David Raffelock
Forum Replies Created
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At the stage I’m in now, my vision is broad and still being refined. When I envision the work I’m meant to do, I see two primary populations I’d like to work with. The first is youth transitioning into young adulthood, and the second is younger adults (perhaps early twenties to mid thirties) who never intentionally transitioned into adulthood are struggle to navigate it. The theme that ties these two together is rite of passage ceremony and the unearthing of one’s soul and gifts.
For many reasons, our culture has lost our way to the soul. There is no real rite of passage, no community support for navigating adulthood, and no intentional and meaningful event which marks a community acknowledged transition into adulthood. In the culture I grew up in, I had a few events acknowledging my adulthood: getting my drivers license, graduating high school, turning 18, and finally turning 21. While those transitions led to some significant changes in what society allowed me to do, none of them benchmarked a deeper knowing of who I am and my place in the world. I had to take matters into my own hands and take a two month wander through Europe and Morocco to experience my own life-changing rite of passage as an 18-year-old.
The work I want to do is informed by this need in our world for young people – the seeds of our future – to be connected to themselves, each other, and the planet. I see myself working with clients through 1-on-1 coaching, with goals relating to responsible, authentic, and connected living, harnessing deep respect and connection with Soul, Nature, and relationships. 1-on-1 coaching is not the only work I want to do, however. I would also like to work as more of a nature-connection consultant, teaching individuals and organizations how to deeply listen to Nature, themselves, and others. Finally, I want to guide transformational wilderness trips and rite of passage ceremonies for both youth and adults.
In all of these forms of working with clients, I hope to bring in foundational awareness exercises, such as those we learned at the foundations intensive. During my first session with a practice client last month I guided her through a sensory awareness exercise that involved all of the senses. After it, she commented on how she’s never brought awareness to all of her senses at the same time, and how powerful the presence felt being engaged with nature through all of her senses. These awareness exercises can bring a level of awareness and presence to a clients life that alone can change the rest of their life.
As far as similar work being done by individuals or organizations, there wasn’t much on the web. One that caught my attention was Rite of Passage Journeys, an organization that offers rite of passage trips for youth, young adults, and adults of all ages. All of the programs emphasize community building and support, and support around the realization of one’s gifts and purpose. This organization seems almost entirely aligned with my vision. However, while watching a promotional video for a youth coming of age trip, one thing stood out as something I want to avoid in my own practice. There was one scene with a group of youth who just returned from their three week coming of age trip. In their performance for their parents, they performed a song that sounded undoubtedly Native American. I don’t know enough about the song or how/why they sang it, but I worry about cultural appropriation in settings like these where ceremonies are influenced by indigenous cultures. Obviously the acts of fasting alone in the forest, taking a trip with others, and sweating in a lodge are universal to all humans, there can be a fine line to walk when using language and song that does not belong to those who use it. So the potential for cultural appropriation is my only caveat here, and something I wish to explore and navigate further as I guide ceremonies and trips.
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My first significant experience of the threshold was at age 18 when I took a two month trip to Europe on my own with no itinerary. Though drastically longer than my experience of threshold at the foundations intensive, the feeling and way of being remained the same. I remember my trip being my first experience of wide-angle-consciousness. It was as if all the subtle laws that governed my life beforehand became massive, more meaningful, and more apparent than ever. I noticed how my mindset altered how I interacted with the outside world, and how the world interacted back. Every moment and experience was a conscious exchange between myself and the world, and I took every moment beyond face value, allowing a deeper meaning-making process to happen.
There is a profound level of awareness, presence, and deep interaction that happens for me in threshold. My senses become a portal into a world so crisp and clear, so alive and real, that my daily navigation of the world seems like a high speed race with a blurred periphery. My environment becomes a reflection of my inner wilderness. I can clearly see how my psyche paints the picture of the world, and my perspective shifts from the world being set in it’s ways to the world being malleable and simply taking the form I’ve sculpted it into. In the threshold I become one with everything around me, and I can begin to take ownership of myself and how I navigate the world.
It is this deep inquiry into the wilderness of ourselves that is the essence of coaching as I see it. I’m currently working with a practice client who is eager for coaching and fertile for transformation. Yesterday, after our second session, she told me that this is the first time in her life that she’s begun to look deeply inward, and that the level of introspection has already begun to transform her life. In that moment, a similar question to this prompt came into my mind. What is the difference between guided and unguided inner journeying? I’ve been through threshold on my own before, but almost always felt the threshold experience became a profound experience in my memory that only informed my current self on an intellectual level – it never fully integrated into who I am.
Part of this lack of integration, of course, can be spoken of through the lens of incorporation. However, I’ve realized through comparing my guided and unguided threshold experiences, that the difference is beyond accountability and coaching in the incorporation phase. Alone in threshold, it’s easy to glaze over a meaningful experience offering itself as a portal to further inquiry and growth. The parts of me afraid to change can dismiss an experience as insignificant. However, the skilled and trusted guide can offer a safe container to push through those barriers. The simple act of being asked the sacred question, or having a symbol reflected back in threshold, can solidify the validity of that portal inward which some parts may want to ignore. But the reflection by a guide can give enough attention and validity to the portal that the Soul can speak louder than the afraid parts and dive into exploring the meaning.
My mind goes to two places when I think of the difference here between guided and unguided threshold, and how it changed my ability to face the symbolism that offered transformation. One is when I was traveling alone through Morocco as an 18-year-old. I crossed paths with someone who I ended up sharing the next week of travel with. A lot came up for me and I had to move on without them. Unguided, my conclusion was that this person was annoying and I no longer wanted to be around them. Though looking back, if someone had nudged me through reflection and questioning, I may have noticed that this person perhaps represented my fear of intimacy, or surfaced my deeper feeling of suffocation and confinement I experienced in high school. In my threshold experience as a client, I was called to a circle of large rocks on a wander. After identifying a deeper need of self love, my coach asked what I see in the structure. While I otherwise may have moved on, afraid of the impact of feeling the symbolism, I cried while speaking the words “feeling held,” before I dropped into the space and allowed myself to hold my body and give myself love.
As a client, I can sometimes resist diving into the meaning of an experience in threshold and sometimes need someone to nudge me deeper – offering a container and validation that the experience is real and meaningful. So as a coach, I’m informed by the importance of those symbols. I understand that even though the symbols are there, some parts of the client may not want change and deter importance and attention. But when a guide is there to offer validation of the experience, deeper connections can be made, and the safety of the container may allow the client to dive into the feelings the may have avoided on their own.
The other day I guided a client through a threshold. She went on a medicine walk after identifying her need to be gentle with herself. After being off trail, walking down steep hills and through cactus and mullein, she heard people on the other side of the hill. Starting to climb up a steep face, she paused and walked 20 feet over to a much more gradual slope. The rest of her wander was on a trail. I asked her how she felt to be on the trail, and later reflected back her decision change course when climbing the hill. Both times her face lit up with a smile when she realized she chose to be gentle on herself.
As far as ICF competencies go, I see four being most important for me as a coach/guide in the threshold. Trust and intimacy for one, because reflection and questioning will lead nowhere if the client doesn’t feel safe to explore their feelings and psyche in front of me. Then active listening, powerful questioning, and creating awareness all make up the medley of coaching/guiding presence. Active listening (and observing) allows me to see symbolism and portals to deeper inquiry, and creating awareness through reflection and powerful questioning offers an allowance to explore the deeper meaning behind the experience.
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Wonderful post, Hannah!
You really gave the threshold the power and recognition it deserves. And I love how you brought a practicality and awareness to building up to the threshold, saying “the powers of the threshold are real if the entrance into it is solid and intentional,” and that “building clear and urgent need so that the threshold can show what is best for them at that moment.” That’s a great reminder for me that the need, intention, and plan really have to be there in order for the threshold to be almighty and transformative.
I also resonate with reaffirming clients that the symbolism is real. I recently had a threshold experience with a client and noticed deep connections happening when I reflected back to her some symbols I noticed, without applying meaning to them.
The threshold is such a powerful place, and I think the more familiar we become with it, the better we can guide clients through it.
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Sorry, I meant to post that as a reply, not its own post
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Hey everyone,
Sorry I’ve been M.I.A. in this discussion. Ive been dealing with quite a few interferences as Michael put it in the video call today. But things are settling a bit and I plan to engage more in the next discussion. This post will be short, unedited, and hardly academic because I honestly don’t have too much energy to put into this one…
I share a similar discontent others expressed regarding the over-intellectualization of being in relationship to the Earth. All the theoretical talk of connecting to the Earth almost took me out of a place of true connection and flow. But as I think through it more, I appreciate the highly intellectual argument for connecting to the Earth. Because some people likely haven’t felt Soul- or Nature-connection, the academic world of ideas can help people to take a step into the depths of being in relationship with themselves and the Earth.
Reflecting on the readings while thinking of where Ecopsychology and Coaching come together, my mind jumps to Linda Buzzell and Craig Chalquist’s “Psyche and Nature in a Circle of Healing”, where they refer to ecotherapy as “applied ecopsychology.” However, the application of ecopsychology is not confined to ecotherapy. Coaching – nature-connected coaching in particular – can also be a profound partner in the application of where the field of ecopsychology is going. The more I learn about therapy, the more I believe it is more effective alongside coaching (either by the same practitioner or as a team). I’m not sure whether ecopsychology informs nature-connected coaching or vise versa. They surely need each other. The scientific knowledge of why humans need to connect to themselves and the Earth is nothing without the guides to get people there. And coaching without a strong foundation in ecopsychology is barely productive.
Buzzell and Chalquist end their chapter on this note:
“The environmental crisis now threatening all species with extermination represents a crisis not only of uncontrolled pesticides or rampant sprawl, but of consciousness itself. Because the crisis ultimately springs from the unmanaged demons of the human psyche, hopes for an end to the long and self-destructive war between humankind and Earth depend on repairing the damage inflicted on both. Heartfelt ways to reimagine our responsibilities to this world, to its creatures and elements, to ourselves, and to each other will require approaches to healing that can no longer be confined to the consulting rooms, doctors’ offices, or the inside of people’s heads.”
In this regard, both ecopsychology and ecotherapy NEED the coaches and guides that can offer a tender walk to the depths of the Soul and its reflection of Nature.
Human beings evolved from the Earth. We are living creatures connected both chemically and spiritually to everything on this planet. Water, minerals, proteins, sybiotic relationships with microbiota – we are composed of particles of the Earth and it’s ecosystems. Yet our viewing of the Earth and other forms of life as “other than” truly is a form of dissociation. According to Psychiatry.com, “Dissociation is a disconnection between a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions or sense of who he or she is, and dissociative symptoms include “the experience of detachment or feeling as if on is outside of one’s body.” Does this not sound like the current human condition? The Earth is our home, just as our body is our home – we are sustained by it and would not exist without it. Yet we disconnect from our primitive feelings of connectedness to the Earth, from our destructive behavior towards it, and to the sense of self and embodiment as Earth creatures bound to and dependent on the Earth.
On other thought that came up for me during these readings…
I see people who consider themselves spiritual unknowingly treating the earth with disrespect. An example of this is when I was on a camping trip with fellow Naropa students and they littered cigarette butts and trash while deep in wilderness after having conversations about Buddhism and self actualization. I also see people who consider themselves environmental activists who treat other human beings with disrespect. I’ve noticed this in my social/environmental activist friends who talk down to and bully anyone who doesn’t live exactly how they do. Relationship and responsibility to the Earth and to one’s own psyche are seldom connected in today’s world. I believe the disconnect of the two resides in one’s estrangement from one’s Soul. Deep listening to oneself, others, and to the Earth is dependent on a relationship with Soul, because Soul shares kinship with Nature and all beings. This is the core of the ecopsychology readings through my EBI lens.
I’ll end on a story from my week, where I felt both Soul- and Nature-connected. I planned to go on a medicine walk on Sunday. The first half of the day was beautiful – blue sky, sunny and warm, calm. I read from Coaching Skill while shirtless in my backyard until the weather suddenly took a turn and my discomfort brought me back inside. By the time I was ready for the medicine walk, the temperature dropped and wind picked up to where I needed to jackets. I drove up to Shanahan Ridge and fought the wind to walk towards the foothills. In wide angle vision, my senses were overwhelmed. Intense cold, carried by the power of strong and loud winds plowed through my clothes and the landscape like an avalanche. Even the pinecones on the ground moved. My self-doubt told me I wouldn’t hear my inner vision. Then I remembered to not push it away, but to listen to it and say, “I see you, and I love you like everything else.” We soon decided now was not the time be informed by doubt.
I started to follow my inner vision. The less I judged it, the stronger it felt and the less was doubtful of its accuracy. It led me through the landscape – some trees to converse with, some bobcat scat whose age I pondered, a beautiful and open view of the whipping grasses and trees. Then I felt I was entering a threshold. There was an object ahead. Either a rock or a tree stump. I though that was it. I paused and felt my being and the world around me. The moment I stepped into that threshold, a coyote stood up from a laying position about 20 feet away. Coyote looked at me, and we locked eyes for what seemed like hours. Then, like the story in the fist chapter of Coyote’s guide, Coyote lead me on a journey. Walking and trotting short distances at a time, Coyote would stop, look back, and look me in the eyes. We kept this up for about 5-10 minutes until I lost sight of my guide and walked to the edge of the horizon where it disappeared. It was a spot Ryan and I had wandered to a year ago in search of mullein stalks for hand drill kits. I was reminded of our ability to listed to our internal map of the landscape – to where the mullein offered itself. Then I dropped deeper into a remembrance of deep connection in that moment with Ryan, and my gratitude for the connection in this moment with Coyote. I took a surrender breath and dropped into a joyous laugh-cry. I felt true rapture in the face of Coyote, the landscape, the almighty elements, and of the great spirit and mystery that moves in and all around me. Thank you, Coyote.
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So just a heads up that I forgot to bring my books with me to Kauai, so my response is informed only by the digital readings. Also, damn its hard to find time for computer work while on vacation on a tropical island!
Last week I flew across the Pacific Ocean to one of the most remote places on Earth. Honolulu (my layover stop) takes up a sizable portion of a breathtaking island in the middle of the ocean. This time flying into Honolulu for a layover, I was a bit more connected to Nature because of the recent intensive. I nearly cried when I peered out the small airplane window and saw the concrete growth bleeding through the land like ink through water. It sprawled down to coastlines and up through valleys, suffocating lush, tropical jungle.
When I close my eyes to contemplate what Nature connection was to me in that moment, I see Morpheus offering Neo a blue and a red pill. In that moment it was a lense of awareness I couldn’t take off, illuminating the contrast and battle between the wilderness and modern civilization. Nature connection is an awakening to the world around me, a connection to the truth that surrounds me and reflects what’s inside. It’s being unplugged from the script of civilization, and plugged into the fluidity of the universe. It’s being fully alive; experiencing the highs and lows, the darkness and the light – both within myself and the outside world – and truly feeling them! Nature connection is a means of seeing my inner and outer worlds as they truly are. And in seeing things for what they are, I am in harmony and deep understanding. Through connecting with Nature, I can show up fully for life.
In John Miles’ essay “Wilderness as Healing Place”, he describes “conditions” in which people suffer: anomie and alienation. What stood out to me as Miles defined anomie and alienation is what he borrowed from Richard Mitchell, noting that a person experiencing anomie is “free to choose from meaningless alternatives, without direction or purpose, bound by no constraint, guided by no path, comforted by no faith;” while a person experiencing alienation perceives their world as being “constrained by social forces,” “bound over by rule and regulation,” and that their “creativity and spontaneity are stifled.” Miles elaborates, explaining “the effect of this condition on someone is to feel powerless and indifferent, estranged and separate from self and others.”
While I agree in anomie and alienation being “conditions” that people suffer from, I also experience them showing up in smaller doses, depending on the moment or the day. I have moments when I experience the above indications of these conditions, and moments when I feel whole, fully alive, and what Miles refers to as “flow.” Miles uses a definition of “flow” from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, describing experience of it as “a unified flowing from one moment to the next in which we are in control of our actions, and in which there is little distinction between self and environment; between stimulus and response; or between past, present, and future.” In any given moment, my experience of anomie, alienation, or flow is indicative of the level of connection to nature and connection to my soul. I feel anomie or alienation when I am estranged from Nature and my Soul, and feel flow when the connection is strong.
The word “soul” is a new staple in my vocabulary. Not because I have to use it for EBI, but because the word has gone from from theoretical to experiential. My own unearthing of and connection with my soul has taken place in various setting such as backpacking trips, Tracker School courses, hitchhiking for months, weeks of silent meditation, sweat lodges, wilderness quest, and our recent EBI intensive. In all of these experiences, I experience a deep connection with Nature and with Soul (and in my opinion, a connection to one cannot exist without a connection to the other). So naturally, the question arises in my mind: What is the link between estrangement and connection with Nature and Soul, from alienation or anomie to flow – the step in which to take towards the latter? I believe the answer is willingly taking a step into wilderness, finding the place of darkness, of shadow, and of not-knowing, and dredging forward.
In his essay “The Way of Wilderness”, Steven Harper eloquently describes to the reader his own definition of nature connection which he calls “wilderness practice.” Harper speaks of the connection between inner and outer wilderness, and what it means to take the step into wilderness: “The very idea that wilderness exists as something separate lets us know how much we have disowned of our internal as well as our external wildness….. To go into wilderness is to face the shadow of wild nature at its source. When we identify with our wilderness shadow, consume it, assimilate it, we thereby reown this vital and powerful energy.” It is here – the journey into wilderness – that a connection is made. We see our inner and outer worlds for what they truly are, and invite the power of that awareness.
In those moments in my life when I’ve felt most alive, most human, and most connected, it was because I was willing to step into wilderness and make a connection. I was willing to surrender to nature, invite the shadow, and be attentive to my inner and outer worlds. My movement into wilderness and Nature connection is a demolition of anomie and alienation and advancement toward what Harper calls a “vital and powerful energy” or what Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow.”
During the foundations intense, I stepped into wilderness, and came out with a deeper relationship with Nature and my Soul. I saw the natural world as a mirror, reflecting the inner workings of my own mind. I learned how to listen deeply to nature, myself, and the client and surrender to the process. So what can stepping into wilderness and connecting to Nature and Soul support my coaching you ask? The better question is, how can it not?
The attentiveness, connection, and surrender I feel when in a state of Nature/Soul connection allows for deep listening, seeing, and understanding; it invites intuition, creativity, and spontaneity; and it allows self-control and equanimity. All of those attributes are exactly how I want to show up for clients, and exactly how a client deserves to be met. When I ask myself my ultimate goal in life, the answer is to unearth my soul – reown the vital and powerful energy within my and experience flow. Maybe that’s not everyone’s goal in life, but for those who have that deeper need, true guidance can only be found in experienced wisdom of connecting deeply to the Soul. That is how my relationship with Nature can support my coaching.
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Kent,
I love how specific you are for who your ideal client is. I think that specificity will be tremendously helpful in marketing yourself. I know that I definitely fit into the second group.
I also love your sentence, “It’s often ironic that the people working the hardest for nature have the least contact with nature.” In Boulder, I’ve engaged in some social/environmental justice communities and met people who devote a lot of their lives to living in a way that does no harm. However, in that there can often times still be a huge lack of real connection. For instance, I know folks who live their lives achieving an incredible level of environmental sustainability and truly have a minuscule footprint. However, I see in those same individuals a complete divorce from the natural world. I think you’re spot on and believe these folks are likely the most ready and in need to connect deeply to nature.
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Thanks, Kent 🙂
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Mandy, I love your reflection and questioning. This sentence really lands for me:
“I feel we are at a place now where we need to acknowledge, honor, and thank those that have held onto and protected these ways and figure out how to participate in a way that is allowing the practice to call us rather than us force our will with it as a gimmick or as something unique that we offer.”
I think that articulates a lot of what I’ve been juggling in my own internal dialogue around the subject. Your response also got me thinking about the state of the world in terms of technology and communication. Globalization and technological advancement have eliminated a lot of culture and I wonder what would happen to these more connected ways of being if people who don’t belong to them didn’t participate in them and continue them. So many things to think about!
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Thanks, Brian! School of Lost Borders is the only one I’m familiar with. Can’t wait to check out the rest!
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Brian,
I got choked up when you described the magic of curiosity on your walk with those young boys. Establishing a deep connection to nature at such a young age sounds so impactful to the world as a whole. I also love how the deep connection and inquisition into your own vision generated such a distinct shift into a completely different population to work with. I wonder if the Wilderness Awareness School has crossed your mind as a place to gain more insight and experience. I’m assuming you’re not too far from it.
As you spoke to young children carrying connection back to their families, the documentary INNSÆI came to mind. Thought you might like it.
Really happy to hear how your vision is becoming more refined!
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Kaity,
Thanks for your raw post. I love your illustration of swimming upstream in a river! I agree with you in that entering that place of threshold is really a place of flow and surrender, and stepping into rejected parts of yourself. It’s interesting how your two metaphors of “against the grain,” and “going with the flow” contrast each other, but still make sense to me. While cutting with the grain (and I’m thinking of a steak, currently salivating) the its easier than locating the grain and slicing with more effort against it, however the end product is less tender and enjoyable. It often times can seem much easier to mindlessly (or soullessly, rather) go through the motions of life and society doing what seems normal. Tom Brown Jr. calls this dwelling in the land of the flesh. However, on a soul level, its like swimming upstream and the effort it takes to listen to which way the water wants to flow is much less than the benefit of surrendering to Soul and allowing that flow. Exploring your metaphor further, I wonder at what point in one’s life does one realize they’ve been swimming upstream. What does it take to come to the realization, and what does it take to trust in where the river is flowing? Just some thoughts to explore 🙂
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“When I really feel into this, NOT belonging to something or to someone or to someplace removes you from any sense of responsibility to it. It is through connection and belonging, through relationship, that we begin to recognize our responsibility to that thing and that we feel a moral obligation to honor it and to tend to it.”
This is amazing! A lot of what you said, including your beautiful story, really embodies the essence of what we read about ecopsychology. I think the heart of ecospychology can be summarized by what you said about relationship – ecospychology seems to dive into our relationship to Earth and Soul. Through that relationship comes a responsibility that both the environmental movement and the school of psychology have tried to make us aware of for so long.
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Way to cut to the core, Brian! As other mentioned, I appreciate your opinion of these readings over-intellectualizing something that is to be felt and experienced, not thought and intellectualized. However, I take a step back and ponder… How do we nudge the nature-disconnected intellectual towards nature-connection? Does it involve meeting them in the academic world, before guiding them out of the head and into the heart? Are these articles even accessible to those not already speaking the language of Soul and Earth connection? I have no answers. This is just what came up while reading your post.
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Nvm, got it.