Summary: how Wisdom, Nature Quest, Awareness Training in Nature helps give rise to increased creativity, leadership skills, and team performance – for both individuals and organizations.
One of the most important contributions of this integrated Awareness Training combined with a contemporary Solo in Nature is the capacity to access deep levels of creative insight. Both organizations and individuals have experienced significant benefits from this process. Spending solo time in Nature, combined with helpful training tools to deepen the experience vividly, has proven to be an exceptionally successful means for opening innovative views.
The life-transforming effect of a Nature Retreat was described in the book, “Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future,” by Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski, Betty Sue Flowers, and C. Otto Scharmer. Each of these authors is a significant leader in developing means for positive organizational and cultural transformation. In their book, some of the impacts of making a Nature Retreat are summed up in several quotes from John P. Milton, a well-known meditation master, internal energy teacher, and wilderness quest guide. Several years ago, as Joseph Jaworski was doing a powerful 14-Day Sacred Passage Awareness Training in Baja with John, he asked if humanity could avert the impending ecological catastrophes now facing the Earth.
John responded, ”he’s become convinced that political, legal, and economic approaches don’t go deep enough. By themselves, they won’t bring about the penetrating changes in human culture that we need for people to live in true harmony and balance with one another and the Earth. He told me that he is convinced that the next grand opening of an ecological worldview will have to be internal. Then he said, ‘I believe the experience (the Sacred Passage Solo) you’ll have over the next few days will deepen your understanding of what this means.” After his solo, Joseph wrote: “I saw something there that changed my life and what I’m going to do with the rest of it, as far as I can see now. The experience was profoundly affirming. I discovered that our profound sense of separation keeps this awareness from developing on a larger scale. I experienced boundaries breaking down that I didn’t even know existed.”
Internally, one honor all of Nature, the mystery of Source, and the gift of Life. John recently described the start of the internal journey as follows: “Pay attention and stay alert,” he said. “Be open to the importance of seemingly trivial occurrences. Trust the value of what you notice. Don’t be guided by your categorical, rational thinking processes. Let your perception open in new, intuitive ways.”
In a modern context, this advice helps to open the door to direct experience of what Otto Scharmer describes as the profound levels of creativity that can be accessed by the U-Theory process. Otto’s book on the U-Theory emphasizes the importance of touching into one’s most profound inner Source nature to open the doors to fresh, creative insight truly. Specific meditation practices and Awareness Training designed to access Source nature, as well as guided solo experiences in Nature, are two of the most powerful and rapid ways to make contact with this creative Source. The Way of Nature’s Sacred Passage process integrates both of these approaches in its work with individuals and organizations.
When this process is utilized in a whole team of people working together within an organization, significant additional benefits often arise. Group teamwork skills are often dramatically enhanced, and natural leadership capacities are supported. Also, those who have gone through the wilderness solo and Awareness Training process usually report major improvements in the ability of a team or individual to handle complexity and stress. In summary, John (Way of Nature) and Göran (Nature Academy Learning Lab) have designed a unique, comprehensive series of Awareness Training practices that support:
Build capacity among global leaders and institutions
To guide top executives & leaders to new levels of understanding: how ecological imperatives and principles of sustainability must inform business leaders, community innovators, and heads of major global institutions. Clarity arises from pristine awareness at the moment.
Both John and Göran have guided many world leaders, not at least at Tällberg Forum, and to name a few:
*Peter Senge, MIT Professor & author of The Fifth Discipline;
*Angela Cropper, UN Assistant Secretary-General;
*James Hansen of NASA;
*Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org & author of Deep Economy and Earth;
*Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland;
*Brian Arthur, former Dean of Economics at Stanford and a leading world economist; *Lars H. Thunell, Exec. V.P. International Finance Corporation, The World Bank USA; *Royal Family members of Sweden and Holland; and
*Otto Scharmer, MIT Lecturer and author of “The U Theory.”
Nature as The Teacher
Göran and John have pioneered unique programs and exercises that awaken our sensing capacity to tune deeply into nature. They both know the root cause of our ecological crises is a false perception of separation between ourselves and all of life. Göran founded Nature Academy and GetWILD programs in Scandinavia to introduce The Way of Nature programs similar to the training and solos Göran innovated at the Tallberg Forum. Special rites of passage experiences become essential to inspiring ecological wholeness, integral awareness, and systems thinking, all supported by the wisdom of wild Nature.
We aim to guide top executives & leaders to new levels of understanding: how ecological imperatives and principles of sustainability must inform business leaders, community innovators and heads of major global institutions. Clarity arises from pristine awareness at the moment.
