LIFE CHANGER: Why this training?
“There is a language that is older and deeper than words.
It is the language of bodies, of body to body, wind to snow, rain to trees, waves to stone.
It is the language of dreams, gestures, colors, symbols & memories.” Derrick Jensen
The CreaVista Life-Changer training is, in our time of immense change, urgently needed to face the current eco-social problems of the present with meaningful, life-enhancing and practical answers. It is an experiential learning process aimed at close, immediate experience and social relevance and activates the essential, elementary and fundamental life forces and development potentials of human beings. This education goes deeper than language, enlivens the profound understanding of the interconnectedness and brilliance of terrestrial life in the play of the elements.
Your lens opens our eyes to the questions that the Living Earth asks of us – but also to our human capacity to give mindful, loving and joyful answers that we can deeply answer for. We cannot force the future. We can make it possible by unfolding ourselves into our life-enhancing potentials. We flourish, blossom and bear fruit …
Our modern way of life thus develops from a problem to a blessing for man, environment and fellow creatures! From sleepwalker, over dreamwalker to lifewalker.
For whom?
We address people who are looking for meaning of life, awake presence and meaningful change in their lives, for healing effectiveness and ecological relevance for their everyday private and professional being and acting. People who are in spiritual awakening, who want to flourish and blossom and have begun to search for their calling – beyond a job. For this they want to grow, become mature, get to know themselves better and heal old wounds.
They want to take full responsibility for themselves and their world. They may already be working in the therapeutic, psychological/educational, or ecological professional fields and are expanding their eco-spiritual awareness, seeking a competent, more vibrant expansion of their field of activity in order to participate in a future worth living for future generations. They are concerned with relevance in being and their called participation in the life-saving, social transformation processes!
However, “lays” are also in demand, who would like to educate themselves in this field out of a healthy curiosity,
and a growing sense of responsibility and inner strength into this field. They recognize the necessities for a sustainable and radical change of our human everyday behavior, our culturally anchored and by routines ingrained behavior patterns and institutional structures that have become impersonal. They are ready to put their heart power into their deepest concerns and life visions and to invest all their life energy for the preservation of creation.
How.LifeTransformers, Companions in Life Transitions
Our training formats:
→ Short and weekly seminars
→ Continuous training groups
→ Internships and long-term work placements
→ Work camps
→ Counseling
The training extends over a total of two to four years and comprises approximately 90 teaching days (depending on the main topic) which are experienced in different settings (self-experience of the methodology, internships, basic seminars, job shadowing, assistantships, master’s project, etc.). In addition, there are periods of intensive self-study. Media and Literature.
The participants of the training should experience the CreaVista Life Changer methodology on themselves, use it for their own development and learn to apply it appropriately, safely and independently as inspirers for groups. In doing so, it is important that through openness in one’s very own process, potentials unfold in equal measure, mature and integratively become a sustainable basis for powerful, healing and sustainable work. Without personal and professional authenticity, no one achieves positive relevance!
Heart concerns
The central concern of this training is to awaken awareness for the vitality of nature and to develop the Ecological Self. This means a profound change in the perception of the self, the “not-self” (the living world) and the ways of communicating constructively, cooperatively and non-violently in these relationships. This, along with an understanding of the current social, ecological and economic context of each individual, is essential grounding for this work.
Means and Pathways:Deep Ecological Spaces of Experience.
Through the living experience of the morphic field, built up by an ancient monomythic ritual, systematic action combines with intuition and feeling. This kind of deep ecological opening of being has a direct effect on the attitude towards life: here a responsible, conscious handling of the riches, which are generously provided by Mother Earth for our human life, can be realized. From this, in turn, a dignified, healing and mindful approach to the great transformative power of nature ritual, shamanic transformation work and and VisionQuest can be developed.
Approaches from different therapies, methods of spiritual and shamanistic schools and exercises in non-judgmental observation will help us to unfold our potentials for this. Supervision and feedback, as well as work with Way of Council and the art of mirroring are further tools for competence development.
Inner mindfulness
The inner attitude of the leaders is as important as the methodology of the work itself. For until we are willing to “surrender to the great river that flows behind things,” our actions will have little wholesome effect. This means that we are only truly effective as facilitators in Wilderness Therapy when our motivation is authentic and clear: it is not the leader who is at the center of what is happening, but the well-being of the individual and the community of the living. This is about acknowledging higher guidance, allowing wonder, surrendering acceptance of what is.
Learning content and training process
To the same extent that people find the willingness to engage in the adventure of their search for meaning in the inner as well as outer wilderness, the great potential of unexpected, creative perspectives (“CreaVista”) becomes accessible to them, from which sustainable answers to essential questions can be brought to light.
The individual basic seminars lasting several days are arranged in a module system. Each module has topics, to which certain tasks and exercises belong. These are mastered alone, in small group work and as homework. Theory and practice are related to each other.
The examination of appropriate readings encourages the student to re-evaluate and mature his or her own outlook and world view. When one’s own experiences are combined with what has been read, rubbed together and put into perspective, the mental and spiritual tools for such a responsible task, such as a VisionQuest, can be developed. Especially in the context of experiential education and deep ecology work, we need a holistic, integrative view of nature. It is of utmost importance that we overcome the separation, between body and mind, between nature “outside” and “inside”, -our “wild self”, and also between human and non-human life.
Practice of the leader trainings
The training is open to mature people with pedagogical and/or therapeutic qualifications. Participation in one’s own vision quest is a training premise and precedes all other training parts. Simple, self-referential participation is required here. Written documentation (diary) is to be kept in all phases and becomes the basis for a deeper understanding of the later meta-reappraisal in the training group.
A
he first step on the level of practical accompaniment is followed by a hospitation and later at least one assistance, primarily with observation tasks, where in each case certain circumscribed tasks are taken over within the group for practice. Here we go step by step from simple tasks to more complex topics. Living contact, awake encounter, “therapeutic” relationship are experienced, reflected upon, and understood and tested as a means of helpful accompaniment (therapeion).
The second step is the independent conception, planning, preparation and implementation of a vision quest under the advisory supervision of an experienced vision quest leader. The experience is evaluated and presented to the training leaders as a detailed final documentation of at least 20 pages.
Methodology of the training
Learning in the training takes place cyclically in intensive connection with the forces of the Wheel of Life. Idea and being, thinking and acting, theory and practice interpenetrate each other in an intimate interweaving. Implementation follows insight, shapes the idea into experience, reflection and feeling complete the understanding and lead to experienced knowledge on several levels. Thus, the action competence of the training participants develops in ascending spirals: many things return seemingly unchanged in the course of the learning situations, are viewed differently, are repeated maturely. For the context, the subtlety of the observation, as well as the significance of our own
meaning of the own position we take to the nature rituals. In the change of the myth of ourselves hides the greatest power: when we discover ourselves anew, acknowledge, describe and feel what sentences and treasures are to be found in our inner wilderness, in chaos and darkness, we begin to recognize and can believe that we are allowed to do this work at all.
Thematically, contents from pedagogy, psychology, brain research, ethnology, modern therapy approaches, experiential healing, social sciences, shamanism, systems theory, philosophy and practical experience of the working field of threshold ritual are brought into holographic relation with each other and examined for their meaning for practice.
Each training participant works out his own values and socially compatible guidelines for his work within the framework of and in exchange with the group. Cooperation and lively interaction are engines and catalysts of cyclic-holographic learning. This is the reason why the group makes all participants, no matter at which stage of learning they are, relate to each other, work in cooperation with each other.
Deep ecological understanding is the basis of any meaningful initiation today. Every initiating action, every rite of passage is only meaningful in the long term if, on the threshold of the new, the past is appreciated and the coming is positively visioned and dedicated to a recognizably bright goal. That is, every initiation has a direction. It creates a new space, new definitions, new images of life, being and meaning. If these definitions and images do not have as their basis and starting point the deep understanding, the all-connecting love for the living, for the existing nature, nothing will change in the conditions in which we have to live today. We are called as civilized people to seek the way to wildness again. Wildness is innocence, the “second naivety”, beyond the threshold of knowledge. Cognition takes place in the darkness of the threshold world, there where the greatest fear paralyzes our steps, all movement, and only the memory of the original intention is still able to motivate. This is the moment when gold is made from the excrement of digestion, the water of life from the blood of destruction.
Conversations about a “new” philosophy called deep ecology. Arne Naess, Joanna Macy,
Dolores La Chapelle, John Seed, and many others have given ecology a depth that gives it roots and wings. They have made clear to us the nature of our delinquency (disconnectedness) and made palpable again the pain of life-threatening loss of connectedness. In this sense, truly spiritual insights become possible when we recollect what makes us sensual and gives us meaning: Touch and touchability lead to touchedness and ultimately to essential transformation: the spirit returns to the undisguised perception of the physical, life is sacred again and invites us to be fully embraced. We will get to know, describe, save and guide exercises.
Venues
The respective venues and their logistics will be announced in our schedule and under Experiential Space Seminar.
Duration
The training time is approximately 90 days and extends over two to four years.
Costs
The complete training fee is 5800 € plus board and lodging on the training days. Individual seminars or training modules are charged at 120€ per day and participation.
Questions to the director of the training: Shanti.Petschel (ät) CreaVista.org
