Rebuilding Nature Connected Communities: Interview with Rowena Conahan

well hello everybody this is Josh Lane with the eight shields Institute here today and I'm interviewing Rowena Conahan and Rowena has been part of first our ardha mentoring leadership program it's been renamed rebuilding nature connected communities and you've been in the program for quite a while now in different capacities and it's been really fun to see growth through different stages of working with this material bringing it into your own life bringing it into what you're doing in your community so I'm really excited to have this chance to connect with you today and just you know hear a bit about your journey and what this has been like for you what are some things that have stood out for you along the way on this learning journey so hello ingredients today yeah I went to you thank you very much for having me yeah definitely an honor and I was wondering if you could start just by giving us a little bit of background on yourself where you're from what you're doing and how you got involved in this to begin with well I live in Ann Arbor Michigan and I am a founder of the nature learning community there and I'm doing that because I attended an art of mentoring 20 years ago in the in Arbor and and I just kind of fell into that experience some friends told me I I would probably like it I had the time off that was just thing I could possibly do so I dropped in and it changed my life and and at the time I was getting ready to be a new mother and didn't really have the ability to like jump on it and go travel and do all kinds of things to really learn about it so had to take it at a pretty slow pace the bad experience planted seeds for me of you know sort of cultural possibilities that just grew very slowly inside of me and finally you know a few years ago the online options were available and I picked it up and it close to my heart and have just been continuing to show up ever since then that's awesome and just for those who might be watching this who haven't been through an art of mentoring yet I know for myself I can mirror what you're saying I went to one of those long ago and felt this amazing week-long experience of really powerful learning that was happening for me on so many levels of all my senses with curiosity with role modeling and I couldn't explain how it was happening it was built into the culture of the event into the learning culture and it wasn't something that I could put a point on because I hadn't experienced yet that yet and my Western education so I'm curious can you talk a little bit about what that week was like for you and how that impacted you well you know it was a long time ago so obviously it's like these little islands of memory like the specific things that I remembered I was very young I was in my mid-20s and I was already a classroom teacher at that time and and I thought that what I was you know getting into would help with that and I was so lucky as to teach in a classroom that was very outdoors so I was already really interested in that and and we walked in and they they had us draw nature names and it it you know it kind of assigned us to groups and it assigned us roles within groups and I was assigned to the north role of course it was magic choosing this not a person saying oh you'll be the north and I was you know the youngest person in the group by like decades and I just really felt very strange about that I was like okay I'm supposed to be the leader of the group let's see how this goes and we sat in a great big circle and we went out onto the land and we came back in and out into the land came back in you know just it seemed like magic was just happening around every corner and I you know remember just crying at one point I'm kind of later on in the week one of the instructors just sort of claimed me as a relative just in a moment of sweetness and I was just melted and you know I just remember hearing about the wilderness awareness school which is you know where that was emerging from at the time and and just cultural elements going on out there Council of Elder and the Acorn and you know just the concept of sending that community a message from our community like we were a community like we've just become this you know group of people who came together for a class and that we were community in and that planted itself inside me more than anything else just that idea that that you could have this community and could be linked up with other communities and that it could have this kind of organization that could bring us into into this kind of feeling state and relation with the the natural world and with each other it felt so good wow that's amazing yeah that's bringing back memories for me too and for those who yeah are new to our to mentoring so in this experience as rowena just described there's this team working behind the scenes the Acorn team and they're working with the eight directions and each member of the team has a specific role in a specific way of bringing a perspective to the group and so that's what's holding the container for the whole event of the art of mentoring that's part of what brings that special feeling of connection it makes that really come alive and so that's what became the art of mentoring leadership program how do we create that special feeling in an event or in a team setting and how do we train that at a distance for people and that's what's become rebuilding nature connected communities just for those who are just tuning into this year so now with your work in the nature school that you're involved with how has that played out how has this impacted your community locally so I you know I've been taking the things I've learned through the distance program and putting them everywhere I can possibly put them and the place where maybe it's happening most consciously is through our public events which it's its easiest in that setting to draw people in and say okay let's have you try out these roles you know let me share with you directional roles and then I'm still the North because that's the team leader the person who knows the roles and you know let's weave this basket of I feel felt experience and invite people to come in and and see what it's like for them and see what it's like for us and then figure it all out at the end and just people love it but first the first time I really did an event and had it be an acorn light event was particularly interesting we do movie nights we you know once a year so we pick out a movie that's sort of related to nature connection and you know a culture of people close to the earth and we invite people to watch movie and then we discuss it together maybe we start with a potluck before the movie and we'd actually been doing this for several years and it had always been really really fun and it's something I can just do by myself if I want to I can just you know kind of put the word out and pick the movie and set it up and it's not that hard but we put an acorn together for it probably not even eight people I think it was maybe four people and we met beforehand we talked about how would go and we you know we just you welcome two people really beautifully and we put a lot of attention into making things beautiful and you know going the extra mile to make sure everybody knew exact you know where the things they needed were and and we we came together beforehand and we brought ourselves into a state of unity beforehand and and then we just watched movie night happen again and it was really different the feeling of it was really very very beautiful the participants were just they wouldn't go away you're so happy and it was just clearly it was it was clearly a different thing and then the way it had been done before even though it was very nice before wow that's so awesome it's amazing how just a few simple little tweaks and how a team flows and how that intention is carried into the event can impact the whole feeling of the of the event for everybody so that's really cool to hear and then at in your community like can you describe a little bit about your programs and what ages and stages of life are involved well so we have something for everybody from we have a preschool class and we have an adult program we aren't seeing a lot of older teens yet I think we need to be a more mature program to do that but we've got our preschool we've got our our five to twelve year old or more like seven to twelve year old age range class we've got a class that's for young teens and we've got some adult programs they're mostly all outdoors in the middle of winter will you know take some of the classes inside when it's dreadfully cold or you know for the adult classes when they really just need to sit peacefully and consider ideas together we'll we'll be indoors but yeah we're outside a lot well that's awesome to see so many different groups of people different ages you know and still room to grow within that but amazing to see how that community is building in there so in terms of what you've been learning in what was formerly our two mentoring leader now rebuilding nature connected communities part of that is about the personal journey so we get tools that we do implement on a community level for those who want to do that but we also focus a lot on qualities like building a sense of connection with nature for ourselves and finding that place of creativity and the quiet mind inside of us that helps us connect to that so I'm curious on that personal level just through the practices that you've experienced in the training you know what's really stuck out to you and that how's that helped you and how does that helped you to help the people in your community that you serve so I'm a long time I come on a student and so I I had already been working on my personal nature a connection journey for a while and the class added for me a layer of contact with other people who were also going to a sit spot who were also looking at the natural world in a certain way that I didn't have during the earliest parts of my come on a journey and and and contact with instructors you know through the phone calls you know just knowing that you know when when you're studying through the Camano program it's it's incredible you know someone out there cares you know that you're doing these things and ultimately wants to hear about them but this was more frequent regular contact and the assignments sent you to your sit spot to to experience the qualities of the directions maybe those were some of my favorite assignments I think probably my favorite favorite assignment was to go out and and sit at the time of the sunrise and take in that that Eastern quality of the sunrise and and the welcoming aspects of it and and at the time that I did the assignment I think I thought of myself as a not particularly welcoming person by nature and to be asked to do that now it wasn't just that you're being asked to take in those qualities we were actually asked to live them for for two weeks at least that's how I remember the assignment is that I was gonna go and I was gonna be the sunrise while I was washing the dishes while I was interacting with other people I was driving the car getting up going to bed like you know just really be it and going into it thinking this is just gonna feel really inauthentic I'm gonna feel like I'm just trying really hard not to be weird with people and it really was very transformative for me um I did find a way to have that sunshine in me it was like a piece of my personality it just wasn't awake yet and and it wasn't weird it was it was my real East you know and I just love that I love that it's in me now and it can shine out whenever it really needs to be there and it's on a slow burn background at other times and uh yeah what an amazing experience that was and of course you know in terms of how it helps other people like the embodiment aspect of the what you get in the art of mentoring leaders are the you know the new name whatever that is now that embodiment aspect of it you know there's really nothing on earth like a person who's standing in front of you being the quality they're inviting you to try being mmm that's you know I mean you can tell someone all about it but to stand there and be it for them and with them that's really I mean that's how I introduce people to the idea of being part of an acorn it's really like be that quality in as many ways as I can that's so awesome and that really points at you know why we designed that in because it's easy you know you look at so many different management programs out there or things that train people to work as a team and so much of it is Mystikal based like okay you do this this and this and you do these things and it becomes like a list of tasks and if we approach it with that you know then people can feel that like oh they're just calling through these things they have to do but when we can access that space of that archetype of nature like you just described the East and the sunrise and that inspiration it comes through if we can connect with that out in nature and then find out within ourselves cuz it's already there but maybe in our particular personality matrix it's not expressed as much for whatever reason but if we can find that bring that and infuse those roles that we hold with that energy it's gonna just shine through and I can really see that in you I can really see that how that is alive and just in the hosting because for those who don't know Rowena's she stepped into hosting on these calls as well and providing part of the training now after going through this journey I could really feel that held so nicely as you welcomed people onto the calls and facilitate so just kudos to you and and really going into that deep inquiry of what is this energy and how do i authentically find my own expression of it so it's really cool to hear that thank you that's so awesome you know just in terms of I know we've been going for a while here but just any things you'd like to say to people who are considering the program any particular folks you'd recommend it for or ways you see this really helping people out there so I think there's always a place for a program like this for personal development so to do it just because you would like to grow in this way and I think there's you know it's incredible leadership training so if you have program or you're a teacher or your counselor or anywhere where we're having these perspectives might you know go out and create connective community for you you know whether it's grouper or you know one-on-one setting it's um it's incredible I just can't recommend it enough oh that's awesome well thank you so much for doing the work you're doing in the world and all the lives that you're impacting just with your own authentic real curiosity and passion for connection because I can feel it coming through and your voice and your new gestures and and certainly in the vision that you're walking forward for yourself in your community there so thank you for joining us today and sharing a bit about your journey with rebuilding nature connected communities like your Elina yeah thanks and do you have a website by the way that people could check out to see what you're doing as well sure um nature learning community org is the website yeah excellent a true learning community that word awesome well thank you so much and thanks to everybody who tuned in today

Channel: 8 Shields Institute

Views: 805

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: Dipt7SPXBb0

Length: 18min 46sec (1126 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 26 2018