Wild Genius
Confirm your unique leadership voice and style.
THE STORY
Apprenticeship | Content | The Story
The world is so big—
Perhaps we could
volunteer . . .
To step off the edge
A dynamic equilibrium of scholarship, practice, and integration
There is a hunger for a return of natural human wildness reflected in the great interest in indigenous teachings and such phenomenon as the rewilding and permaculture movements. Intrinsic to this is an necessary inclusion of rewilding our relationship to the sacred. Dagara Elder Malidoma Somé has called ritual a "technology of the sacred." It is the social component of permaculture and the soul component of rewilding.
Storytelling, dance, music, ceremony, healing work—all of these are in the realm of ritual. This scholarship, including theory, and especially praxis, is meant to both extend your knowledge as a generalist and to confirm the unique character of your own style as it refines.
Spoken of from the perspective of the Dagara elements, it is meant to revive and reinforce a robust sensibility about home and welcome, myth and wild genius, grief and reconciliation, ancestors and creativity, trickster wisdom and healing. These correspond to the five Dagara elements of Earth, Mineral, Water, Fire and Nature.
You're invited to join a fellowship. As Seth Godin notes, "It's hard to imagine something more reassuring, challenging, and productive [than a fellowship] all at once." This reassuring confirms sacred education as a process that reawakens what has been called "the knowledge in your bones." Challenge, there will be plenty enough of—it is intrinsic to the ongoing emergence of the wild genius. And productive, well . . .
Producing ritual programs that you will also be participants in, gatekeepers to, and initiates of, will put you into the awkwardness that well reflects the liminal nature of wild ritual. The test of "productivity" here means an increasing state of resourcefulness, sustainability, agility. It is meant to be practical. It is meant to make your life "larger," as one of my wise teachers once said.
CURRICULUM
Apprenticeship | Content | Curriculum
"Because one day yo
turned
Towards the centre
Which was not you
And you planted
Some seeds
Sang songs
for the Holy
Rachelle Lamb
"Rickety Spoke"
What is covered in the course of the study?
The curriculum delivery reflects a tension between "principle centred" and "curiosity driven." What this means in practice is that it is able to respond with appropriate agility to the real circumstances of participant's lives and the promptings of the spirit world while simultaneously building the foundational blocks of knowledge.
Below are some of the touch points, and also topics will emerge as needed as well.
Undertaking the Funeral of Trailblazing
The Knowledge of Protection and Talismanic Medicine
Helpers from the Other World: Totems Allies and Ancestors
Panpsychism in a Cosmos of Elements
The Singular Hero and the Dreamtime of Communitas
Trancing in and Trancing out: Consciousness and the Apparent
Mythic Nature and the Living World: Archetypes, Gods and Giants
Civilization, Agriculture, Empire and Colonization
Welcoming Medicine and the Earth Spirits
Anatomy of a Ritual
The Lost Forever Dragon and the Wellspring of Sorrow
Emotional Navigation: Complexes, Neurosis, Desire, Longing
Grief and Praise: Poetry, Oratory,
Logos, Eros, Feminine, Masculine
Cultural Appropriation, Cultural Emergency, Cultural Legacy
Wild Genius and the Problem with Daimons
Divination, Navigation, Feeding the Holy
Waters of Life and Waters of Death
Royalty, Warriors, Lovers and the Lost Forever Dragon
Taboos, Allegiances, Meaning and Freedom
Reweaving the Tapestry of Wilderness
Vision, Current Reality, Creative Process, Art
Slow Self Care and Urgent Boundaries
Choreography, Movement, Complexity, Homeostasis
Edges, Centres, Squircles and the Authority of Initiation
Resume of the Spirit, Resume of the Soul
Earning and Claiming Territory
Opportunistic Facilitation and Emergent Curriculum
Group Dynamics and Keeping Tabs in High Tolerance Arenas
Trickster Wisdom and the Necessity of Humour
ACTIVITIES
Apprenticeship | Content |Activities
Oh muse,
Must you strike
in morning rush hour?
In the midst of pancakes
cooking . . . school
lunches packing
lego pieces finding
Could you not come in the
quiet
Moments of the day
to whisper in my ear
your sweet kisses?
Rowena Coshan
A multi-faceted experiential and theoretical investigation of the sacred
GROUP
Your one-on-one coaching time
-
A 60 minute call once a month booked online
-
Additional calls within limits
-
Private online working platform . . . gateway at: https://wildgenius.studio
-
Confidential
MENTOR
-
Community participation 1 hour per week
-
Personal practice approximately 1 hour per week
-
Journalling and notes recommended
STUDY
Saturdays | 8:00 am to 10:00 am
GMT +8 | Australian Western Standard Time
[Fridays | 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
GMT -8 | Pacific Standard or 4:00 pm DST]
-
Approximately 40 calls per year
-
Check-in
-
Reading Discussion
-
Event Development
-
Personal coaching
-
Group discussion
-
Weekly shared practice
PRAXIS
Ritual Planning, Community Outreach, Delivery
-
Understand the structure of rituals
-
Participate as initiates and gatekeepers
-
Practice communicating about ritual
-
Organizing ritual is a key element of ritual
-
Tuition is subsidized by this commitment
RITUALS
Also included is the tuition portion of live events (additional at cost for food and accommodation)
NOTE: In person events are subject to gathering restrictions being lifted as vaccine rollout success.
INITIATION
Each calendar year there is a goal to have one major initiation in each of Australia and Canada:
-
Understand the structure of deep ritual
-
Participate as initiates and gatekeepers
-
Practice communicating about ritual
-
Radical Healing and Initiation Ritual
Possibilities are Grief Ritual, Earth Burial, Life Purpose, Deep Myth and Ritual, Nature Weekend.
OUTCOMES
Apprenticeship | Content | Outcomes
"Life is sculpting you with
Tender
brutal
hands of Love
This is the pathless path
This is the journey
into the Wild"
Maya Luna
"Into the Wild"
What is ritual leadership vocation and service?
Some of many possible examples of subjects that you, as a practitioner, could work with using these skills:
EARTH — issues of welcoming, boundaries, abundance, and community.
MINERAL — working with life purpose, creating, initiation practice and leadership.
WATER — movement, emotion, grief, attention, relating.
FIRE — ancestors, myth, ceremony, traditional knowledge.
NATURE — initiation, play, totems, nature immersion, ritual, divination, talismanic technologies, shrines.
Applying the knowledge of ritual literacy means bringing back something meaningful and helpful to community.
A leader, healer, or facilitator of "sacred space" events can (and must!) apply the traditional cultural understandings of the above issues in their own way, suited to their own proclivities and community sensibilities. We are not after some kind of "purity," rather, meaningful application and change that is helpful to actual people.
Because a foundational principle is the idea that each person has their own unique connection with the Other World and nature, the idea is that unique forms of practice and work will emerge or refine from the process, incorporating individual particular influences and talents.
There can't be bland promises of success and accomplishment. We will encounter trouble and setbacks.
But it will be worthy. We'll jump up alive.