Special Events
Flying Deer Nature Center codirector Michelle Apland will join instructors Lorene Wapotich and Mary Sweeney for:
Nature-Based Rites of Passage:
Creating Experiences Girls (and Women) Need
March 19–21, 2010,
at Rowe Camp and Conference Center, Rowe, Massachusetts.
The need for authentic rite of passage experiences for adolescent girls has become a significant concern of many in contemporary society. Throughout their childhood and youth, girls and young women are assailed with negative messages about being female. Often they are not well equipped to resist these messages, which makes forging a healthy identity a difficult process. Additionally, too many people in modern industrialized societies are cut off from their innate connection with the natural world, which provides resilience and a context for the authentic self to emerge.
While many cultures continue to practice intact Earth-based rite of passage ceremonies for girls, in modern societies we have lost touch with the need for and the ability to provide such rites. Many women want to facilitate their daughters’ and other young women’s transition into adulthood, but we need to re-learn how to conduct such rites. Obstacles include the lack of a supportive community of aware and concerned peers, lack of knowledge of how to create authentic and powerful nature-based experiences, and emotional issues that can arise as women revisit their own experience as a female adolescent in a patriarchal society.
Through an alive and dynamic experiential process, research on rites of passage, girls’ development, and nature-based mentoring will be woven into ceremony and preparation for an initiatory experience. On Spring Equinox we will co-create an initiation rite for the group that guides each woman to surface her inner wisdom and claim her role as a rite of passage leader and visionary in her community.
Participants will expect to develop the skills and experience to create effective rites for girls and to form networks with other supportive women. Gain awareness of and a deeper relationship with your innate wisdom and guidance, the wisdom and guidance of your ancestors, of the young women entrusted to your care, and of the Earth herself.
To register online and for more information about Rowe Center, visit www.rowecenter.org.
Mossyback Campout for Men
with Devin Franklin
April 24–25 (Saturday noon to Sunday noon) at Flying Deer Nature Center, New Lebanon, NY
Does your responsibility-filled life need to be balanced with some fun, friendship, and quality connection with Nature? Are you nourished by following animal tracks in snow, carving wood, fire-roasted food, laughing with the guys, playing games of stealth and invisibility, and sleeping to the hush of wind in pines? Do precious moments of backyard "wilderness" solitude bring you peace through your awakened senses? Join us for 24 hours of self-restoration through the enjoyments of adventure and play, rest and comfort, brotherhood and wilderness; and return home with your fire burning bright!
Cost: $100
To register and/or for more information, call Devin at 518.794.6687 ext. 3.