Cultivating The Diviner

An Apprenticeship

The Primary Text

June – December 2026

With Colin Campbell
Supported by Rachel Fleming & Naomi Lewis

Animate Earth

Course Structure & Fees

An Online Programme

The Primary Text

Apprenticeship

Structure:
This apprenticeship is held in 3 modules detailed below.

Each module will consist of 3 x 2 hour online ‘teaching and practice’ sessions which will be recorded for those who are not able to attend live.

There will be additional recorded material and home-based assignments of at least 2 hours per week. The amount of time you are able to spend on these between sessions will determine the depth of your experience.

Dates: June – December 2026 

Module 1: Threads & Raising Air 

June:  2nd, 9th, 16th: 6pm-8pm (UK time) / 7pm-9pm (South Africa time)

Module 2: The Green Language – Metaphor, Symbol & Myth

September:  8th, 15th,  22nd: 6pm-8pm (UK time) / 7pm-9pm (South Africa time)

Module 3: Finding Our Tools

December: 1st, 8th, 15th: 6pm-8pm (UK time) / 8pm-10pm (South Africa time)

Fees

Apprenticeship Fee:  £1500

We are able to offer a small number of bursary funded places at lower fee for those who would not otherwise be able to attend, including those on less advantageous exchange rates. Please apply here. 

An Invitation

This is a apprenticeship for those who are called to work closely with the ‘primary text’ of the natural world in the role of seer or diviner.

It was Thomas Berry who said that nature itself is ‘the primary text’ that contains all the instructions on how to live in the world in a state of balance, harmony, and in conscious relationship with those denizens of the ‘more than human world’ both seen and unseen.

In most cases and places however, we have forgotten how to read this text. We have lost our access to it and our understanding of it, leading to a sense of separation from our original instructions, from the lore of the land, and from meaning, belonging and direction. But it is still there within, awaiting our remembering, calling for a cultivation that is critical in our times.

In this deep exploration we seek to re-establish an everyday connection with this field of living and evolving information that is held within nature, within ourselves. We seek to learn the particular ‘green language’ that arises when each of us allows this relationship to develop. We do this through opening our perceptions and our imaginations, our intuitions and our somatic sensibilities to the possibility of a two-way conversation with nature.

There are many paths we can follow, the fragments of methodology and guidance from occluded magical practice and the remaining wisdom traditions of the world. We bring one particular map, a map that originates in the indigenous traditions of Botswana, that together we are translating and evolving for use in  contemporary times. We look at how to unfold this body of practice into our lives, and to translate its revelations as guidance, gifts and medicine for ourselves and our communities.

Colin Campbell is a practising diviner with the wisdom traditions of Botswana. Listen to him speak here on his understanding of divination and it’s relevance for our current times.

This apprenticeship is aimed at enabling participants to find and cultivate the diviner within. It is about supporting a life in which we are in reciprocal relationship with the natural world, working ever more closely towards the restoration of beauty and balance.

It is a process of deepening for those who have an existing divination practice or for those who have an intention, aptitude or interest for divinatory work. As well as inner cultivation we will consider how to find and work with our own divination tools.

It will be deeply experiential and will require participants to practice within and outside of sessions. Our circle will be made up of people and places from around the world, sharing the experiences and messages that arise from our ‘tracking territories’ and from ourselves.

This is a very unique opportunity to learn a method and be mentored first-hand by a practising diviner within the traditions of Botswana.

Colin Campbell Diviner
Animate Earth
Colin Campbell

Your Guides

The lead guide of this apprenticeship is Colin Campbell. He will be supported in delivering this body of work by Rachel Fleming and Naomi Lewis. 

Colin works with the wisdom traditions of South Africa, specifically those that are based on our relationships with the ancestors and spirits of nature. He looks at where these ancient indigenous practices collide and coalesce with the knowledge and belief systems of the west.

One of the most unique and precious treasures Colin Campbell bears is that he is one of the few who were accepted, taught and initiated by some of the wisest pre-industrial African knowledge carriers who lived in Southern Africa. Sadly, due to the decline of this indigenous culture and its associated natural habitats, Colin and his younger brother Niall, are now amongst the rarest-known custodians of ancient sacred African knowledge systems.

He now works around the world as a diviner, teacher and public speaker, developing forms through which to bring this knowledge to the modern world.

Dr Rachel Fleming

Rachel Fleming has worked with animist education for many years, designing and delivering educational programmes for Schumacher College, University of Wales Trinity St Davids and Embercombe, with a focus on the meeting places between human, nature and spirit, between ‘ecology’ and ‘spirituality’. She is co-founder and director of Animate Earth and loves to convene conversations that explore the deepest depths of why we are here, the ways we find belonging to the world and how to be in service to soul. She is committed to scholarship, word magic, creative imagination and the medicine of circles.

Naomi Lewis
Naomi Lewis is an artist and has been facilitating animistic practice for 20 years. She graduated from The Royal College of Art in 2024 and since then has been exploring the intersection between animism and art. Her teaching practice centres around this creative axis, helping individuals and groups draw out personal formulas for innovation and expressiveness as a route to living more intimately with the Earth, whether or not they identify as artists. Alongside this she creates laboratory spaces for actors, dancers, writers and directors who seek a planetary based expansion in their world. Her ethic is centred around helping participants be in service to nature and stepping outside singularity into a collective experience, where we remember we are part of the art of the whole. She enjoys creating irreverently reverent spaces of deep exploration and journeying, punctuated by mindful foolishness and connection.