For anyone looking to deepen their experience as a mentor and trainer, and to experience the art and alchemy of what it takes create a village... we highly recommend the upcoming Art of Mentoring - facilited by Jon Young, the 8 Shields Institute, and a team of experienced mentors and facilitators from around the country and world.

This year happening in the Santa Cruz Mountains the second week of August.

More Information below.

-Living Mandala

Art of Mentoring

Creating Resilient Mentors, Village & Community

August 14-19, 2011

Santa Cruz Mountains, California

Facilitated by Jon Young, Mark Morey, Lauren Dalberth, David Hage & a Team of experienced leaders, facilitators, and educators from around the world.

Engage the gifts of our elders
Create essential rites of passage for our teens
Ensure parents are supported and thriving
Welcome our babies into a world of open arms
Feel deep compassion and gratitude for All of Our Relations
Understand your gifts and how to apply them in service to the people.

Course Description

The Art of Mentoring is a week-long, experiential, nature based program designed to help us remember these old ways and learn to apply them to our modern communities. Guided by a team of experienced leaders and facilitators from around the world, Art of Mentoring participants come together to experience, learn from and co-create a joyful, engaged learning community. You will walk away with tools and embodied practices of regenerative community design, mentoring techniques, deep nature connection, and an amplified passion for learning. Deep in all of our roots, there are stories of our ancestors living in healthy, regenerative communities—villages where people of all ages were in deep relationship with the land, each other, and themselves. Our hope is to activate and inspire you to create healthy communities right in your own back yard!

The course is taught through group experiential activities, lectures, storytelling, and music. We will be both indoors and outside exploring in the field.

Creating a village where the whole family is welcome, supported and growing together is an important element to the Art of Mentoring culture. In that spirit, there are youth nature connection programs for children aged 4-12 and a teen program for youth ages 13-18. Both the teen program and the youth program run concurrently with the adult program, overlapping for most meals (read further for more information).

Youth Program

The Youth & Kids’ programs include sensory awareness games and exercises, earth living skills, native scout skills, arts and crafts, music and storytelling, and getting to know the natural world through “native eyes.” Children learn these skills and knowledge through artful mentoring that taps into their passions and interests.

The Youth Program for children 7-12 old and the Kid’s Program for 4-6 year-olds make it possible for the whole family to attend the Art of Mentoring and is a critical part of the living culture of awareness. The children add the spark of playfulness as they interact with workshop participants at mealtimes and the evenings. Participants also get to witness mentoring at work with children as the children explore, imagine and play outside with the guidance of a regional network of instructors. The children in turn have an enlivened experience of what it might be like to live in a village surrounded by adults looking out for them.

AOM Teen Program: Mountains to Sea Teen Rendezvous

The AOM Teen Program is designed to immerse teens in wilderness living and adventure. Guided by a team of experienced nature connection mentors, the teens will connect more deeply to the natural world, their peers and themselves through daily activities including primitive skills, tracking, awareness games, scout skills, team building, etc.

The week will culminate with an overnight backpack leaving from the Art of Mentoring base camp and heading out from the mountains to the sea and back again.

Enriching the experience and making it more than “overnight camp,” the Teen Program will have connections with a community of elders, aunts, uncles, and youth that have formed around the Art of Mentoring. The teens will leave with an embodied experience of what it might be like to live in a village surrounded by adults looking out for them. They will play an important role in bringing back the stories of the landscape to the village at large.

Opportunities for Returning Participants!

This year there is a 2nd level experience in the Art of Mentoring for folks who have previously attended an Art of Mentoring and want to deepen their experience being a mentor for others. This “Ring 2 experience will include staff guided nature connection and core routine activities deepening your capacity to guide others in nature connection and core routines. There is a limit of 20 in this program.

For more Information please email: laurendalberth@gmail.com.

For More Information Click Here