Now registering for Fall 2024–Summer 2025!
A 9-month program with meetings one Saturday each month (9:00 am–3:00 pm), September through June, plus a campout in May!
Program dates:
September 21
October 26
November 23
December 21
January 25
February 15
March 22
April 26
May 31–June 1
Location: 122 Daley Rd., East Chatham, NY. Get directions.
Tuition: $1,050. Payment plan available at checkout, and we offer financial assistance. Apply here.
This program takes place at the same time as Saturday Explorers, so parents and kids can both attend nature programming once a month!
Led by longtime Flying Deer directors Julie Kunz and Raven Ross Kelso, Awakening Wild is a nine-month adventure in wilderness living skills, community building, and nature awareness.
The experience includes focused work time on projects and crafts; group time filled with laughter, stories, and song; and slowing to nature’s gentle place. This balance calibrates mind, heart, and body, and returns us to our lives refreshed and inspired.
What’s Included?
Each day offers a special focus in wilderness living skills as we put our hands to work to create useful survival crafts, prepare wild foods, construct shelters, and more. The program incorporates established curriculum with participants’ emerging interests and natural phenomena. You will also have the opportunity to make a commitment to deepen your journey through monthly focus areas and activities outside of program time.
Who Is the Program For?
While designed for individuals looking to gain a deeper personal connection to nature, this course will also benefit those interested in bringing nature connection to their workplace, community groups, and families. Teachers, parents, mentors, guides, and youth leaders will find new inspiration and practices to integrate into their existing programming. It’s also a great supplement for those enrolled in related degree programs, such as early education and the life sciences.
A Look at the 9-Month Awakening Wild Journey
Nature Awareness
Deepening our connection with nature is the heart and soul of this program. Nature awareness practices help us deeply root into our natural surroundings and foster a sense of natural belonging as we:
- Saturate our five senses in our natural surroundings
- Listen for Bird Language—nature’s communication network
- Regularly visit one place in our environment—your “sit spot”—to remember our true nature
Community Building
Like other social species in nature, human beings possess the power to work together toward a common goal. Discover the spirit of cooperation within a nurturing village atmosphere as we:
- Give voice to authentic gratitude
- Approach projects, tasks and challenges with effort and laughter
- Share songs and storytelling around the fire
- Explore a nature-inspired, roles-based system of collaboration
Wilderness Living Skills
Wilderness living skills comprise the primary curriculum of Awakening Wild. Wilderness living skills prepare the body and mind to embrace the forest as a home. We approach these skills in the spirit of excitement, fun, and collaborative work. Skill-building areas include:
- Fire-Making: Kindling fire using ferro rods/flint and steel, making friction fire
- Wild Edibles: Harvesting edible greens, roots, seeds, and fruits, identifying dangerous look-alike plant species
- Wildlife Tracking: Learn the traits that distinguish each animal’s track and sign, discover just how far you can follow the trail of a single animal in the forest
- Natural Basketry: Create a container using materials from the land
Overnight Campout in May
- Set personal and group learning goals
- Enjoy a weekend of primitive camping with your Awakening Wild village
- Nurture a deep relationship with the earth you call home
Awakening Wild is a transformational journey that helps us see the world with fresh eyes. It offers an expanded awareness of nature, greater comfort in the out-of-doors, a deepened sense of belonging to community, and a refined sense of purpose in life.
The Awakening Wild experience is an adventure in discovery, and is open to people with all levels of experience in and knowledge of nature, of every background, age, orientation, race, and ethnicity. We each have a unique place in nature and unique gifts to share. We look forward to creating a world that is ready for these gifts!
“I joined this program as an outlet for connecting deeply with the natural world and the nature in humans. This we did, in spades. I came away with renewed connection and vision, as well as hard skills in making acorn flour, listening to what the birds are saying, and so much more. But the biggest gift of this program is a strong sense of sowing the seeds of a new culture—one that is based on the true nature of humans and our relationship to the world as conscious participants in the web of life.”
Sarah P., past participant