Wilderness Quest & Ecopsychology Apprenticeship Program

Are you enchanted by the beauty and power of nature to touch, open, heal and inspire?

Do you feel called to help others reconnect with their own wild aliveness?

Or long to bring the magic of ceremony & wilderness into people's lives?

In this 4-month long program, participants will receive training in guiding the life-altering practice of the wilderness quest. Learn to ally with nature to weave beautiful tapestries of healing, self-discovery and fulfillment. Become a student of the myriad practices and ceremonies that can lead people to profound revelations of life purpose, renewal and the marking of major life transitions. And deepen your own relationship to the "more than human" world and the rhythmic ways that the wild aliveness of the seasons is expressed through your own body and life.

Additional training time will be spent on other eco-therapeutic approaches that are more easily applied in urban and other non-wilderness settings. For people who feel called to become quest guides or eco-therapists, the training is a rare opportunity to join like-minded peers for an intensive, body-oriented, experiential training in the beautiful practice of guiding others “out on the mountain”.

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Couples Quest

Bring the joys and challenges of relationship to a sanctuary in the wilderness. Let nature help you deepen your dance of intimacy or navigate a point of transition with your partner. This journey is for couples on a path of self-discovery and personal growth. 

Have you ever wanted to feel more deeply seen and understood by your partner? Wished they could understand and respond to your needs more fully– or that you could do that for them? Or perhaps you're struggling to maintain a sense of self and your own direction in relationship? These are common challenges that we all must face and a quest together with your partner can be a powerful opportunity to grow together while also furthering your own development. We can both dance with our beloved and still walk in our own truth.

Or maybe your relationship is at a point of transition – readying to marry? To start a family? Considering separation or divorce? Or perhaps your children have just left home? There are many points of transition and change in a partnership and a quest can be a fabulous way to fully move from one phase of life or way of being to another. 

Together with one or two other couples you will enact the powerful ceremony of a wilderness quest. The trip includes all the usual components of a wilderness quest with the added opportunities afforded by sharing such a journey with your partner. In addition to the witnessing and support of nature and your compassionate guides, you will also be held, challenged and inspired by your partner, by the person whom you are closest to in life. This becomes especially meaningful and important after your solo time in the wilderness when you turn again towards your daily life and the great challenge of integrating your quest experiences. The presence of other couples also offers you great support and new resources for furthering self and relationship not found in other quest settings. The Couple's Quest is a fabulous opportunity to explore oneself in relationship and to deepen your capacity for intimacy.

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Listening From the Belly

Have you been feeling numb, dulled or burnt out? Shut down to the beauty, magnificence and vitality of living? Are you longing to reconnect with Nature and with the full juiciness of what it is to live in a sensual, aware, feeling body?

Join us for a journey of reconnection and renewal among the ancient sentinels of the forest. Walk beside towering sequoias and play in crystalline creeks as they leap and dance over sparkling granite. Slow your pace to wander through meadows of wildflowers and relearn a language you were born with, a language of belonging. As you become a part of the landscape around you, you will begin to feel it move, breath and express itself.

During this 5-day retreat we will use the metaphor of listening from deep within the belly of a whale to expand our senses and awareness. Like a whale deep in the ocean, you will sense any activity rippling thru the environment. As you experience yourself as a part of nature, not a visitor to her, you will again feel what it is to belong to the natural, soulful wildness of the world. This is our native state of being- one of joy, aliveness, sensitivity and connection. And, this simple act will bring you in contact with your own wild soul, with what truly matters right now in your life.

As a part of the journey, participants will also learn natural history and ethnobotany of the Sierra Nevada forest ecosystem. Like our hunter-gatherer ancestors, you will learn how to listen to and be guided by nature for both physical survival and the needs of the soul’s unfolding (they are connected!). Participants will not have to face the hardships of physical survival in the wilderness, but will use the development of some of these skills as a means of deepening their sense of ease and belonging on the earth.

Please note this is a residential based retreat that includes camping but no carrying of heavy backpacks. There is no backpacking or extended wilderness trekking as a part of this program. Instead, we will travel lightly through wild terrain by day and return each night to our basecamp in Sequoia National Forest.