Laura Gunion
Laura believes that humans have tremendous potential, much of it hidden from our strategic and logical inquiries. As a mentor, guide, coach, and naturalist, it is both her privilege and responsibility to accompany others as they summon the courage to participate in these times from their true nature. She sees and notices thresholds, inviting people to consider the importance and beauty of things falling away and dying before something else comes into life. This is important, not only for ourselves, but also to create conditions that will benefit future generations. She insists on bringing the soulful and sacred into daily living. Her curiosity, acute listening, and precise questioning call people towards living boldly and courageously. Laura was profoundly shaped by relationships formed over 20 years at Wilderness Awareness School as a full-time instructor/mentor. Laura attended her first Animas program in 2006 where she was fascinated and perplexed by what she was experiencing, stoking the flames of curiosity that still burn brightly. She lives in the woods above Duvall, WA where she shares land with Bewick’s Wren, black bear, honey bees, raven, her husband, their cat, amazing neighbors, and many other wild ones.
Events with Laura Gunion
Wild Mind Intensive: A Mythopoetic Journey for Black & Brown Leaders - September, 2026September 5 - 9, 2026
This Program is FULL. Please sign up for the waitlist. This 5-day intensive is an experiential exploration of the human psyche as a unique expression of the universal forces and patterns of nature — designed specifically for Black & Brown participants, and held in a container that explicitly honors the complexity of that experience. It is rooted in the work of the Animas Valley Institute and Bill Plotkin’s Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche, experimentally adapted for this gathering in collaboration with Tuesday and Gibrán Rivera. We will work with what Animas calls the Nature-Based Map of…
Sweet Darkness - October, 2026October 8 - 13, 2026
We are still accepting applications. Please feel free to apply. SWEET DARKNESS: The Initiatory Gifts of the Shadow, Projections, Subpersonalities, and the Sacred Wound is Animas Valley Institute’s most intense six-day immersion. Accordingly, we require that people have participated in previous Animas programs before applying to Sweet Darkness. During Sweet Darkness, we will do some Core Wound work but first we will gather our four facets of wholeness — internal resources that support us in traveling effectively into uncharted territory. Then we will experientially enter the realm of our greatest vulnerabilities and core sensitivities. Through experiential practices, we will explore how our Core Wound may be re-mythologized into a Sacred Wound. (Sweet Darkness…
The Yearlong Soulcraft Immersion: Cultivating Soul-Infused Artistry and Leadership in a Time of Global Change - 2026/2027November 17, 2026 - August 27, 2027
The first round of applications will be reviewed on Aug 15th. We will continue to accept and review applications until the program is full at 12 participants. The Yearlong Soulcraft Immersion: Cultivating Soul-Infused Artistry and Leadership in a Time of Global Change is an advanced program for people already immersed in their soul-discovery process and who are either in a leadership position or are longing to support radical change in our world through cultivating their most vital, visionary essence. This program is focused on neither healing nor therapy, but rather on the journey of soul initiation and on the development of the…
Wild Mind Mirroring Training – April, 2027April 21 - 25, 2027
In the Wild Mind Mirroring Training, we practice detecting the greater story that pulses beneath the events of a person’s life. By immersing ourselves in the practice of deep listening and mirroring, we uncover the archetypal themes that might frame a per-son’s experience within the arc of their destiny. When our story is compassionately reflected through the skilled mirroring of anoth-er, we feel fully heard and able to experience ourselves in a larger and more meaningful context; we’re enabled to catch up to ourselves and perhaps leap into the next phase of our journey of individuation. An alchemical exchange occurs…
The Wild Mind Training Residential – April, 2027April 26 - 30, 2027
This year’s residential is limited to trainees in the Wild Mind Training Program only. Please note you must be enrolled in the Wild Mind Training Program to register for this residential. You can find more information about the WMTP by clicking here. NOTE: All Wild Mind Trainees will receive a link to register for this program from the WMTP Director. Please reach out to them if you have not received it. The Wild Mind Training Residential is the core of the Wild Mind Training Program steeped in the Nature Based Map of the Human Psyche. In this 5-day training, participants hone…