Reconnecting with Nature as Healer

May 5-16, 2008

A choice of weeks is available – see details of the timetable below. Can be taken as a one or two week course.

Cathrine Sneed, Mary Aver

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Participants on this course will look at two different dimensions of our relationship with the natural world; the way interacting with soil and plants helps individuals and how we relate to plants and the elements on a spiritual level.

Course Overview

The industrialised world is rapidly awakening to the importance of nature as a provider of resources such as water, soil, and air. But we are only just beginning to fully understand its value for human well-being in the broader sense.

In the first week, participants will hear from Cathrine Sneed whose work in San Francisco County Jail has involved hundreds of inmates in growing food. She will discuss the way interacting with soil and plants helps these people, and how this kind of project can be developed in other settings. In the second week, Mary Aver will explore with participants, how we relate to plants and the elements on a spiritual level.

Throughout the course, participants will spend a lot of time outside, working together in the Schumacher gardens and experiencing the power and beauty of nature at the most glorious time of year.

The course is suitable both for people who wish to use encounters with nature in their professional work (e.g. educators, healers, youth and community workers), and for individuals who wish to re-connect with the natural world on a more profound level.

Teachers

Cathrine Sneed is founder of The Garden Project in San Francisco, USA which offers structure and support to former offenders and at risk youth through job training in gardening, counselling, and assistance in continuing education. She has spoken widely about her work and has been honoured with such awards as the National Caring Award, the Hero for the Earth, and the National Foundation for the Improvement of Justice Award

Mary Aver is a shaman and healer and has trained in many psychotherapeutic approaches, studying Eastern philosophies, teaching meditation and spiritual development. She is also a visiting lecturer at the Cranfield School of Management and a trainer/consultant in personal and professional development.

Timetable/Course content

Week 1: May 5-9, 2008

Monday Arrival by 1 pm. Introduction to each other and College; Gaia theory and Schumacher philosophy.

Tuesday-Friday
The Garden Project – Growing Plants, Growing People
Cathrine Sneed: Using the lessons of The Garden Project of San Francisco, this course will explore the possibilities of environmental and community change. Founded in 1992, The Garden Project emerged as a post- release program after the success of a program for incarcerated individuals that began in 1982. Each day, The Garden Project employs former prisoners and at-risk individuals in an internationally recognised model that helps individuals to link the stewardship of their lives with the stewardship of their community. Using gardening and environmental work as a tool and metaphor, The Garden Project encourages personal growth and renewal. Engaging issues of environmentalism, poverty, and social justice, participants in this course will learn how through the model of The Garden Project, environmental and social change is possible via public and private partnerships, the utilisation of existing resources, and community dialogue. Further this course will engage participants in a discussion of broadening the environmental movement, environmental change in urban settings, and links between environmental, health and cultural movements.

Week 2: May 12-15, 2008

Intuition and Nature
Mary Aver: This week provides an opportunity for participants to deepen their relationship with their Intuition through encounters with nature. Mary describes the process as follows: “Intuition lies close to our soul and becomes its very voice. To nourish and coax our intuition into being we need to immerse ourselves in the sensitivity of the world around us. We will spend time in nature and allow our senses time to smell the flowers. We will ask our questions and allow the wind to answer; we will feel our hearts and allow the sun to warm us. We will remember our ancestor’s footprints and our families and know that they too walked this earth – we will create a shrine for them and ask for healing for all. We will become still enough to attain a listening for the silence and then hear our own intuition speak to us. We will allow our intellect to become purified by becoming sufficiently empty to hear what The Great Mother is waiting to teach us.”

Friday: Departure after lunch.

Can be taken as a one or two week course.

Course Fees

For businesses: One week £1,100 Two weeks £1,700
For individuals, NGOs & Educators: One week £900 Two weeks £1,400
These include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.

How to make an application – click here

For further information about Schumacher College please see About the College

New feature – reserve your place now

To provisionally reserve a place for 5 days, email us your contact details and the name of the course admin@schumachercollege.org.uk

We will hold the place for five working days for reservations – three weeks before a course or earlier. After five days we will automatically offer your place to someone else if we have not received your application.

Schumacher College is part of the Dartington Hall Trust, a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and as a charity (company no. 1485560, charity no. 279756). Registered office: The Elmhirst Centre, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EL, UK.