Queer Wild Mind Intensive – May 2024, Canada

Being Queer is a dance with the world that is not “divergent” from the norm, rather, it is one way Earth Community loves, a way that the cosmos affirms diversity and communion. Understanding ourselves in the rainbow of diversity that is LGBTQIA+ is a dance with our unique and wild animal selves, all our sacred emotions, our inspiration and vision, our gifts of seeing and imagining, dreaming and creating. Being Queer is not a problem to be solved or a wound to drown in, or an identity to be held like a shield; rather, it is a portal to be entered, through which we claim the gifts we are carrying for our people.

The Wild Mind model is a nature-based map of the human psyche, of our fierce and fantastic inner worlds in their entangled and unique expressions of wholeness. In the process of “wholing” we heal our inner protective parts with their survival strategies from childhood, recognizing our belonging to the more-than-human Earth Community and gaining the resources for embodying our authenticity. What if our wounded and outcasted ones — within the human collective as well as those of our inner landscape – might be welcomed home as Queer Human and Earth? What if our inner protections and strategies are not only to be applauded and honored, but carry the very seeds of our magical powers and gifts? Falling ever deeper in love with all parts of ourselves, we heal the pain of feeling different and separate, and cultivate the inner capacity to hold and love ourselves unconditionally.  We experience our Queerness through our inner landscape and through the wild world around us as we enter communion with rivers and fungi, mountains and beavers — interpenetrating and entangling ourselves further and deeper in the Web of Life, embodying a Queer Ecology.

Based on Bill Plotkin’s book, Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche, this 5-day intensive is an experiential exploration of our human psyches as unique expressions of the universal forces and patterns of nature. We will work with what we call the Nature-Based Map of the Human Psyche, which is, among other things, a comprehensive inventory of what can be right about a person. In this intensive, we’ll access these depths and potentials — which we call the four facets of the Self, or the four dimensions of our innate human wholeness — and also the four sets of fragmented or wounded subpersonalities (inner protectors) that form during childhood. Rather than attempt to eliminate our subpersonalities (which is not possible) or to beat them into submission, we’ll heal them and cultivate the four facets of the Self, thereby uncovering the gifts of our subpersonalities. Our goal is to fully embody our multifaceted wild minds, embody a Queer Ecology, commit ourselves to the largest soul-infused story we’re capable of living, and serve the greater Earth community.

Discover:

• how to recognize and consciously cultivate the four facets of the Self — your innate human wholeness
• how to identify the protective strategies that supported you in childhood and adolescence to adapt to the challenges of family and social life, but ultimately became barriers to your full and authentic humanity
• practices and guidelines for cultivating relationships between the Self and your subpersonalities, enabling you to heal them, discover their gifts, and foster Self-actualization
• how each facet of the Self provides essential resources for the underworld journey (the descent to soul), its radical transformation of personal identity, and for living as a visionary artisan of cultural evolution

We’ll explore the landscape of the psyche through a variety of practices including creative expression, self-designed ceremony, solo exercises while wandering on the land, group work, movement, voice dialogue, journaling, and deep imagery work.