Veranstaltungskalender

Calendar of Events

 

Soul Initiation and Adolescence

Integrating contemporary wilderness rites of passage and Waldorf education

This workshop will bring together the work of the School of Lost Borders, who have pioneered methods of contemporary rites of passage in nature, together with the educational approach based on the work of Rudolf Steiner and archetypal wisdom from European mystery streams.

Drawing on twenty years experience of working with adolescents and nature, including leading wilderness camps and youth vision quest, Roger Duncan will explore how we might reconnect with the roots of our lost indigenous European rites of passage.

Using nature based mapping tools and contemporary therapeutic ideas to compliment an understanding of Waldorf Education, we will explore the theory and practice of engaging in the labyrinthine journey into our own Soul.

The weekend will involve story, presentation, examples of practice and experiential work in nature. It is an invitation to think about how we might begin to gather elders with the courage to seek out the inspiration and seeds for cultural renewal, to create educational experiences that address the real needs of the adolescent within all of us.

Roger Duncan is a Biologist, Waldorf educator, Vision Fast guide and Family and Systemic Psychotherapist. He has been exploring the connections between nature, education, and rites of passage for the last twenty years.
He is currently Head of Education and Therapy at Ruskin Mill College, Gloucestershire, UK

 

Council trainings

Council is an ancient form and modern practice, which offers a way of communicating that encourages attentive listening, honest and compassionate expression. It makes room for new insights and understandings, wisdom in decision making, and healing.
We see council, as a personal practice, a group process, and a life pathway, as essential for any individual whose work or service involves a group, staff, community, etc.

In cooperation with the Ojai Foundation (www.ojaifoundation.org) and the School of Lost Borders (www.schooloflostborders.com) in California, the Eschwege Institut is hosting a training to become a carrier of "council" or a "council trainer". See "calendar of events" for several council seminars.

Council training with Marlow Hotchkiss

Marlow Hotchkiss
Director, The Ojai Foundation

"My professional life is focused around coaching, training, and facilitating others to realize their goals. I am fascinated by people and how we grow; I have a natural gift for empowering others and for eliciting their inherent talents, their authentic selves. I work most creatively and productively in the context of shared leadership and team collaboration. I believe deeply in the power of heartfelt and candid conversation to heal relationships and build community."

 

Council in Business

The ancient practice of sitting in a circle, speaking and listening from the heart, can enrich any relationship - at home, in school, in the workplace, in community. This training is especially designed to enable business leaders to integrate council into their professional life, organization or corporation.

Join us and explore thinking like a circle, moving from heart-centred awareness, and expanding our inner and outer horizons. Council is a gateway to deeper communication, intercultural understanding and the non-violent resolution of conflict - a place where destiny and the present moment meet.

Marlow Hotchkiss is an author, educator and corporate consultant with over 35 years of experience in organizational development in both the profit and non-profit sectors. He is a Founding Partner of the Living Systems Consulting Group and has worked with organizations from small family businesses to multinational corporations. He has served on the Ojai Foundation's Board of Directors for 20 years, and as Co-Director and a member of its Leadership Council until his recent retirement. He is currently a trainer with the Centre for Council Training and a free-lance vision quest guide.

 

 

 

 

Council training with Leon Berg

Leon Berg is a co-creator and co-director of the Ojai Foundation. He is a senior trainer on the faculty of the Center for Council Training, and a co-founder of the Israeli non-profit Ma'agal Hakshava (Listening Circles). He has been conducting Council trainings in the U.S., Israel and Europe for the past 16 years.

Council II

Deepening the Practice

Ready for fresh inspiration, greater confidence, additional skills and new connections in your council facilitation with students or adults?

This course calls together educators and others who have been facilitating circles for a while and are ready to take it to the next level. Responding to the needs of the group, the training generally includes a review of council basics, working with shadow and 'coyote energy', specific forms of council for varied situations and populations, introducing council into the different domains of our lives, reading the field and exploring one's personal medicine as facilitator.

The saying, "There is no Council without Shadow," is important to understand. We have to allow ourselves to be disturbed, to be moved, to get out of our 'comfort zone'. Then the circle becomes alive. Sometimes powerful energies are released and the challenge for the facilitator(s) is how to serve the circle so that it remains safe and the energies contained. When this occurs, magic happens!

Flesh and Spirit

The Mystery of Intimate Relationship

An Experience in Council for Couples

This 3-day experiential weekend will provide both an intimate getaway and a provocative retreat in a beautiful setting in the heart of Germany. Join us in exploring the sacred dance of intimacy.

Celebrate and deepen your primary relationship in a small circle of couples through specific communication and energy practices. Leave the retreat with tools which help bring vision, inspiration, and more aliveness into your intimate partnership and support each of you in creating the life that you want!

Vision Quest

An ancient rite of passage for modern people

The time has come to confirm a transition and to remove yourself from your former life. Vision Quest is to leave every possible distraction behind and become empty. We will prepare you to go out alone, with no food and a bare minimum of equipment, into the heart of the wilderness, for four days and nights.

There you will live with yourself in wild solitude and surrender to the influences of the soul of nature, discovering it to be a true mirror of your self.

The unimportant things will fall away and your emptiness invites the Vision of the work that must be done.

In your solitude, you wander through the precincts of death, where vision lies waiting. You drink from the springs of the deepest feeling and are filled with self-recognition. What is unimportant falls away. The work that must be done lies ahead.

Structure of the Vision Quest

Four days of preparation in Findhorn, staying in the Findhorn Hostel with bay view and close to the dune lands. We gather daily in the Earth lodge at the heart of the Findhorn Community.

Five days out in the wilderness of the Moray Firth. We will live in the woodlands at the beaches close to Findhorn Bay. The ocean as the most ancient landscape and the home of all living things will help to reconnect with the ancient home within you.
Four of these days will be your solo fast.
The guides in the base camp will keep watch over your safety day and night.

Two days back in Findhorn, for integration of the vision into the life to which you return.

Holger Heiten

*1966, is Gestalt Therapist, Psychotherapist, internationally working Vision Quest Guide and teacher for initiatory process companionship in the Eschwege Institute, that was founded by him and his wife Gesa. He has trained with Steven Foster & Meredith Little in the School of Lost Borders (USA) and Verena & Haiko Nitschke (Germany).

Sylke Iacone

*1973, Adventure-pedagogue and Yoga teacher, has trained to guide Vision Quests with the School of Lost Borders in California and with Holger & Gesa Heiten in the Eschwege Institute /Germany. She's a specialist in combining adventure-pedagogic with the rites of passage work.

 

 

Please contact us for more detailed information, such as travel information etc.

 

International Youth Vision Quest

An ancient rite of passage for modern people

In the heart of Germany

Because of what dreams, goals and tasks will I leave the shelter and the influence of my parent's house in order to go my own way?
How can I arrange this transition in a conscious and dignified way and how can I bear witness it to the people I love? These questions are as old as mankind itself and in ancient times, the elders would have responded to them by offering a rite of passage.
Modern forms of rites of passage, like this youth vision quest, are still an appropriate answer, because for both, the young people and their parents, they provide a form to sever from each other in dignity. At the same time the youth vision quest allows young people to find their own sense and direction for the next steps on their way.

Vision Quest is to leave every possible distraction behind and become empty.
We will prepare you to go out alone, with no food and a bare minimum of equipment, into the heart of the wilderness, for three days and nights.
There you will live with yourself in wild solitude and surrender to the influences of the soul of nature, discovering it to be a true mirror of your self.
The unimportant things fall away, and your emptiness invites the vision of the work that must be done. In your solitude, you wander through the precincts of death, where vision lies waiting. You drink from the springs of the deepest feeling and are filled with self-recognition. What is unimportant falls away. The work that must be done lies ahead.

Structure of the Vision Quest:
• Three days of preparation in the Eschwege Institute, with accommodation in its guest department.
• Four days out in the wilderness of " the yellow mountain forest".
Three of these days will be your solo fast. The guides in the base camp will keep watch over your safety day and night.
• Three days, back in the Institute, for integration of the vision into the life to which you return.

The yellow mountain forest In the heart of Germany, where the German / German border use to be, there are huge oak and beech tree forests, in which a lot of rare animals survived. The European wildcat, the black stork, the Uhu Owl, do still live there along with wild boar, deer and racoons..

Holger Heiten

 

Born 1966, has trained to guide Vision Quests with the School of Lost Borders in California with Steven Foster & Meredith Little and with Verena & Haiko Nitschke in Germany.
He is an experienced psychotherapist and offers Vision Quest groups all over Europe. He is co-founder and manager of the Eschwege Institute in Germany. Find more about Holger by clicking "Who we are".

 

 

 

 

The Beloved

"There is some kiss we want with our whole lives."
Rumi

Releasing the lover of yourself is more vital today than ever.

Personally and globally we stand at a turning-point, facing unprecedented ecologic, economic, and social challenges.

How will you respond? Will you play it safe or risk embracing an even more radiant, wild, beautiful part of your self?

THE PATH OF THE LOVER is an approach to joyful transformation and soulful action that emboldens you, allures you, and points you in the direction that's already calling from deep within you.

During this weekend retreat we'll use imagery, life map-making, dialogue with partners and your own inner voices, storytelling, and other practices to:
- Discover how fascination and desire have been your allies all your life
- Recognize the persistent, persuasive voice of the inner lover in you that calls you forth and how to mediate between it and the protective, often self-defeating voice that holds you back
- Take the first steps toward living as the lover of yourself in small ways and large
- Fall in love with your self and your own unique path in life!

This workshop is a fantastic shared journey towards a new relationship with your world.

Trebbe Johnson

Life's a heroic journey, I've always felt-full of monsters to fight, obstacles to negotiate, surprising allies to support you, and divine lovers who beckon you into some mystery you're both drawn to and scared of.
I don't know anyone whose life hasn't been an incredible journey of ups and downs, triumphs and trials, sorrow in the midst of great joy and, even more amazing, joy in the midst of the deepest chasms of sorrow. Approaching the mystery of another human being from this point of view immediately gives me a sense of all they've strived for, hoped for, lost and triumphed over-and all before I know a single fact about them. Knowing the facts that fill in this mythic frame, I am continually awed and amazed by the feat of being human.
My deepest sorrow is the degradation of the natural world and the seeming indifference of so many people to what is happening all around them. Yet because I see people as mythic and heroic, I can't help believing that if we can just reconnect with our love of nature, we will be compelled to sustain our planet not just because we have to, but because we passionately want to.
Over the years, I've struggled through my own dark times with alcohol, crippling self-doubt, and serious problems with food and money. I've been through the illnesses and deaths of lovers, family members, and friends. Personal darkness-my own or that of others-grieves me but does not throw me off balance, and I know that, no matter what one is going through, astonishing acts of beauty, compassion, and even joy wait to be given and received.
Living in an old stone cottage on the Berkshire Downs in England when I was in my twenties, I discovered that if you sit still in one place, any place, in nature, something amazing will soon happen. The wind blows the light across the field. The reflection of a hawk wafts across a woodland pond. A single red berry spins wildly at the end of a stalk. In 1988, when I heard that there was such a thing as a vision quest, where a person remained for several days in one wilderness place, and that you didn't have to be a native person to receive insight from the earth, I knew I'd found a path I had to follow.
My formal training to be a vision quest guide from 1992-94 was with Animas Valley Institute, the School of Lost Borders, and SOLO Wilderness Medicine. I also embarked on a self-defined educational path to learn several skills I felt I needed to be a really good vision quest guide. I took a public speaking class and a women's self defense course, studied dowsing with two master dowsers in Maine, learned drumming from Babatunde Olatunji, was part of a Jungian dream group, and became a certified guide of the Personal Totem Pole process of guided imagery.
For thirty-five years I've been self-employed, primarily as a writer, since 1993 as a guide of vision quests, workshops and other mythic journeys. I've had a few other jobs as well: life-drawing model, street-sweeper in my English village, award-winning multimedia producer in New York, translator of German, abridger of audiobooks. I've tried to do what I love, and if that hasn't been possible, I've tried to love what I do. I've camped alone in the Arctic, studied classical Indian dance, written journalism about the Navajo and Hopi people, and slept in beautiful wilderness areas from my own back yard to the Sahara Desert. I have amazing friends all over the world. I live with my husband, Andy Gardner, a potter and rustic furniture maker, in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, where we have a big organic garden, lots of books, and mutual wonder at the mystery of this other person we live with.

 

NATURAL UNION (a weekend of remembering)

How does nature express itself? Uniquely and Beautifully.
Just like you

How does nature nurture itself? Effortlessly
Just like you

How does nature interact with itself? Intimately
Just like you

YOU Are HERE NOW.

Here's the deal. I will teach you nothing you don't already know. We will play an add to the Injoyment of life. Here is the how and why.

Ancient Yoga teachings remind us that we are not separate from Nature and that life is already given to you. The land, animals, humans, everything. We are a part of it. You only need to remember that and participate in the vast interconnectedness and loving source that sustains us all.

HOW?

UNIQUENESS:
Each of us has a unique way to be and move. So why learn my way? Remember how to connect with your breath through basic yogic breathing, and find out how YOU breath. Remember how to move naturally through basic yoga postures and rhythms in sound, and find out how YOU move. And remember how to connect with those around you intimately through basic massage movements, and re-discover YOUR power of touch.

If you observe nature you see that each tree, breeze, flower, and animal is completely unique. Just like you! We go on large searches to become something different than we are, to "find" our spirit, to learn the next new "thing." What I am suggesting is that it is already present, and you already know how to. In this weekend we remember our unique nature, through our oldest tool. The body.

WHY?

UNION: The essence of the weekend is for Union. Right now the majority of us tend to be disconnected from each other. Sometimes in our spiritual search we try so hard, we are yearning for intimacy, with self, with others. Remember how to cultivate that relationship with yourself. Its here and now. I promise. Come to that place again and again. Not because you "have" to, or because you will get anywhere, because it is always a part of you and our natural state, our NATURAL UNION.

FORMAT and TOOLS:
BREATH: We begin the weekend focusing on breath, the seed of life, using simple yogic techniques (pranayama). When we can become intimate with it, we start to move the body...
BODY: This is done through simple yoga asanas and dance movements (create your dance). When we connect with the body we deepen our relationships with one another...
RELATIONSHIPS: This is where we begin partner yoga, and simple massage techniques.

Basic anatomy/physiology will be covered as well as

You are from nature and a part of it. Its time to experience and express that.
Come and remember with me.

Jason Marcotte
Is a yoga teacher, massage therapist, and outdoor enthusiast. Being a part of several vision quests in Missouri and the Ojai Foundation he has incorporated natures wisdom in his teaching "My passion is to help people remember. Each person has his/her own path, own yoga, own dance, own vision, own voice. Its my pleasure to assist in the memory of that". He is currently co-creating a thai-yoga massage school with his friend Deon DeWet in Ojai, California and helps caretake the land at the Ojai Foundation.

 

Retreat

The Holle House

Is a Retreat House and situated in the heart of Germany, not far from the town of Eschwege, about 50 km east of Kassel and 50 Km south of Göttingen, in the village of Meinhard / Neuerode. It is open to practitioners of all contemplative traditions, for strict retreats or for meditative holidays. The house is beautiful, clean, modern and has a self contained garden. It is especially equipped for Werma Sadhana Practice.

Location

The Holle House is situated at the edge of an old oak and beech tree forest, and from the property you have a breathtaking view over rolling woodland hills towards the “Hoher Meissner”, a mountain that with its 780 meters dominates the landscape. Since ancient times this mountain was believed to be the home of the Earth Goddess “Frau Holle”, which is why we gave the house its name.

The vast woodland, which begins right at the retreat house, continues with a beautiful mix of rocks, meadows and heather. It belongs to the “green strip”, the 14000 Km long former border between East and West Europe and the area around the retreat house belongs now to one of the biggest protected nature reserves in Germany. Rare animals like the lynx, the European wild cat, the uhu owl and the black stork are still living on this land.

For more Information, pictures and reservation, please visit: www.campus-peregrini.de