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Contemporary Animism:
An Apprenticeship

July 2023 – March 2024

Year one of our residential apprenticeship

Still open for booking:

Online Programme with Rachel Fleming, Angharad Wynne, Colin Campbell & Special Guests Duane Elgin, Patrick Jasper Lee, Daniel Foor, Pat McCabe

Optional Residential with Colin Campbell and Angahard Wynne, February 2023

Wild Walk
Ceremony
Animate Earth icons-07

Online Programme

Structure:
8 online speaker sessions (Zoom) July 2023 – March 2024

Fee: Online  Programme £695

Online Sessions:
7pm – 9.30pm UK time
(Recordings will be available)

Dates:
12 July – Introduction
16 August
13 September 2023
18 October 2023
15 November 2023
13 December 2023
17 January 2024
7 February 2024
13 March 2024
+ 19 April 2024 – Annual Confluence

Also included:

8 online sharing groups (Zoom) – dates arranged in group
+ 1 Annual Confluence (Zoom)
Group mentoring (Zoom)

Optional Residential: 26 February – 1 March 2024

Location: We spend our residential time together at a beautiful venue on the shores of Loweswater in the English Lake District in single or shared accommodation, fully chef-catered with a plant-based menu.

Fee: £555

An Invitation

It is said that our ancestors across the world lived inside the dream of creation – a place and an experience that was alive, ensouled and filled with a greater intelligence at every level and in every part. This dream, the very thing that holds us in place and in balance with the world around us, is something that we as a species have become increasingly estranged from, leaving us with deep feelings of disconnection and lack of belonging in the places we live.
What would it take for us to reweave ourselves back into the dream, into a story that is bigger than ourselves, into a reciprocal relationship with the living world? What would it feel like to fall back in love with the land and the other-than-humans we share our lives with, to be in communication and fellowship with them, to experience the tides, flows and cycles of our own nature again? In our 9 months together we will guide you through a deep process of reweaving, an opportunity that allows us together to exhume and piece back the understandings and practices, the dreaming, of an animist worldview for the 21st Century – a courageous endeavour that will lead you back into primary relationship with the living world around you. We will be putting together the fragments of nature-based magical practice, myth and story from ancestral traditions in the west, together with those from animistic traditions still alive in communities around the world. We will be using ritual, ceremony and dream, divination and vigil time in nature, together with movement, mediation, gratitude and prayer to explore what supports each of us in deepening our relationship with an animate earth. This is a conversation that is in its third year of exploration and every year we build on what we have learned from the last. Within it we bring together traditions and insights from Africa, America and the British Isles, as well as hearing from pioneering practitioners around the world. We have a mix of in-person ceremony and practice, with online speaking events and sharing circles, plus recorded material from previous years. By taking part in this process you will join a life-long community of explorers, looking at how we understand and actively practice animism in the 21st century – what it is and why we need it in these times. Through it you will be equipped to create your own practice for experiencing the more-than-human world around you in a very different way, and learn how to live a more expanded, embodied life of meaning, belonging and purpose.
Lake District

Is this for you?

This is for anyone who believes that there is more magic and soul in the world than we are able to remember or locate in our daily lives. This is for those who feel that the natural world and its denizens are trying to communicate with us, and urging our species to remember something. This is for those who feel the need to belong, to dream, to act, to create, to believe … in a thriving life and future for all.
Colin Campbell - Sangoma

Your Guides

The lead guides of this apprenticeship are Colin Campbell, Angharad Wynne and Rachel Fleming.

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.

Angharad teaches from the old Brythonic tradition of the British Isles, the spirit ways of the ancestors of this land, and how we can recover and remember them to help us restore balance in ourselves and with the world around us.

Rachel has worked with animist education for many years, designing and delivering educational programmes for Schumacher College, University of Wales Trinity St Davids, Lampeter and Embercombe, with a focus on the meeting point between ecology and ‘spirituality’.

They will be joined by leading practitioners from around the world and you, as you bring your own experiences and explorations to share.

Guest Contributors

Rachel Fleming

Rachel Fleming

Patrick Jasper Lee

Patrick Jasper Lee

Carolyn Hillyer

Carolyn Hillyer

Duane Elgin

Duane Elgin

Daniel Foor

Daniel Foor

Pat McCabe

Pat McCabe