The Animating Force  

The time has come for a radical change in worldview. The one we have created for ourselves, that of separation, materialism and success, no longer serves. 

The time has come to consider what we may perhaps have left behind in the pockets of the world – in prehistory, in our esoteric traditions, in the indigenous practices that have survived to this day, in the deepest reaches of our psyches and the collective memory of our species, in the fragments of myth and the scribbled margins of our most ancient texts.

These pockets of remembering all tell of an animating force that binds us as humans to the soul of the world. This is a force that holds us within the places we live, that gives us agency beyond our individual striving, that talks of meaning and belonging and purpose. This is what helps us to hear and understand the forgotten language of the more-than-human world we are part of.

By understanding the animating force that runs through all of nature, by truly experiencing and learning to work with it like the magicians, the alchemists, the oracles of old – we become more human, more able to understand our role, our purpose, our gifts, our very belonging to this place and this life we live. We reanimate ourselves, we re-enchant our lives and we recover our place within the evolving soul of the world. We are finally able to start to see what the future of our species may hold.

What to Expect

In this year-long apprenticeship we will be learning to work with this animating force, in service of the transformation of a worldview that has forgotten that such a force exists, that views this world as inanimate, and humans as a species that have evolved beyond nature. We will draw on hidden magical and soul-based practices, but also on the everyday experiences of community, stillness, intention, attention, movement, meditation, gratitude and prayer, to guide our way.

This programme builds on a conversation that has been live for one year. It starts in a different place to where it originally started, with a new group, and the new experience and interests you bring to the circle. But it does take advantage of a considerable body of pre-recorded talks and conversations, allowing us to delve even deeper together into our subject material.

Are you ready to go deeper, further – are you ready to take your place in a great transformation in what it is possible to believe? Join us.

Is this for you?

This is for anyone who believes that there is more magic and soul in the world than we are able to remember or locate in our daily lives. This is for those who feel that the natural world and its denizens are trying to communicate with us, and urging our species to remember something. This is for those who feel the need to belong, to dream, to act, to create, to believe … in a thriving life and future for all.

There are two levels of engagement with this programme: as an ONLINE PROGRAMME or as an APPRENTICESHIP. Here are the details:

Course Structure & Fees

There are two levels of engagement with this programme: as an Online Programme or as an Apprenticeship.

Online Programme

Structure: 8 online speaker sessions, July 2023 – March 2024 (see below) 8 sharing group – dates arranged by group + 1 Annual Confluence

Online Sessions Times: 7pm – 9.30pm UK time (Recordings will be available)

Dates: 12 July 2023 – Introduction 16 August 2023 13 September 2023 18 October 2023 16 November 2023 14 December 2023 18 January 2024 15 February 2024 15 March 2024 + 19 April 2024 – Annual Confluence

Fee: Online  Programme £700

We are able to offer a limited number of bursaries at £445 to make this online programme accessible for as many people as possible. To apply for a bursary please fill in the application form.

Apprenticeship

Structure: 8 online speaker sessions, July 2023 – March 2024 (see dates above) 8 online sharing groups – dates arranged in group + 1 Annual Confluence

Residential 1: 17 – 21 July 2023 Residential 2: 26 February – 1 March 2024

Group mentoring

Location: Based online and in a beautiful residential setting

Accommodation: Our residentials are fully catered with a home-cooked plant-based menu and you will be staying in simple, shared, back-to-nature accommodation in some of the wildest, most beautiful and soul-filled places in the UK

Fee: Apprenticeship £1,810 *monthly installment plan available: deposit of £452.50 + 6 payments of £226.25. Please secure your place by paying the deposit, then click here to set up your payment plan.

We are able to offer a limited number of bursaries at £1255. To apply for a bursary please fill in the application form.

We have an early bird price for the apprenticeship programme at £1355 if you are able to book by 1st February 2023.

TUTORS AND CORE CONTRUBUTORS FOR THIS PROGRAMME 

The lead contributors to this apprenticeship are Colin Campbell and Angharad Wynne, with Rachel Fleming and Emma George supporting and facilitating.

Their intention is to guide you in a deep process:  to explore, to exhume, to piece together the beliefs and practices of an animist worldview that is fit for the 21st Century, that will lead us back into relationship with the natural world itself.

Colin works with the wisdom traditions of South Africa, specifically those that are based on our relationships with the ancestors and spirits of nature. He looks at where these ancient indigenous practices collide and coalesce with the knowledge and belief systems of the west. Angharad teaches from the old Brythonic tradition of the British Isles, the spirit ways of the ancestors of this land, and how we can recover and remember them to help us restore balance in ourselves and with the world around us. Rachel has worked with animist education for many years, curating and designing educational experiences for Schumacher College and Embercombe, Emma is a poet, film-maker, myth enthusiast and the holder of our container. They will be joined by leading thinkers, teachers, writers and activists from around the world and a diversity of traditions, to bring additonal old and new traditions, new insights and help us gather the missing pieces of the jigsaw as we co-create and develop a practice that will serve regardless of place and context.

Here's a little more....

Colin Campbell

Colin Campbell grew up in rural southeastern Botswana, the son of a renowned anthropologist and a creative healing mother. He is currently a practitioner of traditional African medicine, based in Cape Town, South Africa and the UK. He receives clients from all over the world, and facilitates international group processes relating to natural law, transformation, healing & personal power, sacred sites, and cross-cultural cosmology. His work bridges major world cities with ancestral homelands and forgotten wilderness, taking him from the Amazon Basin to Los Angeles, the sacred sites of Venda to the urban grit of Johannesburg, and remote Ethiopia to the City of London. Colin co-founded and co-runs a training school in Botswana for traditional doctors and sangomas with his brother Niall Campbell. He is also a lifelong artist and musician, his style once again bridging the traditional with the contemporary, the timeless with the timely, and the sounds of the sacred with the lyricism of electric rocking funk.

Angharad Wynne

Angharad spent much of her youth exploring her Welsh homeland by foot and delving deeply into the western magic, healing and spiritual traditions in order to piece together the lost parts of her own indigenous culture. Connection and dialogue with with nature and landscape is central to her work as is the magic of everyday, the creation for meaningful ceremony for our lives today and sharing the spirituality and mythology of her homeland with others. A published author and poet, Angharad is also a storyteller who uses story as the starting point for deep enquiry and a source of timeless wisdom and healing. She regularly runs spiritual and creative retreats including the Return to Centre series for women, In the Footsteps of Ancestors, an annual pilgrimage following ‘Songlines’ across the sacred landscapes of Britain, and Dreaming the Land. She speaks widely about finding ‘the dreaming’ of place; of working with intuition, knowledge and landscape to draw together threads of spiritual practice which are connected and meaningful to and arise from specific geographical and cultural landscapes.

Visiting Contributors 

Sharon Blackie, David Abram, Chris Bache, Carolyn Hillier, Pat McCabe, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Stephan Harding, Andy Letcher, Nathaniel Hughes.