withness

Cultivating the craft of spaceholding

Withness - an immersion to learn practices

of presence and respond-ability

in greater service to the relational world.

Ages 18+ | September 6-9, 2024 | Return to Community Workshops & Events

Program Details | Program Staff | Other Programs

As humans, we are inner and inter-relational beings. This workshop leans into learning more about our inner tracking and resourcing, to be of greater service in our relational world as space holders. As we cultivate intimacy with more deep knowing of ourselves, we are able to show up more for others and have a deeper understanding of them. In this there is healing and wholeness to be found for us all.

In this workshop we will also tap into tools and resources that help us to show up in a relaxed, present, spontaneous, authentic and centered way..

We use the term “space-holder” loosely as this workshop is for: Individuals and professionals that are in the fields of working with humans. Of creating containers, of guiding, facilitating, teaching, including and not limited to: Wilderness guides, Therapists, body workers, teachers, counselors, artists, health care workers, tattoo artists, anyone who wants to be more present with others.

While this program is for folks over 18 years of age, we work with all stages of the human experience that bring curiosity and intention to engage.

All bodies - All people - welcomed.

We will focus on one’s sovereignty of body, soul and self while also tending the possibility of dissolving the barriers of separation. In this paradox we seek a sense of “withness” of self, other and the world.

We will explore Withness through the dimensions of body, soul, mind, and emotions, interwoven with spirit. We will offer teachings of deep listening and embodiment as doorways to the fullness and possibility of self and soul in connection with another.

We will spend time being with each other, sharing our stories within the art of council and mirroring, resourcing through embodiment exploration and deep connection to the more than human world. We will evoke the ability to go beyond our stories, to the knowing of our soma, in solitude, with others and with the presence of our own unfolding ceremony. And throughout it all, we will be with the wildlands and nature around us and within us.

To learn more before registering, or if you have a question about your registration or your payment arrangement, please contact us.

Financial Aid is currently available.

PROGRAM DETAILS

In-Person Course

Ages 18 +
All Genders

September 6-9th, 2024

Arrival: Sept 6th at 10am

Complete by: September 9th at 4pm.

RiverRoot Farm: on the middle fork of the Nooksack river in the foothills of Mount Baker, on the ancestral lands of the Nooksack people.

Food and Lodging: Participants may camp on-site or arrange their own lodging nearby, and need to provide and cook their own breakfasts and lunch. Dinners will be provided, with food provided by Journeys. Bring all that you need to camp & sleep outside in the level of comfort that you prefer. (Tents are recommended as tarp space may be limited)

$650 - $1500, Sliding Scale
$400 deposit due at Registration
Financial Aid is currently available

Please note there is a $40 minimum payment for anyone applying for financial aid and applications must be received at least 48 hours prior to the start date of the program

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Staff

Jenny Macke

Facilitator

Jenny is a soft and wild teacher. A nurturer and an edge walker in one. Always willing to dive deep and seek the unexpected. Tuning in with her heart, mind and belly she sees and supports the web of interconnection, personally and collectively, that is a necessary healing salve in our world today. Making art, and deep connection to the natural world, feeds her soul and inspires her teaching each time she steps forward to hold space for others. She is passionately the Executive Director of Rite of Passage Journeys and is regularly blown away in witnessing the transformative effects of Rites of Passage. She has been teaching Conscious dance and movement for over 20 years. She guides wilderness quests and facilitates workshops and classes in ceremony, embodiment and depth connection with the natural world. Open Floor Movement Practice is her movement modality of choice and she trains teachers from around the world in this practice. She has a Master’s degree in Leadership Education from UT- Austin and ran outdoor programs there and at UC-Cal Berkeley. In addition she has been a bodyworker who is infinitely fascinated by the fascia of the body and how it shapeshifts and adapts for us to survive and thrive. Dreamwork, shamanic studies, ceremony and prayerful healing trance are lifetime muses of study. She is trained in trauma informed space holding and cares deeply about equity and inclusion accountability in her work. Her greatest daily influence is living on 14 acres by a wild river at a magical place called RiverRoot in NW Washington State. Waking to the sound of chittering eagles, witnessing the changes of the river, and feeling the song of the forest and mountains is having its wild way with her.

gretchen (grae) gerlach

(they/she)

Facilitator

Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach (they/she) grew up in rural Montana on traditional Salish lands, where she was raised as much by the wilderness as by her nature loving community. With the Rocky Mountains, glacier fed rivers, ancient forests, creatures of her homeland and a horse ranching family as inspiration she declared her life purpose early on in life (6 years old); “I will work with the nature in people!” Grae has a degree from Brown University in sustainable agriculture and a background in wilderness therapy. For the past 8 years she has been guiding Rite of Passage experiences for various organizations including the School of Lost Borders, Pacific Quest, Alaska Crossings, and Juniper Canyon. Joining Journeys as a guide in 2018, she now works as a trainer and facilitator. When not guiding and facilitating for organizations Grae’s work is expressed through her business Naetura Cara, and is accessible to a wide variety of individuals and groups. Grae’s work has a passionate emphasis on the somatic embodiment of Rites of Passage and ceremonies for the sustainable practice of “whole-being well-being” and reciprocity with the natural world. Her style is to create a simple foundation and a center of gravity where individuals' internal natures, as rich and wild as the environments that hold them, can come together, can remember reciprocity, can heal, and can mark a place of belonging in the long lineage before and after them. She approaches her work from a place of love, humble responsibility, and gratitude for the wisdom she has inherited from her Mother (Mama and Nature!) as well as the lineage of learning passed from her Father and shared by her mentors. She currently lives and stewards her familial homestead on traditional Salish lands in western Montana.

withness

Cultivating the craft of spaceholding

Withness - an immersion to learn practices

of presence and respond-ability

in greater service to the relational world.

PROGRAM DETAILS

In-Person Course

Staff

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