Nature Connection and the Four Shields
A one day workshop/experience of personal connection and renewal in nature, alongside an opportunity to deepen your professional practice with nature in mind.
Come to the deep forest of the Blackdown Hills and give yourself time to explore your own connection to ‘wild’ nature and time to refresh your professional practice with nature in mind. This will be a very experiential day, where nature will guide us and help each person to connect with what they need at this particular time. Our map for this nature connection journey will be the model of the Four Shields, developed by the School of Lost Borders in California, and our group-work process will be based on the ancient form of Council. As we observe the unfolding effects of humanities’ impact on the world around us, we have an opportunity to evaluate our connection with nature in our personal and professional worlds. Increasingly people are questioning ‘The Big Lie’ * that we are somehow separate from nature and are returning to an older and deeper knowing that we are all a part of the emerging web of life on earth: there is no separation, there is no environment separate from humanity - it is all one - what we do ‘out there’ is what we do to ourselves ‘in here’. This offers us the opportunity to ask some fundamental questions: What is my relationship with nature? Am I simply an extractor of her bounty or do I give back? How might I change this relationship? Is it just about commodities or can I access this in a deeper way? The Four Shields model and the Council process together act as the containers and maps we need to ask those questions, and to come away with our own empirical evidence. *‘The Big Lie’ is a phrase coined by Stephen Foster, one of the founders of the School of Lost Borders, to express his view of the Enlightenment concept that humans are separate from and superior, to nature. During these days you will have the opportunity to
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Dates TBC for Late Spring 2022
The venue is Young Wood, the home of Neroche Woodlanders, based within 100 acres of the public forest estate near Taunton. Our group-work will take place in the Roundhouse or by the Campfire , outdoor spaces. Hot drinks will be provided. Please bring your own lunch. The guides and facilitators are Jane Embleton and Jenny Archard, both of whom have trained with the Meredith Little from the School of Lost Borders and work with this model and with Council in various ways in the UK. Jane is a group guide and art teacher, and Jenny runs an ecotherapy project at these woods as part of Neroche Woodlanders, teaches a Medicine Wheel process and lead Vision Fasts. |