Strengthening the Heartwood

Strengthening the Heartwood

Art of Mentoring Ring 2-4 Peacemaking and Leadership Training

This is an internal training for people that have done an Art of Mentoring

To request the Heartwood 2012 application, please email to artofmentoringuk@gmail.com.

Held by Mark Morey, Maeve Gavin, Alex Meffert, Miki Dedijer, Victoria Mew, Greg Sommers, Malcolm and Adele Clarke and Alex Travers, as well as an acorn team.  We are thankful to the Sussex regional group for hosting us!

 

When: 5pm 27th – 5pm 30th April 2012

Where: Sussex, venue tbc. Camping.

Cost: 175-195

To Book: Read full info online artofmentoring.co.uk.

 

Purpose:

 

We want to form a core group of people that are committed to the 8 Shields way of living and committed to the journey of becoming a Ring 4 stakeholder for Art of Mentoring (see online appendix for more on the profile of R4).

 

From this soil will emerge the future presenters of Art of Mentorings and people who will deliver regional 8 Shields ‘Coyote mentoring’ trainings in the UK, in addition to their own businesses and initiatives.

 

Just like any course, the power of an AoM lies not only in the depth of the ‘teachings’, but in the depths of how those teachings are lived and embodied by the staff sharing the teachings.

 

As someone wanting to represent Art of Mentoring teachings, what are our core values? What actually is it to be a peacemaker today?  What are we committing to and how do we hold ourselves in integrity with those commitments and each other over time?

 

This training is a peacemaking and networking event designed to bring together the bushcraft, culture-craft, permaculture, stewards of the wild within and without, and a wide variety of nature based teachers in the UK who feel the 8 Shields offers a strong container for us to grow together, and who want to be a part of the future leadership bringing the gifts of this work forwards in the UK.

 

It’s about taking the time to listen to each other, to condole and celebrate each other, to hear each other’s visions.  It’s about tending the spaces in between us, before we start running our own UK & EU centred AoM’s.  It’s about laying the foundations of peacemaking between practitioners and colleagues in this diverse field of nature connection and cultural repair, as well as receiving further depth and direction to build on your AoM journey so far.

 

We are thankful to have representatives from Ireland, Germany and Sweden joining us, in future years this training will be more European wide.  For now, let’s get together and stoke our local fire.


 

Context: AoM UK the story so far

  • We have hosted two very successful AoM’s in the south and north of Britain in 2010/11; with more local people holding staff roles each year.
  • We have hosted one networking day with Jon Young and Paul Raphael in March 2010.
  • In consultation with many who had been behind the scenes lifting AoM UK, we gathered in Cherry Woods, Bath, to build our relationships, agree our roles and future direction. We did this again in Scotland 2011.
  • We have created and supported regional networks which have held multiple informal gatherings across the country every quarter and more.
  • We have developed media to support this network, a website, Ning, national conference calls and newsletter.
  • We held one country wide regional gathering in November 2010 in East Anglia.
  • We held a 3 day intensive with Jon Young at Findhorn in March, 2011, training people in the acorn model along side this.
  • Maeve, Feathers and Ciara have staffed at the Vermont Art of Mentoring.
  • Maeve attended the annual US Ring 4-5 presenter training 2011 and will be on the design team for this international training in 2012.
  • We have offered free monthly mentoring calls for our regional coordinators, to maintain the pulse and connections.
  • We are now offering this ‘Strengthening the Heartwood’ training with Mark Morey.

For more on any of these events see http://www.artofmentoring.co.uk/march-events

So as you can see we have gone beyond simply being a vehicle through which AoM courses are run.  We have gradually been nourishing a network by hosting events that specifically support relations between nature connectors.  The real beauty of the 8 Shields model is that is serves as a map for healthy, nature-based culture that gives us all a place around the table.

The opportunity and risk
Many of us share a great yearning to be more connected, more inter-dependent, more accountable to the eyes of a village, to share our learning’s and guidance.  It can be very lonely bringing our visions to the world without the support of a wider web.  One of the great gifts of the AoM week-long course in the UK has been to gather those tending their own fires of nature connection around one central fire. Here we feel the warmth of the village founded on deep nature connection.  We go back to our communities revitalized, with more allies and kin.

And yet, this vision of coming together more is to some degree a risk for everyone.  An organic, decentralized way of working side by side tends to feel safer.  There is no structural hierarchy, but always inevitable social heirachy.  The advantages are complete freedom and independence, local empowerment and yet it can also at times leave us feeling like lone wolfs.

Historically the 8 Shields based nature connection movement has been decentralized, many people receiving and using 8 Shields methodology and principles would not necessarily even identify themselves as being part of a ‘movement’.  There has been great health in the diversity, different flavours and specialism’s that have emerged, and cross-pollinated with other teachings that can still be held within the 8 Shields basket.

But on the downside is best practice, innovations and re-occuirng mistakes and the learning’s of our shadows have no efficient way to be shared with the whole.  Disagreements, competition, protectionism have no ways of being soothed, or even better, being prevented at a meta level.

The international 8 Shields movement is now getting more organized, by developing a way to relate as a whole system, diverse and consciously inter-connected.  What’s more this gives us a clear way of coordinating trainings and ensuring that there is integrity and quality behind any 8 Shields certified work.  Over the last 5 years the 8 Shields Institute has been doing some deep investigations and soul searching into what really works, and now are ready to emerge with a more unified and clear voice.

Within the UK, and Europe we have an organic grassroots nature connection movement that grew from many different lineages in which we are all free to occupy our niche however we feel called to.  Within that some are consciously using the 8 Shields teachings and others are coming to it now finding it to be a helpful map to hold much of what they have been doing already and also rounding it out more fully. The AoM too has a lineage and exists as a movement that has ways of being accountable to each-other, providing a container for 8 Shields to uphold it’s integrity through time, and for us to feel mutually supported.  We are doing our best to grow in the UK maintaining the best of our horizontal structure and reaping the benefits of a vertical structure, with a well tended central fire.   What’s more, we need trust and condolence for those holding such a blessed and onerous responsibility as to tend a central fire.  This comes through long and slow relationship building over time.

Over the last three years we have needed to concentrate and consolidate to make sure energy gathers rather than disperses.  Now we are at a new moment of wanting to invite the wider circle of people living this to give feedback and input in the direction and growth of AoM UK.

We have been learning from and sharing our insights with sister and other organizations such as Transition Town Network, Mankind Project, Work That Reconnects and Journeyman UK .  Art of Mentoring UK is just one niche within a broader picture.  No one organization could or should ever be an umbrella for everyone. Diversity is resiliency!

This training is a relationship building event designed to bring together the bushcraft, permaculture, culture-craft , stewards of the wild within and without and wide variety of nature based teachers in the UK who feel the 8 Shields offers a strong container for us to grow together, and who want to be a part of the future leadership bringing the gifts of this work forwards in the UK.

We are thankful too, to have representatives from Ireland, Germany and Sweden joining us, in future years this training will be more European wide.  For now, let’s get together and stoke our local fire.

Who is this for?:

  • Past participants at an AoM (other 8 shields depth trainings will also be considered).
  • Ideally has returned to AoM each year, and applied to staff this year.
  • Those on a conscious nature connection path (you do not have to have literally done the AoM Ring 2  nature immersion although this would be an advantage).
  • You are already guiding others in nature connection and cultural repair.
  • Committed to being a pillar for nature connection and cultural repair in your region
  • Committed to leading future AoM’s and regional trainings
  • You do not need to know the 8 Shields model inside out, we are really aware there have only been 2 AoMs in the UK and no longer term depth training so we don’t expect people to be fluent in the model or terms used.  We do want you to know in your bones that what you experienced at AoM you are committed to facilitating for others and want to be a part of a network with this objective.

To Book: please request an application form.  Deadline Jan 15th.  You will hear back by January 29th.

Details:  venue tbc, will be in Sussex.

We are blessed to have guests:
Mark Morey bringing 25 years of experience of leading the North American and international nature connection and cultural repair movement.  Mark has been supporting and guiding us over the past three years.
Alex Meffert who co-funded Corvus in Germany, bringing his experience of how the German speaking wilderness movement has evolved peacemaking. Alex has supported us at Both UK AoM’s and Jon Young Intensive at Findhorn Scotland.
Miki Dedijer hosts the cultural mentoring calls for 8 shields village talk, has been involved in the Art of Mentoring since first introduced in Europe, and has supported both UK AOMs.
UK team: Maeve Gavin is national coordinator for AOM UK, Victoria Mew is events coordinator and and Feathers, Adele and Malome have been a constant and committed presence behind the scenes and front of house supporting the growth of 8 shields teachings in the UK over the last three years.

For Biographies please see:
http://www.artofmentoring.co.uk/what-is-art-of-mentoring-uk/uk-team-2

FAQ

If I can’t attend this can I still be involved in the evolution of AoM UK?

Yes.

I am not sure if I am committed yet but I would like to come and find out more?

Or

I like the AoM model and apply it in my own ways. But I don’t want to run future AoMs or Coyote mentoring weekends, I just want to meet people and learn more so I can apply it to my work.

You would be better off to come back to AoM and do the ring 2.  This is an event with specific intention, and we want to be clear that all those attending are already committed to this path.

I am already a very experienced teacher in this field, and I am not sure I want to adopt a whole new model, even though I see that broadly speaking many of the 8 Shields principles are what I already live and do.  I want to be a part of this, but am not sure what my place could be with in this.

We really don’t want t lose the wisdom and experience of those already well established, and understand this conundrum.   The main question here for us, is do you want to support the evolution of the 8 shields work in the UK?  Do you want to support those stepping forwards to do that?  If the answer is yes, we’d be honoured to have you at this event. The ‘8 Shields’ is after all only a map reflecting something indigenous and ancient, and although we want people to understand it in order to recognize how it really helps people to come home to nature and themselves.  We don’t want jargon to get in the way of our relationships, so please join us!  This forest needs old growth and new growth to stand together.

I love 8 Shields totally, but also need to make a living, will this training sanction me to teach under the 8 Shields?

This is preliminary training to future trainings where we will be certifying people as qualified to run regional Coyote Mentoring weekend trainings (we’ll probably have a different UK name for those weekends).  We will follow a model similar to Transition Town Network, and have a central booking system for local trainings. As a certified facilitator you would be paid for your work and be able to do that alongside your own projects.  But we are not there yet, we want to first create a web of support, and really ensure trust and quality at the core before launching this.  Attending this event does not automatically mean you will be selected as a Coyote Mentoring trainer.

Of course anyone and everyone can apply 8 Shields to their work, we are just making a distinction between who is qualified to train the trainers.

Appendix:

What is Ring 4 ?

–Ring 4 means a commitment to a ring 5 west staffing journey at Art of Mentoring.
–R4 begins with a commitment to the success of the whole AoM, not just an onsite program-hours commitment.

This includes:
- planning calls 6-9 months in advance
- a program manager level of responsibility
- signing on to leadership unity & conduct agreements
- Commitment to being mentored and to receiving and giving evaluation and feedback
- understanding and acceptance of the certification and evaluation system as a work in progress, willing to play along, contribute to its success by participating, learning, growing

–Commitment to peacemaking in life, beyond any one program
–Commitment to place, putting down roots, accountability to local elders, peers, youth
–Demonstrated stakeholder qualities: starting programs, cultural initiatives.

What is Ring 5 ?

–Ring 5, the West profile, is a role model.  Skilled, embodied, and articulate.  At an AOM this is the role that will lead main topic presentations, mentor acorn roles, facilitate clearings between staff, mentor staff training components.  Ring 5 owns the role, self initiating solutions and resource management, owns personal responsibility to language/interpersonal issues and welcomes healing process and moving on, accepts peer to peer feedback and mentoring from Ring 6 and above.  ’Buck stops here’ is the motto.  This is a manager-level paid position. Reliable, resourceful, initiated into the ceremonial and spiritual way of seeing things.
–Ring 5 articulates an ownership of the AoM. We own the vision, we are place holders, we hold the high bar standard for ourselves and future generations.

Ring 4 has a commitment to train and prepare for that future.