Cultivating The Diviner
May – October 2023
An Apprenticeship by application
Course Structure & Fees
An Online Programme
Application
We are currently open for applications to Level 1: The Green Language
All applications due by 31st March 2023
Apprenticeship
Structure:
Level 1 will be taught in the 4 modules listed below.
Each module will consist of 3 group online sessions of 3 hours each, with home-based practice of 6 hours per week, including assignments.
The times for all the online sessions will be: 6.30pm – 9.30pm (UK)
Module 1 Tracking – finding and following the threads of story
Dates: 31 May, 7 June, 14 June
Module 2 Raising Air – heightening our sensitivity to interactive connection with the information field
Dates: 28 June, 5 July, 13 July
Module 3 Developing Tools – finding divination tools, our proxy for nature, that works for each of us in our context and surroundings
Dates: 6, 20, 27 September
Module 4 The Green Language – reading the primary text, understanding metaphor, symbol and the narrative of myth
Dates: 4, 11, 25 October
On completion there will be the possibility of progressing to Level 2 in 2024 by invitation only.
Places on Level 1 are limited to 25 people only.
Fees
Apprenticeship Fee: £1250
We are able to offer 3 bursary funded places at a lower fee. If you would only be able to undertake this training with bursary funding, please mention this in your application along with the amount you would be able to pay.
An Invitation
It was Thomas Berry who said that nature itself is ‘the primary text’ that contains all the instructions on how it is possible to live in the world in a state of balance, harmony, and in conscious relationship with those things 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, which has led to a separation from our original instructions.
In this work we seek to reestablish an interactive connection with this field of living and evolving information – to learn the particular ‘green language’ that arises when each of us allows an interactive relationship to develop. We do this through developing our tools, honing our skills and opening ourselves fully to the possibilities of reciprocal conversation with nature.
There are well worn paths we can follow – the fragments of methodology and guidance from occluded magical practice and the last wisdom traditions of the world. We bring maps of these paths, in order to restore the ways of divining and seeing the primary text of nature for the urgent needs of our time, and to help translate its revelations as much-needed guidance and gifts for ourselves and for our communities about ways of living now.
This apprenticeship is aimed at teaching participants to become diviners by either deepening an existing divination practice or building on an intention, aptitude or interest for divinatory work.
The course will be deeply experiential, to the extent that can be done online and will require participants to go away and practice in between sessions.
We will look at the context within which the diviner works in different cultures and times, however most of the course will be practice driven, a chance to learn method first-hand from a practising diviner within the San tradition.
Your Guides
The lead guides of this apprenticeship are Colin Campbell, Naomi Lewis 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.
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.
Naomi Lewis has been facilitating animistic practice for 20 years. She was Educational Director of The Sacred Trust for over a decade and now runs Agora, using Agora Imaginarium as the vessel for her teaching work. Working both in the UK and abroad she is committed to creating freedom-scapes for everyone and lab spaces for creatives, including actors, dancers, writers and directors seeking an Earth-based expansion in their work. Her ethic is centred around helping participants be in service to nature and the planet, 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.
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 place between human, spirit and nature, between ‘ecology’ and ‘spirituality’. She is co-founder and curator of the Contemporary Animism programmes 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 has trained with The Sacred Trust for over 20 years and is committed to scholarship, word magic, creative imagination and the medicine of circles.