What if what you are seeking is right in front of you?
Most people I know are seeking something. It might be an inner quality like feeling more powerful or confident. Sometimes it is the satisfaction that comes from meeting the needs or wants of our children or partner. Sometimes it is escape or release through a beer, a movie, or eating.
Are you a person who seeks? What do you seek for? Where do you find it?
Mostly, we find a practice that serves us, a routine that is able to get us where we want to go. We do our thing, get our need met, and move on. The practice may be healthy, or it may not. The practice may be conscious, or it may not.
The trouble is, so often we're only meeting our needs on a short term basis. So many practices don't have the capacity to impact us deeply, in a way that affects potent growth and lasting change.
Deep nature connection mentoring is different. The practice is about connecting, about building relationship with nature. It might be a bracken fern that you watch unfurl over a few weeks at your sit spot. It might be an egg mass you watch turn into hundreds of tadpoles and eventually pacific tree frogs. It might be a Western Red Cedar that you learn one moment through the grain of its wood while carving, the next moment through the fibers of its inner bark while twisting cordage, and the next moment through its red and delicious smelling flexible roots while weaving baskets.
Like meeting a new person, a certain awe is present at first, novel and surprising. Over time you come to notice the pattern of certain qualities that are consistent, and then learn to trust that. That leads to relying on those predictable qualities in challenging moments, which in turn draws forth a deep sense of gratitude and eventually deep love and admiration.
Through this practice and journey of connecting, timeless moments occur where everything just melts away. Everything is right in the world. Maybe it is getting swept away by the rich smell of dark, loamy soil. Perhaps it is with an impossibly vibrant green pulsing from nettle leaves in the springtime. Maybe it is a moment that has been built up to over months or even years, like feeling intimately connected and one with a mountain at the end of a primitive wilderness survival trip after putting your life in the hands of the paper birch trees, bracken ferns, clear cool mountain stream, strong moose, feisty red squirrels, piercing stars, sweet fruit, and steadfast rocks. In these moments the separation between "me" and "nature" fades away, and we're left with the irrevocable truth of our interconnection. Our spirits are touched, and our hearts are forever changed.
There is a path here. I am just naming a first few steps, but there is a long journey here that our earth based ancestors knew well. It is a path that is mostly forgotten in our fast paced, globalized world. Give me my starbucks, damn it. We recognized early on the immense value of this path, after experiencing it utterly transform our own lives. Then we set forth to do everything we could to not just walk this path, but learn to effectively mentor others on the path. And then how to guide others to become mentors to guide the next generation on this path. Train the trainers. After all, it was blatantly obvious to us how needed this work is in our world. We made it our life. That was fifteen years ago.
You see, this path changes people. It has changed me. It has changed lots of people here at Twin Eagles. Many of you thank us over and over for the impact this path has had. The thing is though, is that in order for us to keep walking this path, we need to continue to stretch ourselves out of our comfort zone. Left to our own devices, we'll just stick to what is comfortable, even when we know that the things we really yearn for are literally waiting for us, just outside our comfort zone. Not to mention that our mainstream culture has patterned us on living a comfortable life, some would say coddled us. But at what cost? That is why we need mentors. Someone who holds a high bar for us, and supports us to authentically grow, to step out of our comfort zone. Someone who cares. Someone with heart.
When we combine these things, this path of deeply connecting with nature, and mentoring, it has a synergistic effect that yields tremendous growth. Seeing people go through this can literally feel like witnessing a miracle. It regularly brings me to tears, which is of course why I love it so much.
So I just want you to know that is what we do here at Twin Eagles Wilderness School, and that is what we're offering with the Twin Eagles Wilderness Immersion Program, and now with our new Twin Eagles Deep Nature Connection weekend Series for adults. We have a tremendous team of mentors who all care deeply, walk with an uncommon depth of nature connection, and are experienced facilitators with skill, grace, and heart.
This work changes lives, and I've even had people tell me that it has saved lives - their life or the life of a family member. It has saved mine, but I'll have to tell you that story some other time.
If this speaks to you, if you feel it stir you inside, then please consider joining us for our free conference call on Sunday October 4 at 3pm Pacific, where we will share more about this profound journey of deep nature connection mentoring, talk some about the new Deep Nature Connection Weekend Series for adults, and answer your questions. We'll also share a special discount for the program with everyone on the call, and yes, it will be recorded in case you can't make that time. But you need to sign up for it in order to gain access.
Sign up for the free conference call on Deep Nature Connection Mentoring here.
And a request for you, if you would, please help spread the word by sharing this with your friends and family. Maybe you know someone who could benefit from this? Help them out and send them a copy of this email.
Thanks for reading, and may the blessing of deep nature connection be yours.
Tim
Tim Corcoran
co-Director & co-Founder
Twin Eagles Wilderness School
Header photo courtesy Joseph Rocchio Photography
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