AoM Team

You will find here key presenters and mentors holding the centre for Art of Mentoring courses in the UK.  We are thankful to our committed wider network of nature mentors that contribute in many direct and indirect ways.

Jon Young
Jon is a storyteller and visionary who is dedicated to helping communities and individuals build deeper connections with each other and with the earth. He was mentored as a child into a powerful
relationship with nature and sense of place by the renowned tracker Tom Brown Jr.
Guided by the support of traditional native elders from around the world, Jon has pioneered a system called 8 Shields Cultural Mentoring that blends mentoring and cultural techniques with a broad array of tools for connecting with nature for global and personal healing. Jon is the coauthor of several books, including his most recent, Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature. Jon’s book on bird language, What the Robin Knows will be published in 2012.

More about Jon can be found at his personal website:http://www.JonYoung.org

Jon Young will be our guest keynote speaker for the first 3 days of Art of Mentoring 2012.

Miriam Dror
Miriam is a licensed psychotherapist with over 40 years of practice and experience in her own amalgamation of Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Jungian, Gestalt, and body based therapies.  She has designed and facilitated groups and trainings in the U.S. and England as well as participating in the facilitation of Nature Based programs for children and adults (including several AOMs).  Miriam calls her work Human Development by Nature’s Design, which reflects Miriam’s close ties to the wisdom inherent in the patterns of nature to guide our human unfolding.  Braving the art of inner tracking, working with Rites of Passage, Initiation, universal archetypes, and heroic journey stories we challenge ourselves to bring greater harmony and balance to ourselves, our communities and ultimately, to our world.

Mark Morey, International Art of Mentoring Co-ordinator
Mark is a creative artist, a visionary educator, a cultural engineer and consultant who designs regenerative holistic communities with timeless native principles. Since 1993 he has founded three transformational organizations: Deep Wilds Summer Camps, Vermont Wilderness School and currently, the Institute for Natural Learning.

His history includes sparking a nature and community awareness movement in the Northeast impacting 7000 adults and children today. He has facilitated over 35 weeklong transformational passages for adults initiating them into the Art of Mentoring. He has conducted the Sacred Fire rites of passages for boys for the last 6 years in collaboration with three wilderness schools in the northeast network and Paul Raphael Odawa Peacemaker, (Michigan).

Mark is inspired by the heroes journey model and the oral history of his ancestors and native people around the world.  “Our work at this time in history is to be extremely innovative and bold. Manifesting this kind of change will demand risk-taking of all kinds from people of all ages. It’s a great time to be alive.”

We each carry a piece of wild aliveness and unique beauty, and I try to coax it out where ever I can.  One of my greatest joys is to help people re-establish their ancient bonds to the natural world. Masks fall away, magic happens, people bloom in new found belonging and the world responds! I have looked in wild animals eyes seeing only a curious friend.

Miki Dedijer
The journey home back to an intimate relation with this earth is one of healing, play, creativity, song and shared stories of our personal discoveries, frustrations and adventures. I have a passion for play and mischief myself, and I love to join others who are reconnecting to their natural home, getting to know their neighbours, looking into the eyes of a sparrow hawk or learning the joys of foraging sun-warm berries in the woods.
Graduating with a BA in Ecology from Princeton University, I then spent 20 years as a film-maker and journalist specializing in how our relationship to nature affects our quality of life. After co-directing The Planet, a four-hour documentary TV-series about our impact on the biosphere, I re-located and began my own journey home.
Today I live on a farm on the west coast of Sweden with my family.  We tend the land to maximize biological diversity, and tend our relations with equal care as we slowly co-create a community of all ages. Through Vild Kultur, we offer workshops in permaculture, year-long programs in nature connection, seasonal festivities to stoke passion and curiosity. I am grateful for the inspiration of my grandfathers who worked in the forests of Sweden and the mountains of Hercegovina, and for the many mentors and friends who have shown me the way home.

Lauren Dalberth
Lauren is a co-owner and principal designer for Weaving Earth, a Permaculture design firm specializing in Holistic Landscape Design, Deep Nature Connection & Permaculture Education Services, Garden Coaching and Nature Connection Mentoring.  She is a core facilitator of the Regenerative Design &Nature Awareness Intensive (RDNA) & the Four Seasons Permaculture Design Course (PDC) at the Regenerative Design Institute in Bolinas, CA.  Lauren also works with the 8-Shields Institute, co-facilitating the Art of Mentorings and the Bird Lanuguage Intensives.  She has been working and learning in the field for over 10 years and brings a deep commitment and strong background to her work.
As an Educator and Permaculture designer, Lauren’s intention is to revive and foster the vital relationship that humans play in the creation and regeneration of healthy ecosystems, both on the land and in the community.  Her work in the world is a call to humanity to once again step into our role as caretakers of the earth and do our part to create fertile, abundant and regenerative ecosystems for the future generations to enjoy.  Her in-depth work facilitation the ARt of Mentoring and Cultural Mentoring models are a strong seed toward that vision.  Lauren’s deep curiosity and love of life keep her learning new things in each moment!

Alex Meffert
My journey home is one of smelling the soil, of touching the ground – of harvesting stories from places and people.

I rediscovered my love for Nature when I started travelling wild places – curious, all senses alert. That is when I feel alive. And my soul gets tending.
Through working with my hands I find my way back to the love I carry for people and for the knowledge that has been passed down to us. Nowadays I also find beauty in sitting with questions and waiting for answers.
I feel blessed with the privilege to pass on what I have learned and experienced.

I am part of Corvus Wildnisschule located at Bodensee in Southern Germany where we run programs for all ages in connecting people to the natural world around and within. I am passionate about acknowledging magic that happens every day. And I love music.

Victoria Mew, Art of Mentoring UK Event Co-ordinator 2012
“After doing a family camp with Trackways when I was 12, I was hooked when it came to learning about the natural world and my place among it…  I found it extremely valuable having a variety of nature-based experiences and mentors sprinkled into an otherwise ‘ordinary’ education throughout my teens.  I chose to spend my gap year with Wilderness Awareness School.  During the year my earth-based skills improved, my confidence in storytelling was nurtured, my awareness of the natural world and the plants and animals of that place grew and I was deeply inspired by their approach to mentoring.  The inspirations from this year lead to me being part of the team that has launched the Art of Mentoring here in the UK.”

Victoria finished a degree in Human Sciences in 2010, which included the opportunity to research on the topic “How growing up separate from natural environments affects childhood development.  She then took some time to explore the British Isles, sleep under the stars in the Scottish Highlands, swim with seals and an otter in a sea loch explore woods and creeks of Wales and generally get out there..  Victoria is now based in Sussex and works with several organisations (including: CLR, ESA, Trackways, Talking Trees, AoMUK) expanding people’s comfort with, connection to, skills and awareness of the natural world.  Helping people develop  and deepen their relationship with fire and helping people feel more comfortable out in the woods and with others through games and child’s passions are some of her favorite things to bring to this work.

Greg Sommers
Greg grew up in the lush temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States.  He began learning the art of tracking, nature awareness and survival skills at a young age from Jon Young and the wilderness awareness school.  He went to spend a year living in the Pine Barrens in a primitive shelter at Tom Brown’s Tracker school.  Greg did a degree in Wildlife Studies, was lead instructor for the Native Eyes year programme at the Regenerative Design Institute, California and continues to integrate his deep love and knowledge of the natural world with the healthy inner work and living community models.

Monika Koncz MacKenzie, Art of Mentoring UK Administrator 2012
Monika is passionate about exploring alternative paths to conventional education, working with youth creatively and outdoors. She is the Director for Community Engagement & Learning at PYE – Partners for Youth Empowerment, an international arts-based empowerment organisation. Her experiences spans from corporate leadership development, coaching, and facilitating workshops for young people across in India, Mexico and Nigeria with AIESEC.

She has worked in the NGO, governmental and business sector. After having been a leadership consultant at Future Considerations, a London-based consultancy, Monika has recently spent time retreating and apprenticing in wilderness and with communities in the world to explore soil, soul and society. A recent project was to gather stories from the community on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound Area, the Pacific Northwest, US where she filmed local people’s stories about land, spirit and community. Monika studied Cultural Anthropology, Archeology and Sociology and holds a Master’s degree in Sociology. She now lives in Forest Row, East Sussex.

Dave Hage
Since discovering Permaculture and tracking as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay in 2000, Dave has continued, both personally and professionally, down a path of exploration in the realm of Regenerative Community Design.  In 2005 he was a part of the pioneering class of the Regenerative Design & Nature Awareness program (RDNA), the first intensive of its kind to blend the fields of Permaculture and Nature Connection into one program.  Currently Dave is core staff for the RDNA program and the Four Seasons Permaculture Design Course at the Regenerative Design Institute.  Dave is also a trained Wilderness Rites of Passage guide, and has been facilitating Vision Quests for the past 7 years.  He strongly believes that returning rights of passage to our culture is a critical element of regenerative design.  His passion and enthusiasm for working with people of all ages, helping them connect to nature, and to their true, powerful selves, make Dave a potent teacher and an effective mentor.

Alex Travers (aka Feathers)
Alex teaches wilderness living skills in the UK and abroad.  His passion for nature started as a young boy when he studied the birds and hid in the bushes to get away from it all.

After a number of years practicing the art of learning from nature and being influenced by the teachings of Grandfather, Tom Brown and Jon Young, he has started to get a real insight into the power of nature connection in the construction of what it is to be a truly alive human being.  He also likes to laugh a lot.

Adele Clarke
Guiding people through various forms of education and self development has been Adele’s life work and purpose, always aiming “to bring forth what is within”. In her own journey she has been especially inspired by the playfulness and rootedness of the Andean Wisdom Keepers and would like us all to share these gifts in our own life journeys. Her work has taken different paths such as; teaching sciences, sport, outdoor education, landscape archaeology, earth skills and nature connection guide, home educator and as a student/practitioner of various indigenous, mystic and spiritual traditions. It is her deepest hope that we all find the “mirrors” we need in order to see our own true nature.

Evan McGown 
Evan is from Athens, GA, USA. He is co-author of Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature and has worked for years with both Wilderness Awareness School and the Power of Hope, an international arts-based empowerment organization. Evan’s contribution to this England AoM will focus on dynamic group facilitation skills that includes music, metaphor, diversity-based dialogue, and collaborative creativity. Evan wishes to support every participant in stepping into his or her own authentic power and creative leadership.

(Evan cannot make AoM 2012, but will be back for other UK adventures).