Programs

Family Camp – Join Mark Morey for a weekend of connection in extended community. Whether you are a single adult, young or old, now is the time for cohesion. Breathe, tend, unwind and make your desired relationships Real by acting on what is important for you and your extended family. Hasten the Pace of authentic community! Come laugh, play and learn while rubbing elbows with like-minded folks!

 

Childhood Rites of Competence – Deliver a middle childhood ceremony for your 6 – 8 year old. Personal Coaching, Small Group Format, Phone and Internet based.

Coaching & Consulting – 1 hour/week for 3, 6, or 9 months: distance coaching and mentoring in the arts of  nature connection, resilient community and regenerative leadership.

 

Boys’ Sacred Fire Initiation – Guidance and rite of passage for boys moving toward manhood. 3-year process.

 

 

 

Mark Morey, IFNL Founder

Mark Morey, IFNL Founder

Mark Morey is a creative artist, visionary educator, cultural engineer, and consultant who designs regenerative holistic communities with timeless native principles. He founded or co-founded three transformational organizations in the last 20 years: Deep Wilds, Vermont Wilderness School, and the Institute for Natural Learning, sparking a nature and community awareness movement in the Northeast impacting 5,000 adults and children today. He has facilitated wilderness survival and spiritual passages for teens and adults since 1997, including over 40 week-long Art of Mentoring programs for adults, and 11 years of Sacred Fire rites of passage for teen boys. Mark feels inspired by the hero’s journey model and the oral history of his ancestors and native people around the world. Mark’s passion for environmental healing and consciousness has gained him wide recognition as a leader in earth centered learning.

Our mission is to design a healthy, vibrant, and regenerative nature-based culture for ourselves, our children, and future generations. We are committed to practices that connect each one of us to our gifts and purpose in life, our intimate relationship with the land, and our ancient blueprint for cultural mentoring. . .

There is a map for each person in a community, with detailed instructions on how to facilitate awareness to self, nature, family, community, and spirit.

Imagine a community holistically mentoring these connections from generation to generation:

A. Connection to Self:

What is my gift to my community?

What is my vision?

What is this teaching me, and how can it help me to help others?

B. Connection to Nature:

Where is the nearest grey fox den to my home?

What local plants can heal my family’s sicknesses?

What is my role in being a steward of my bio-region?

How well do I know nature, and how well am I able to mentor this connection for others?

C. Connection to Community:

What is the oral history of my people?

What do we stand for?

Who are my elders?

Who are my adopted Aunts and Uncles that could lead me through a rite of passage?

This map has been laid down over time through the oral history of indigenous cultures around the world.  This type of education is known as “cultural approaches to education” or Cultural Mentoring.

Each person has a specific role in the development of local culture, the raising of its children, and the fostering of regenerative stewardship of the land. These roles are both ancient and complex, all the while being highly intuitive.  I refer to them as the human blueprint for natural learning.

There are four areas that sort out such natural methods of teaching and learning:

1. One-on-One Approaches

2. Cultural Mentoring and the Invisible School

3. Archetypal Awareness and Roles

4. Core Routines of Native Awareness

Reclaiming pieces of our human birthright is a pivotal experience in Cultural Mentoring. Aspects such as reclaiming of our elders, authentic rites of passage, and profound knowledge of place become commonplace when this type of education is pursued with a passion.

We all have access to these collective memories. Together we can piece back together the fabric of a well-designed, profoundly aware educational culture for all of us.

This November, Mark Morey teaches at Schumacher College in Devon, U.K. His offering, Nature-Connected Leadership: Standing at the Threshold of Radical Change, is a week-long course guiding students toward a new kind of leadership: one rooted in relationship-based systems.

ID-100138661The idea is to develop leaders with the systems-thinking necessary for solving 21st-century challenges—leaders who will re-design culture from within their families, organizations, businesses, and communities, and move us toward natural patterns of resilience and health. This hands-on course immerses participants in storytelling, guided inquiry, ritual, and nature connection, while engaging them in a four-part process for becoming agents of transformational change.

Schumacher College offers cutting-edge learning in the field of sustainable living. It draws people from around the world for its short courses, postgraduate studies, and vocational training. Mark is among many of the world’s leading thinkers who come to teach at the college.