TRACKING AS APPLIED MINDFULNESS Public Program with John Stokes, Founder of the Tracking Project

LOGISTICS: This is a LIVE FACE-TO-FACE training that will be held in Northern California from August 13-15, 2021, pandemic conditions permitting. It will take place over the weekend, Friday morning through Sunday afternoon. Although we would ordinarily serve meals, the pandemic conditions do not permit this.

ABOUT: This is a tracking and deep nature awareness training with renowned nature awareness expert and tracker John Stokes, Founder of the Tracking Project. John has 45 years of experience with tracking, and has been trained by some of the most remarkable trackers in the world. His organization has trained hundreds of thousands of children and adults in countries around the world in traditional Arts of Life, Survival Skills, and hard-ground tracking.

Tracking is a metativity (a metaphor, activity, and meditation) in the Restorative Practices model. We will work with John to learn to apply a tracking lens to not only hard-ground tracking, but to our inner lives, to tracking one another, to tracking our dreams.

The art of tracking is one of the highest forms of applied ecological knowledge. It invites and requires dropping out of thinking, refining sensory calibration, sensory integration, and the ability to unite our awareness in the present moment and follow a trail. Building the mind and bodyset of tracking is the mind and bodyset of leadership and awareness. Tracking is the essence of an applied mindfulness practice. It develops what our mentor Ilarion Merculieff calls Indigenous Intelligence. It places us in right relationship to the Creation, brings us into an earth-based pace, and brings our attention to the ground.

You can find John's beautiful collaboration with Jake Swamp and the Tree of Peace Society, an edition of the traditional Iroquois Thanksgiving Address, Greetings to the Natural World, in Mohawk and English here. It is a good short primer for the training.

John is our Chair of Nature & Culture at the Restorative Practices Alliance. If you'd like to experience him teaching, we've unlocked his Secrets of Natural Movement on the learning platform in preparation for his training. This is a remarkable workout, and a good way to build your strength, flexibility, and stamina in preparation for this training. Watch it here.

The training will be held on our pristine 10-acre property near Nicasio, California, in an old-growth Douglas Fir grove that backs up to a 437-acre property and a 320-acre property. We have already seen there, or seen evidence of: coyotes, raccoons, skunks, deer, bobcats, mountain lions, jackrabbits, foxes, Golden Eagles, many varieties of raptors, Great Horned Owls and other types of owls, and many varieties of songbirds.

Conditions on the land are rustic. There is a restroom and covered pavilion. We will be engaged in intensive physical activity, tracking, movement, meditation, and traversing uneven ground, off of trails, through the forest. This training is likely to be physically somewhat intense. If you have mobility limitations, this training is not a good fit.

If you are travelling to the area, we can assist you with finding accomodations. We also have several camping options in designated areas on the land for a minimal fee. If you are interested in doing that, please email us at support@restorativepractices.com