Wild Genius

For the past twenty years I have had an independent part time practice working with people in gatherings I have organized, designed, and led. The gatherings work in the way of the Earth’s traditional peoples, re-inviting nature and spirit into a “larger than only human” community. In these gatherings, the interdisciplinary concept “it takes a village” informs the creation of learning environments that encourage transformative extension on aspects of self, and the way self relates to social, natural and imaginative environments.

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I see education as overlapping with leadership training, and the development of ecological and systemic recognition of whole systems. The gatherings I lead understand personal psychology as part of a full ecological process. In effect I have been a self-employed facilitator of community development and personal growth. I see facilitation (following Trevor Bentley) as, “the provision of opportunities, resources, encouragement and support for the group to succeed in achieving its objectives and to do this through enabling the group to take control and responsibility for the way they proceed.”

 

My main framework has been inspired by several teachers. Dr Michael Meade, (Mosaic Foundation) works with myth and its modern application, extending upon the work of Joseph Campbell, and others. David McMurray Smith (Fantastic Space) works as an independent educator in Personal Performance and Theatre studies since starting his own studio after an academic career as a director and producer. Speaking more broadly, I have been influenced by thinkers such as Lyall Watson, Ivan Illich, Wade Davis, Chistopher Alexander and Gregory Bateson. Foremost, Dr. Malidoma Somé has brought the indigenous wisdom of his people, the Dagara of Burkina Fasso to share with the West to, originally on the instruction of tribal Elders.

 

Somé’s assignment (and genius) has been to bridge the gap between indigenous ways of knowing and the modern. His education was unique, combining a western academic education (he holds three Master’s degrees and Two PhDs) with a traditional one (he is also a traditional diviner, shaman, and initiated Elder). The implied charge passed on to me is to give the seeds of this knowledge an independent planting in the modern world—working with the practices of indigenous knowledge in a modern setting.

 

Examples of my work include rituals with the elements of fire, water, earth, mineral, and nature, which are the five “clans” of the Dagara mythology. Specific purposes range between healing from grief and ancestral wounds, to liberating creative energy, the expression of authentic voice, recognition and remembering of  life purpose, and restoring love for the Earth and nature as community values. Traditional storytelling, which historically has always educated about the intersection of personal life and the life of the community, is a foundation stone of the work. Therefore, in the above context, rituals are events that serve to create a space where communication between the human and “other-than-human” worlds can happen. Each is simultaneously specific to a purpose and general to the ongoing issues of community, healing, and initiation.

 

I see the current challenge of critiquing a dominant culture based on limitless expansion and consumption of being an issue of zeitgeist, of world view or paradigm, pervading all but marginal spaces. In such work, issues of human experience—feeling, imagination, embodiment, intellect, and spirit must be central to any attempt to re-orient and express human existence in a fashion in tune with ecological realities. By necessity, this work is rightly innovative and improvisational to ensure it is responsive to needs and conditions, adopting models from various disciplines, and adapting them in bricolage where seemingly appropriate.