Inner-Wilderness.com

July 4th, I enjoyed meeting some of our FaceBook fans, and book group members as well as others at The Sacred Circle’s first year anniversary celebration in Staunton. We set up a table with lots of found nature stuff that prompted some great stories and discussions about people’s experiences in the woods and everyone got to see Carey’s new store layout!

photo by Karla Souder

Are you considering a new path in life? Or looking for a more meaningful experience? Learn how to use nature as a mirror for your own self discovery. Find out how to interpret the natural metaphors in your dreams to more clearly hear your own inner voice.

This week we are celebrating over 100 fans on Facebook! To thank you for your amazing support, we are offering $25 discounts to all our fans for our upcoming workshops beginning this Saturday, July 11 and running through Saturday, August 1.

Working Deeply with Nature to Explore Ourselves teaches you how to relate to the natural world as early native cultures may have done.

Animals Connecting Us to Our Deeper Selves teaches you how relating to wild animals can lead to your personal growth.

Join us for a workshop this month in the Shenandoah Valley at one of our two retreat locations especially chosen for their beautiful, natural settings. Brethren Woods Camp and Retreat Center is located at the base of Massanutten mountain in Keezletown, Virginia; and The Growing Center at Belle Grae is located on an ecologically planned, park-like city block of Staunton, Virginia.

To receive your fan discount, simply write “Facebook Fan” on your registration check and subtract $25 from the cost.

Look forward to seeing you at the workshops. – Kate

REGISTER FOR A WORKSHOP

Our unconscious minds speak to us through images. These images can come to us in our nightly dreams, but also can come to use through real objects and scenes in nature that evoke emotional responses in us. In this way, we can say that nature acts as a mirror for our internal selves.

For example, a man and a woman take a walk in the woods and see a gnarled tree trunk with bare branches. On the tip of one branch hangs a solitary leaf. Let’s say that for both persons, the image creates a little tug on his or her heartstring. The image is the same for both people but the meaning may be different.

After exploring the feelings about the images for a bit, the woman may connect that the “meaning” of that image is really of her grief about her own aging, symbolized by the gnarled body of a tree trunk and the memory of younger “leaves” of yesterday. For the man, a similar self-analysis reveals the “meaning” of the image to be a symbol of his own inability to let go of a past relationship- symbolized by the hanging-on by the tree long after the leaf should have naturally been let go.

We project our personal meanings and stories onto images we encounter in nature. At night in our dreams,  our unconscious parts of ourselves speak back to us in images, as well. You may have heard of a psychological test called the Rorschach Inkblot Test. Taught today in up to 80% of graduate psychology programs, it has been around now since the 1920’s.

In that test, a person is instructed to report what images are seen in random inkblot images. Meaning can be derived from interpreting the images “seen.” It is much the same  when we lie on our backs, look at the sky and tell stories about what we see in the clouds. It is also how humans have come to we came to make stories out of the star constellations. As a species, we attribute meaning to nature images. And some of the meaning and images express our deep personal stories. Humans have done this throughout history.

Why nature images and not urban images, for example? Nature images are important as mirror our projections because our human experience with nature goes back 40,000 years. Post-industrial revolution images only go back 200-300 years. The experiences that have shaped our DNA throughout our evolution have been saturated since the beginning of time in nature images, even if now in the 21rst century we are more insulated from the wilds.

Images of the natural world shaped our human experience and crafted our human instinctive response. Rare is the person who has a sudden encounter with a snake in the grass just ahead and doesn’t jump back out of instinct. That snake produces a real psychological and physical effect even for people generally not afraid of snakes. Nature images have deep meaning that runs across the human culture and is embedded in our unconscious.

So we have the opportunity to use nature to explore the deep meanings it holds for our individual selves—not just as an intellectual curiosity, but as a highly personal tool of self-exploration. Through using both real nature images and our nightly dreams, we can enter onto an alternative path of deep psychological self-discovery.

photo by Karla Souder

Everyone who stops by gets a $25-OFF discount coupon for the July-August Nature and Psyche workshops!

We’ll have lots of book recommendations on hand for you that tie into the nature-education movement, and that will also help you create new ways to identify with the natural world.

Hope to see you there! — Kate

Black-tailed Deer, Odocoileus hemionus

Looking back to early human societies and their relationships to nature can inform us today about our “modern” cultural beliefs we hold about the natural world; beliefs held, perhaps, unconsciously.

If we want to use nature as a mirror, it is helpful to think deeply about the assumptions that underlie our culture’s belief system. Throughout his various books, the mythologist Joseph Campbell examined primitive human cultures and their relationships to their food sources and how this impacted their belief systems about nature broadly. He specifically compared hunting cultures and planting cultures.

Primitive hunting cultures relied on individuals making often dangerous forays out to kill wild animals which were then brought back and shared with the small village. In these cultures, death nearly always came via violence, for the animal or for the man. Hunting cultures often held beliefs that while the corporal animal dies, the immortal essence of the animal does not, and the animal essence is absorbed into the eater. Hunting cultures often believed there was a self-sacrifice on the part of the animal to the hunter and they also often believe there was a magical, mystical “unity” between the hunter and the hunted. Success in the hunt was due to individual skill plus luck. Campbell wrote that hunting cultures often organized themselves patriarchy, with the focus on strong individuality, as it was the strength and skill of the individual men that brought food to the village.

Planting cultures, on the other hand, often held very different world views. In planting societies, the village group planted seed as a community effort. The plant dies at the end of its fertility cycle and is annually reborn via seed. In these cultures, death is seen within a cycle—a phase within life— often followed by rebirth elsewhere. Communal agriculture in village life follows a predictable solar calendar and success is built on consistent group effort, nurturing and respect for the elements. Campbell says that planting cultures are usually matriarchal, as in these societies women— who physically embody the natural rhythms of nature in their bodies— could play a more dominant role as food providers for the village.

These hunting and planting worldviews are ancient to us as a species. They are the bedrock of humanity’s social formation and have become archetypal in the human races’ consciousness. So how does this link to our individual inner selves, today? One way to think about it might be to ask yourself the questions, “What is my inner mythology?” “Do I feed my inner village as a hunter would or as a planter?” There are no right or wrong answers, only increased insight into your inner processes.

Can you identify what is the “food source” part of you—the inner part of you that nourishes and sustains you on a daily basis without which you could not survive? Once you get some picture of that food source part of yourself, you can take the next step and look at whether the rest of you relates to your food source part from the hunters’ or the planters’ perspective? Can you tell? Is there a blend? What effect does that have on how you experience yourself?

Outer cultural myth and inner individual psychology can be approached as similar models on different scales. Humans have a long and complex relationship to nature and that history informs each and every one of us…sometimes consciously and— more often—unconsciously. Let’s shine some light into the ancient parts of ourselves that are still operating within us today, make them more conscious, and see what we discover.

For a nice overview of Joseph Campbell’s lifework from which I drew many of these hunter/planter descriptions, here’s the reference:

Segal, R.(1987). Joseph Campbell: An introduction. New York: Penguin Books.

On the continuum of inner and outer nature experience, some of us are more experienced, skilled or comfortable with inner exploration and some with outer. Attending to both can lead to some of the richest and deepest relationships with nature. For those of you who are looking for someone to help guide and teach you the basics of the outer experience, Derek Young’s Outdoor Adventure Experiences is your guide.

Last year, I needed to learn about winter backpacking for a trip I had planned. Derek taught me the basics by taking me on an overnight nearby into the George Washington National Forest. I wasn’t trying to set any land speed or endurance records. I just wanted to learn how to layer my clothing, set up camp to keep warm, learn a bit about more about winter gear and how to string up my food from bears. The thing I liked about Derek’s style was that his goal seemed to be to make the activity accessible to me. He has a nice casual way of teaching some skills, if you are looking for that. Derek just wants people to get out— all ages of people. Nature activity isn’t just for the twenty-somethings.

Your inner work in nature will go deeper as your comfort in outer nature increases. No matter what your level of outdoor skills, that is where you start. So while it is great to hire someone like Derek to be a guide on fun-filled family or church trip, it is equally great to use Derek to give you a safe introduction to some aspect being in nature you’ve never experienced. Outdoor Adventure Experiences offers caving, for example, which I have not yet done, and I can’t wait to see what experiences real-life caving creates as a mirror for my inner world, especially since caves so often represent our unconscious selves.

So if you want to go somewhere inside yourself you’ve never been, mirror that with a new outdoor adventure.

Outdoor Adventure Experiences can provide: Kayaking, tubing, rock-climbing, backpacking, hiking, wild cave and water cave exploration and rappelling; some activities are available year-round.

Wow ! It continues to be turtle season! I met up with this fine creature early in the day as he or she ambled towards my backyard. It’s worth asking whether it means anything that within four weeks I have had five turtle encounters; two snappers, two painted turtles and now this Eastern Box Turtle. My husband saw a fourth one, too, laying eggs out by our mailbox.

None of these encounters generated any unusual emotion for me, (except surprise and delight, of course) which leads me to suspect that there is no particular turtle universe message being sent directly to me this time. Rather, these are just the days when turtles are actively out and about laying eggs and warming in the sun on roads. Have you been seeing them, too?

I did, however, take the opportunity to spend some time with this turtle. I thought about the common ideas that often get projected on to turtles from myths and stories over time. One common association with turtles– due to their longevity and wrinkly skin– are various ideas about how we perceive time. Turtle is associated with the peace of mind that sometimes comes with slowing down.

Because phylogenetically, turtles go so far back on the evolutionary tree— 200 million years— they get associated with ancient wisdom. Because of their shell, they get linked to ideas about self-protection, going within and self-sufficiency, What meaning would humans project about the fact that turtles bury their eggs, leaving them to grow, succeed or fail in the warm sun, never to be tended again?

As I looked into these beautiful eyes, I could feel my own strong pull towards slowing and ancient wisdom. Who has ever seen an anxious turtle? No one, I doubt! When I look for the inner turtle of me, I find an old wise woman with soft, deep eyes. She is a part of me already—yet perhaps I won’t manifest her until my later years. What can I do now to get to know this older, wiser part of myself better? Perhaps I need to do a slow turtle walking meditation, modeled on my friend discovered here today. And then when I get all rabbity, like in the famous story of the Tortoise an the Hare, I can see if I can evoke my inner wise elder to shift my perspective of time. When I need to conjure up that inner turtle essence, I’ll call on the memory of this Eastern Box Turtle’s eyes.

National Wildlife Federation

A big, good thing being talked about now is increasing awareness in “eating local, eating seasonally.” But what if we don’t have a strong awareness of what “seasonally” means? For many years now, our society has been able to get just about any fruit or vegetable at the grocery just about any time of year. Even in our agricultural community, many children probably don’t know the natural cycle well. Do you? If you are like me, you may know it intellectually, but still make choices in your life that don’t follow nature’s fundamental schedule. Those choices have a much lower chance of success because they are fighting against nature’s cycle rather than working with it.

My recent weekend at a workshop at Living Earth School in Afton, Virginia was filled with many, many good lessons, fun and community building. People came together to learn about the art of mentoring in nature education. Hosted by Kate and Hub Knott, the workshop was facilitated by Evan McGown, author of Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature.

Author: Evan McGown

Over the camping weekend, we played stalking games, ran around barefoot, sang and drummed around fires and practiced wilderness skills. We told and heard archetypal stories of world culture’s relationship to nature and we built a group mandala (or medicine wheel) out of objects we collected from the woods that held personal attraction for us. Then we used those objects to tell a group story about our time.

Catherine lights a smudge

We saturated ourselves in grasping the full implications of nature’s cycle. Try this yourself— compare the parallels in the cycles of a DAY and the cycles of a YEAR:

DAY …………………………………………..YEAR

Sunrise …………………………………………………..Spring

Mid- Morning …………………………………………..Late Spring

Noon ………………………………………………………Summer Solstice

Afternoon “Siesta” …………………………………….Dog Days of Summer

Sunset …………………………………………………… Autumn Harvest Fruits of Labor

Twilight …………………………………………………..Late Autumn/ Halloween

Midnight ………………………………………………….Winter

Predawn …………………………………………………..Late Winter Thaw

See the natural cycle playing out, mirrored on different time scales? Now, let’s compare the natural cycle of earth’s time to our lifetimes!

YEAR ………………………………………….LIFE STAGE

Spring …………………………………………………….Birth

Late Spring ……………………………………………...Childhood

Summer Solstice ………………………………………Fires of Adolescence

Dog-Days………………………………………………..Transition to Adulthood

Autumn Harvest………………………………………..Adulthood Fruits- Children and Careers

Late Autumn…………………………………………….Retirement- Empty Nest- Letting Go

Winter …………………………………………………….Elderhood

Late Winter Thaw ……………………………………..Death and Transformation-Conception

You can see a microcosm of your whole life in a day. Like the poets, we can conceptualize our life in terms of seasons. But there’s more! Since the natural cycle is a model that basically maps energy flow, we can also use it to plan activities. I am in the process of trying to use the natural cycle to lay out the order and energy flow of the upcoming workshops in July/Aug.

The photo at the top is the concrete version of the natural cycle which we laid out on a mandala- further coordinating the day cycle with the sun’s cycle, which is of course how we get our directions of north, south, east and west.

So now we are coming up on the Summer Solstice (June 21), the time of the year when our sun’s rays are the strongest and the straightest above our heads at solar noontime. The plants and trees are in their natural cycle of maximum strengthening and peak growth, adding woody structure just before they turn their attention to growing fruit. Birds and mammals are manifesting their peak adult energy scrambling around to constantly feed and care for themselves and their demanding offspring. How is this natural cycle manifesting itself in you? See how you are dancing to the tune of all nature, too?

Five Minute Fire practice!