Journey into Nature

REGISTER

 

Price: $385 + HST (covers 7 day course tuition. Does not include meals, participants are responsible for cooking their own meals in provided kitchens)

DOWNLOAD APPLICATION FORM

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER - Please fill in and attach the application form with your request to register.
 

Onsite Accommodation and shared kitchen (optional) for duration of the program is $250 + HST.

Extend Your Stay. Come early and relax before your program starts or stay after to reflect on your experience. 

BOOK YOUR STAY

APRIL 13 - 20 (7 days)

This experience is for those who love to be in nature. Most of us lead busy lives --- busier than we would like. Journey into Nature is an effective antidote, offering simple and effective methods for relaxing, extending the senses, waking up to what is important, connecting with other human and non-human beings, and engaging whole-heartedly in our world.

 
Windhorse Farm, in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, is a place of exquisite beauty and healing tranquility. On the shores of Wentzell Lake and the LaHave River, Windhorse Farm encompasses gardens, orchards, clear brooks, beaver meadows and a uniquely old Acadian forest. The raw elements of earth, water, fire, air and space are up front in the natural landscape. It is within this elemental world that this ”forest journey" is offered.
 
During this 7-day course, participants will be introduced to the principles and practices of the Windhorse way of earth stewardship and social leadership and have an opportunity to develop their own personal practice of connecting with nature and engaging in real benefit for this world.
 
Unlike environmental education programs you may be familiar with, this journey will be personal and truly experiential. Although your awareness of the diversity and complexity of natural systems will certainly expand and deepen, there will be ample opportunity to reflect on, and discuss, how nature can be a metaphor for how we live in family, community and society.  
 
We will begin each day around a fire somewhere in the gardens or forest to enquire together into a particular question of relevance for the day. We will spend all day in the natural landscape, regardless of weather, stopping somewhere to eat our bag lunches. Some of the wandering will be with the group and some will be alone. We will end the day together, again in circle around a fire. There will be introductions to “sit-spot”, night walking, five filters and other specific methods. Somewhere in the middle of our time, there will be a 3-day (2-night) solo retreat in the forest. There will be preparation time before the solo and time for reflection afterward. 

Last year's journey was captured in a slideshow: Journey Into Nature Fall 2011 -->

After you register we will send you a list of what to bring as well as recommended reading and other preparation. 

INSTRUCTORS: 

Jim Drescher, co-director of Windhorse Farm with his wife Margaret, holds a Masters Degree in Forest Ecology and has been involved in commercial forest management for over 40 years. He has written extensively on sustainable forestry issues and taught contemplative forestry and natural landscape management in Nova Scotia and elsewhere. He has joined his life-long passion for being in nature with his training in contemplative and meditative practices, developed over the past 37 years with the instructions and blessings of many teachers, especially the great Chogyam Trungpa. Much of his "practice" these days takes place in the forest, where he offers what he has learned to whomever shows up curious.

 

 

Margaret Drescher has been living, playing, working and co directing at Windhorse farm for 20 years with her husband Jim and their two children Marguerite and Will.

She is formally trained in permaculture, horticulture and landscape design with over 40 years of experience “in the field”.  She has also been teaching and practicing

personal development work during the same period of time. Over the years the paths of land stewardship, parenting and human potential practices have merged into a rich and integrated journey.   She delights in an open question and auspicious coincidence.

 

 

 

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