The search for a well being-well earth is dependent on real and regular opportunities for humans to experience themselves within powerful naturescapes.

These explorations emphasize the multi-dimensional human connection to nature – affective, cognitive and behavioural, and compares and contrasts eurocentric and indigenous understandings of the natural world. In this context, the contested nature of the term ‘wilderness’ and divergent notions of the sacred will be explored.

Participants are encouraged to actively participate in critical analysis and personal reflection and encouraged to be involved in community-based activities that reflect the aim of living and working sustainably.

The ‘alive’ physical ecology of the chosen place will be an ever present encounter. We will be living in place more than we will be moving and exploring the island. We will be listening to and observing what comes to us as much as what we seek out.

We will be exploring and sharing our experiences and senses of what is sacred ecology. We will be asking how we can develop authentic ways for its expression through story telling and honouring rituals. This begins with each participant bringing with them a sacred object and sharing a story of its meaning.

Social ecology will be explored through sharing everyday survival tasks as well as gatherings around the fire circle, sharing experiences and exploring relationships in morning community meetings, and through connections with other species.

Environmental education: About, in and for the environment

We implement the dictum that environmental education needs to be about the environment, in the environment and for the environment. We bring the academic study of social inquiry, ecological studies, and spiritual explorations into the field as a means to expand both the content and form of this knowledge. The integration of these discourses and the practical experience of them are of increasing importance in view of the growing body of research and publications on the impact of the environmental crisis on the physical, mental and spiritual health of the community (eg, Conn, 1999).

There is a large body of research into the effects of wilderness experiences, which point to the changing perceptions of participants in the field in terms of person and community (Greenway, 1995, Hallen, 2000).

This wilderness experience provides opportunities for new views and understandings of the natural world to be presented (Haluza-Delay, 1999). It offers a strong contrast to the city environment to allow participants to reflect on techno-industrial society and their participation in it from a distance. It also allows participants and facilitators to interact and regain a sense of connection with nature in ways that foster an appreciation of the web of life and humanity’s place within that web.

Well being – Well earth

The search for a well being-well earth is dependent on real and regular opportunities for humans to experience themselves within powerful naturescapes. The little time we spend outdoors highlights the urgency to explore partnerships between learning and wellbeing that enhance reasons for being outdoors and the need for the balance to shift from learning about to learning in nature's places. Our increasing everyday alienation from nature undermines the depth of heart and soul commitment for the earth. Increasing the amount of abstracted cognitive knowledge about the environment is no substitute and does not necessarily mean an increase in sustained action for the rest of nature. Research on pro environmental behaviour shows it is mainly related to individuals' experiences in nature (Finger, 1994).

This opportunity explores the relationships between the participants' and the habitats of a particular place. It develops a critical understanding of the participant's own and society's disconnection from nature. The emphasis is on using the experience of being in wilderness and in community to bring the meaning of social and sacred ecology alive. (Haluza-Delay, 2000). This approach is affirmed by research on the effects of wilderness sojourns (eg, Greenway, 1996; Segal, 1997; Fox, 1998). The agenda shifts from the global to the local, from theory to experience, from the philosophical-political to the personal, and from outer work to inner work and then back to the global.

Re-connect, review and reflect

At a time of ever increasing environmental devastation, this experience provides an opportunity to review and reflect on the effect of this devastation and the accompanying disconnection from nature at a personal and social level.

We offer an opportunity to take part in and evaluate the experience of a small community of participants in a wilderness location in terms of social structures and practices, their relationship to place, their impact on the local environment, and the rituals and other practices involved in honouring that place.

Integrating these issues in the wilderness context provides a practical understanding of diverse ecological processes; it gives first hand experience of the tools required for minimizing humanity’s destructive impact on the planet and offers opportunities for learning about ways to restore the health, diversity and complexity of both ecological and human communities. It outlines practices that can be regenerating for both personal and community development.

Objectives

Participants who complete this journey will:

• Develop their understanding of the physical and social ecology of this place in nature through reflecting on their experiences within it.
• Explore expressions of 'sacred' in a natural environment, where manifestations may include humility, stillness, honouring nature’s power for transcendence of both self and ones species-hood.
• Deepen their experience and understanding of the role of their nature connections in personal review, regeneration and development. An example may be a more conscious exploration of nature’s role in facilitating grief, pleasure, hope and/or creativity.
• Work more deeply with their challenges of community engagement and the meaning of living as part of a sustainable social ecology, including exploring opportunities to consider changes in living patterns.
• Experience and examine issues of appropriate technology for engaging with nature.
• Develop capacities for regenerating partnership between humans and the rest of nature, and explore outcomes for how participants live and work in society.

Further reading

Wilderness Journey into Social and Sacred Ecology

This is our story of a journey into experiences of social and sacred ecology. It arises out of our acute sense of loss of community with the human and the non-human world, together with the marginalisation of senses of life as sacred. Social ecology is the study of processes of regenerating connection between people and the rest of nature. It recognises that human existence and well-being is dependent on being having significant relationships with human and non-human species. The Sacred acknowledges a spiritual understanding of the natural world however this is manifested. It is not connected to any one particular religious or spiritual tradition, but is found in encounters with ‘otherness’ that reach beyond oneself and within oneself. The fusion of Social and Sacred Ecology joins the humancenteredness of the social, the transcendence of the sacred, with the interconnectedness of the web of life…

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