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Living with Nature
a 7-day Vision Quest exploring your
relationship with nature ... seen & unseen
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Dates – 12-19
June 2010
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Venue – Exmoor
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Tutors – Elen
Sentier, Fiona Dove, Jude Greenan
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Cost – £800
for
full board, tuition, visits to animal centres, wildlife parks and a hands-on
falconry experience
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LIMITED to 5 people - book early to secure your place
Work will include …
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Ritual & ceremony, asking, journeying, bringing back the wisdom,
at sacred sites on Exmoor, including nightwork and a dream incubation.
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Camera hunting, stalking & tracking; at least one long trek;
wildfire; cooking outdoors.
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Plant stalking; plant lore; British medicine & magical plants;
wild eating & cooking; using incenses & teas.
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Working with the Spirits of Place, animal, bird, plant and
stone. And learning to do it at home … the shaman in the city.
The vision quest includes visits to meet 3 of the ancient
animals of the moor …
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Mousies – Rhiannon’s Brood,
the Exmoor ponies at the Exmoor Pony Centre; includes a 2hr
ride on the moor.
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Wolves – Morrigans
Brood; guardians of the Sun & Moon; wolves lived on Exmoor up to about 300 years ago;
we visit Sean Ellis (Wolf Man) and his pack
at Combe Martin Wildlife reserve
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Raptors
& Owls – Llew & Blodeuwedd’s Broods; visit the Exmoor
Falconry for a ½ day experience flying falcons and owls.
Accomodation
You stay in a beautiful old farmhouse on the southern side
of the moor, in twin rooms. Facilities include showers, bath, washing machine,
dryer, dishwasher, central heating and a wood-burning stove. The enormous living room is
where we do indoor work. Food is local and organic. We (the tutors) do the
cooking (unless it’s part of a lesson), you do the washing up ... with the aid
of the dishwasher. It is quiet, peaceful and the nights are dark. During
nightwork, on the top of Winsford Hill, Herne the Hunter stands in the sky with
the Milky Way stretching out from his feet like a river of stars above you.
There are no other lights to be seen.
Things to bring
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Warm, waterproof clothing including gloves and hat –
despite it being June it can get cold on the moor, especially at night.
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Good walking boots.
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Journey book.
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Coloured pens/pencils/crayons.
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A rug/blanket/throw for journeying.
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Some makings for a mask.
Wildlife Experiences
Mousies
 The
Mousies are the Exmoor ponies. The ancestors of all our native pony breeds
came overland from Alaska approximately 130,000 years ago and became widely
distributed throughout what is now the British Isles. One hundred thousand
years later mankind appeared on the scene and discovered their natural
source of protein, not to mention their skins and fat from the ponies which
were an indispensable as part of the Winter survival kit.
Dramatic climate changes about 9,600 years ago began to restrict the amount
of open grazing, mainly to mountain and moorland areas of Britain, thus
herds became isolated on the uplands and the British Hill Pony developed as
a result.
First domesticated by the Celts, these herds of ponies
can trace their history largely through their first contact with Man. The
Exmoor pony is one of the world's oldest breeds. It has been preserved
unchanged on Exmoor through the centuries. The ponies' main distinctive
feature is a mealy nose. They are usually bay or brown in colour, but may
be dun. The ponies are extremely hardy and appear to disregard the worst
winter weather, coming in cheerfully with frosted manes and snow on their
backs. They are also strong. While their height is only about 12.2 hands,
they will happily carry an adult for a day's fast riding over the moor.
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The Vision Quest has a half day where you can ride up
onto the moor or, if you don’t ride,, spend time getting to know and
befriend them.
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Wolves
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Shaun Ellis is one of the very few people to have ever
lived with a pack of wolves in captivity, only leaving the high fenced
enclosure to return briefly to the human world, a fact that the general
public have been blissfully unaware of when he gives his daily ‘wolf talk’
to the  safari
park visitors from behind the wire in Combe Martin, North Devon. This
project was born out of a belief that though wolves have been studied from
afar by scientists, getting close and intimate could provide new insights if
the wolves ‘trust you enough to give up their secrets’.
You may have seen Shaun and Helen in “Mr & Mrs Wolf”
back in February 2009, and excellent programme.
- The Vision Quest has a half-day at the Combe Martin Wildlife Park –
where Sean’s pack lives – so that you can see them and hear Sean talk
about wolves.
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Falconry
You will be welcomed with tea
or coffee after your journey, and then the falconer will introduce you to some
of the birds as you carry them from their night-time mews to the weathering. You
will then be shown how to fly a bird to your fist, and take a Harris Hawk on our
River Trail Hawk Walk, where you will fly him through the trees, up the river,
or across the fields, and enjoy setting him challenges as he seeks out your
gloved hand. You will return to the Farm and fly Buzz our Common Buzzard, and
enjoy his amazing long gliding flights around the field. After tea and cakes you
will be taken to our medieval World of Owls barn, and fly our specially trained
owls to your fist, or encourage them onto the 'pounce box' and watch them dive
from their high branches. This is an amazing display of natural owl behaviour in
the wild. You too will fly Indi, the Boobooks owl as he catches his food in the
air with amazing aerobatic skill. This is an amazing display of natural owl
behaviour in the wild.
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