Village Nature

Entering into the adventure of life, our souls arrive with certain expectations. We come bearing gifts, our own style, and a unique dream and story for the earth that yearns to be discovered and lived (for we all lose our knowing of our life purpose when we are born). We expect to be welcomed into this world and into life. We expect that our communities will support us in discovering who we are and what we are meant to do. We expect that our communities will love us completely, unconditionally, and mentor us into the fullness of our being. We expect a rich, vital relationship with Nature, since we humans are of nature. We are encoded to thrive in a call-and-response, in-breath/out-breath, life and death relationship with our place. And we expect to enjoy heartful, spiritful one-on-one and community conversations with the sacred, in the forms of art, celebration, ritual, deep play, meaningful work, and other creative expression.

It is a great failure of our culture that most of us do not know these things. We do not know our soulful purpose (that we even have a reason for being on this planet, much less the opportunity to live out this reason!), a community of belonging (our culture insists that we prove ourselves worthy every day of our lives), a knowledge and experience of ourselves as integral to the natural world, and a knowledge and experience of ourselves as sacred beings - capable of working, playing, creating intimately with the Sacred.

Forest Halls is about remembering and reclaiming who we are - how we are meant to be with one another in village, and with the mystery and magic of the natural world and of the cosmos. Here, we intentionally work with tools and architecture of cultural mentoring and stories of cultural reimagination to create and sustain opportunities for knowing ourselves and each other in ways that may feel at first radically different, but which often quickly widen into a large 'of course!'. Countless millenia of human living with the earth has designed us to gather in these ways. It is only in the recent human timeline that we have forgotten what we need to know to live vitally, joyfully, responsibly, boldly, in the full range of our emotions and expression, and with a rich intermingling with the past and future.

In our own lives we can look to the many ways -- sometimes large, sometimes subtle -- that communities of belonging exist or have at the very least made their appearance. We can practice noticing, and we can practice being a "villager", noticing how each one of us is delightful, compelling, has something to teach us. We can practice being present and open to what each individual, each moment offers us, and how this is all really about a kindred being that is threaded through the universe, is essential to its weave and purpose.

By opening to Village Nature we open to the heart of our inner nature, our earth nature, our whole nature.

In The Village

Many of these articles were written for the Village Learning Community. I invite you to read them, looking to your own 'village' possibilities ....,

We The Village

What Is An Elder? - an article about the need for elders in our culture

Songline: I Hear The Wolf And The Fox And The Weasel - a dream of who in ten years -- or what -- we might all grow to become

Cultural Mentoring & Reimagination

how might we reclaim and deepen together ourvillage nature? We all hold threads of woven community within us - we can all learn from one another, and mentor one another in living mindfully, fully, and heartfully

Clan Mother Awareness - what is clan mother awareness? How might we grow this way of being with one another in 'village'? Musings on this possibility within our nature ....

Sacred Fire

Coming Together Around The Central Fire - thoughts regarding coming together as a "village" around a central fire

In Celebration Of A Story - the passing of Ingwe, the grandfather of Wilderness School, his Sacred Fire, and its weaving into the Village's fire

Nature Celebration

EAST: Welcoming Herbs And Song - an article written for the Village Learning Community - Tips on how to seek balance with the natural world by deepening your experience of the green realm. Also includes an intro to one idea for growing a song community.

Tending Our Grief

Treeletter - Leaf 7 - This downloadable PDF is an article on The Nature Of Grief and the Art of The Three Condolences, practiced by the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people.

Our Nature As Healers

Our Song Nature

A Voice For The Village

Into The Village

Village Wisdom, Village Dreaming - WisdomBridge offers a one-year "ritual village" training program. Wow! Read the description of it, as well as other articles on this site, to get a deep feel for Village Nature. The work of Francis Weller was essential to helping me crystallize of what lies at the heart of Village Nature.

Return to Forest Halls home page

Page updated 4/21/08