This training will offer participants the opportunity to develop the art of ‘mirroring’ for empowerment. ‘Mirroring’ draws upon the ancient art of storytelling as an oral tradition. Our stories will focus on our own human nature in relationship to the wider Natural world we belong to.

Each morning we will undertake a wilderness threshold crossing within the landscape of Dartmoor to explore aspects of our psyche, drawing on a four directions eco-centric model of human development (see below). In the afternoons we will gather to ‘mirror’ back these stories to each other. Training in the art of ‘mirroring’ will be of particular use for anyone offering ‘threshold crossings’ or solo work to individuals or groups through offering support to the stage of integration or return. Mirroring for empowerment is both a practice and an art that serves to deepen and clarify a particular story, as well as to honour the story teller.

In this training participants will be required to wear two ‘hats’, being both in the role of participant and trainee for each threshold crossing and subsequent mirroring. Integral to this training is the willingness and capacity to engage with a depth of personal introspection during each threshold crossing on the land – this is actually the ground that matures our own capacity to facilitate such work with others. In this way the training is designed to offer both an opportunity for exploring our own psyche through participating in self-generated ceremony on the land, as well as to develop one’s own unique way of mirroring and storytelling with other people.

The wider context of this training is the inseparability between our own well-being and empowerment, and the health of our people and the wider Earth community to which we belong. How do our stories support us in finding our particular place, deepening our capacity to engage in the work we are called to do in the times we are living through?

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

• Practice with the art of ‘mirroring for empowerment’ and the mythologizing of story in support of integration of threshold experiences.
• Exploration of an eco-centric model of human development as a theoretical framework from which to facilitate threshold crossings.
• Self-generated ceremony within the liminal space and meeting the land as ‘mirror’.
• Utilizing the practice of ‘Council’ as a tool for the creation of safe container for sharing where diversity, vulnerability and honesty are foundational.
• Experiential understanding of how the natural world can serve as a refuge and catalyst for personal maturation and individuation, supporting an increased resilience in meeting the challenges of our times.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE FOUR-DIRECTIONS WHEEL WE WILL USE AS A TEMPLATE FOR THE TRAINING:

South: Spring to Summer – childhood

Through the lens of the eco-centric wheel, life is born in the Spring and moves towards the full growth of Summer’s childhood. The healthy child develops through bonding with both the human and more-than-human community. Within our nature-based work the invitation of this season & stage of life is to become intimate with the sensuous body of the earth; coming to know the myriad forms of life as our extended relations and sensing that the land is not just a backdrop for our human experience, but rather an intimate companion in our own maturation. The love of the South is the love of the sensuous world, so needed in a culture that is dominated and driven by conceptual ways of inhabiting life.

West: Summer to Autumn – adolescence

As Summer fades to Autumn, so too childhood passes into adolescence. Here we experience the dropping away of playful innocence and an increasing introspection into who we are, what we bring to life, and what our place is within the world. The West is the love of soul, the willingness to descend into the shadows of the psyche and though this uncover a deeper sense of who we are and what we have to give. It is in this often challenging place that we are invited to attend to our wounding, and through this begin to harvest the gifts connected with these wounds. Within the eco-centric developmental wheel, we also open to our relationship with the wounding of the more-than-human community, and are drawn to extend our circle of care to include this larger community of life.

North: Autumn to Winter – adulthood

Autumn in turn releases into Winter. Here, in the long journey of adulthood, we take up the challenging responsibility of developing the ‘delivery systems’ and the collaborative relationships that allow us to bring forth our unique gifts and offer our lives to our people and to this world. In an eco-centric model of development adulthood is about service to both human and ecological communities, and in this module we explore what our lives are most deeply committed to, what the ‘centre of gravity’ is that our lives revolve around, what we most deeply care for and take responsibility for. Through our work together on the land we explore the role of community and nature-based practice in nourishing our inspiration and resilience to engage with the magnitude of the challenges we are living through. The love of the North is the love of the ‘give away’ and what we find is that in giving our lives away, we ourselves are nourished.

East: From winter to spring – elderhood

The long Winter must at length give way to the freshness of Spring once again. In the cycle of the human journey this last stage is elderhood. Elderhood in this model is defined by an expanded sense of identity, and a deepening trust and surrender to the process of life or the mystery that holds us. An elder here is not just defined by years, but by the depth of their character and the quality of presence of who they are – others are inspired to live more fully through knowing them. In an eco-centric wheel, the elder’s identity and sense of spirituality is bound up with the wider natural world, and thus is an ecological identity and an ecological spirituality. The East is the love of ‘Spirit’ or ‘Mystery’, that which invites a surrender, trust and identification with the larger processes of life that carry us all.

*Cost: £585 adults / £450 unwaged