Voice of the Other
Scriptorium Of Nature
Self Directed Course
Course Structure & Fees
A Recorded Programme
Structure
Self Directed Study (6 hrs of recorded material)
Fees
£45
An Invitation
to Animal Communication
In this recorded workshop we explore how to merge, shapeshift and contact the other-than-human beings we share our places with, so we can imagine and experience ourselves hearing the voices of river, tree, owl and shrew. We will hollow our bones, attune our animal ears and work from the location of heart and intuition to receive and transcribe communications directly from the natural world.
This was a very rare opportunity to work with two of the world’s leading animal communicators and trackers, Anna Breytenbach and Jon Young, as we look at the possibility of direct communication with voices of others using a variety of methods that include imagination, intuition and bodily sensing. We were also joined on this course by somatic embodiment practitioner Sarah Fontaine.
This workshop was part of the Nature Scriptorium writers circle where we consider ourselves in the role of translators and transcribers of the voices with which we connect. We discover how this can be crafted into words as gifts and service to the human and more-than-human worlds.
“Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
are not lost” – David Wagoner 197
Who is this for?
This is for anyone who would like to practice and develop their listening and their writing with nature, either for themselves or others, and to listen and connect with other-than-human voices. It is for those who long to develop further their conversation with the natural world and feel called to translate what they hear there to others. This is for those who would like to see a remembering of the place of humans within nature as their original home and consider themselves as potential intermediaries in service to that change.
Your Guides
The lead guide of this course is Rachel Fleming with guests Jon Young, Anna Breytenbach and Sarah Fontaine.
Anna Breytenbach
Anna Breytenbach is a South African professional animal communicator who has received advanced training through the Assisi International Animal Institute in California, USA. She’s been practising for over 20 years in South Africa, Europe and the USA with both domestic and wild animals.
Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, she holds a degree in Psychology, Economics and Marketing from the University of Cape Town. During her international corporate career that took her to Australia and then Silicon Valley and Seattle in the USA, she lived out her passion for wildlife and conservation by volunteering at various rehabilitation and educational centres.
Amongst other things she has been a cheetah handler, served on committees for wolf, snow leopard, cheetah and mountain lion conservation, volunteered at wildlife and horse sanctuaries and participated in wild wolf tracking expeditions in the Rocky Mountains. Trained in tracking and mentoring at the Wilderness Awareness School (USA), she also mentors children and adults in nature awareness based on the ways of original humans who lived close to the earth.
Jon Young
Jon Young is known around the world as a leader in deep nature connection having mentored and trained people for over 40 years on the nearly lost arts of bird and animal language and tracking. Mentored by Tom Brown Jr in the ancient and powerful skills of our hunter gatherer ancestors – he is the author of What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World (2013) and Coyote’s Guide to Connecting To Nature (2007) and has appeared in numerous documentaries including The Animal Communicator (2012)
His current project is Living Connection 1st Village:
Sarah Fontaine
Sarah is a wildlife tracker, interspecies communicator and nature connection facilitator. Greatly informed by over 20 years as a professional massage therapist and bodyworker, her practice includes Interpersonal Neurobiology, Polyvagal Theory, Somatic Trauma Integration, Emotional Clearing, Craniosacral Therapy, Chakra Work , Traditional Chinese Medicine and Five Elements Theory.
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 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 is committed to scholarship, word magic, creative imagination and the medicine of circles.