses - sensorial modes of knowing
• Eco-stories and ecological identity
• Exploring ecopsychology and integral ecology
• Wilderness rites of passage, the importance of ritual & ceremony in coming to life
• Story-telling and witness
• Cross species communication, wild mirroring
• Natural attractors/site sitting
• Re-enchant through play, wandering, and wild poetry
• Earth based transpersonal practices for human growth and development

Joining Hilary for as guest facilitators of the session are Marlyn Farrell and Louise Amuir.

Marlyn's love of nature started at an early age when she spent her summers out of doors in a river at the bottom of the family property, or climbing trees, making whistles and rose petal perfume, floating her turtle in a sardine can on the river, playing with a pet magpie (Joe) or the family dog Bill, and creating objects from the nearby clay banks. She is a Haven faculty member.

Louise Amuir sings the world. As a child she spent time in the forest where she heard the trees singing in their wild and windy voices and began to tune into what she calls "the great hum of the world". Her understanding is that our uni-verse is composed of one huge piece of music and we all have our own unique part to sing. She is a trained actor and on the intern path at Haven.

Format: It is in wild nature that this is best contextualized, as we more easily re/member where we come from, where we belong and what we love by coming to recognize and understand our own ecological and earthy identities, our deeper and more true natures while in nature. Through a direct and embodied experience of the world around us using soulful and arts-based approaches, we will ripen toward a more 'eco-centric' worldview, cultivate an ecology of compassion and listen for the very voice of the wind, the song of the grasses, the mineralled story of rock, the vernacular of bullfrog and our own body held wisdom.

This is an invitation to open to the elegance and simplicity of natural rhythms and recover a joyful connection with the land and the more- than- human-world. As we re/member our originality and become more ourselves, how we are uniquely meant to contribute to the world reveals itself to us naturally. Please bring a timepiece, a journal and wear weather-ready clothing.

Faculty: Hilary Leighton

2012 Dates:

Tuition: $420.00 (Accommodation and meals extra.)

Early Bird Tuition: $380.00 if you register and pay in full at least two weeks in advance.

Accommodation and Meals
The Haven offers a range of comfortable rooms and suites. All accommodation is designed to be shared by two or more people, though private rates are available. We make every effort to meet the needs of all our guests, but cannot guarantee specific rooms. Rates include three buffet-style meals per day.

There are three types of room: Basic, Forest view, and Ocean view.
Find out more about accommodations.