Our ancestors knew hundreds of medicinal uses of local plants and herbs. They knew the seasons, when to plant, when to harvest, how to forecast the weather by the behavior of plants and animals, and a host of other things based on their observations of nature. The lessons our ancestors learned haven’t gone away. They’re still there, waiting in the forest like an open book. All we have to do is to learn how to read it.
Facilitator Notes for Session 9: Nature as Teacher
PREPARATION
Read the Session 9 Course Materials, review the exercises listed in the chapter and try them at least once yourself prior to facilitating the group.
Practice presenting the materials in this session alone before facilitating the session so you will have a good idea of how long it will take you, given your own speaking and presentation style, to go over critical materials. Adjust by adding or leaving out materials as needed, but do not cut key concepts or Priority 1 exercises and activities if at all possible.
NOTE ABOUT PREPARATION FOR SESSION 9
The My Own Animal Legend exercise in Session 9 is quite lengthy. In interest of time, you may wish to assign it as homework prior to Session 9 so the bulk of the Session 9 class time may be used for the reflections and the discussion regarding the exercise. If you choose to do this, make sure your class understands ahead of time that they should bring the completed exercise with them to the beginning of Session 9.
Have them do the My Own Animal Legend portion for homework, but save the Lessons from My Own Animal Legend portion for this week’s session.
KEY CONCEPTS
(Key concepts are those concepts that are foundational principles of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy, and must be covered in the session): Animal totems; archetypes; animal as teacher, and nature as teacher
SECONDARY CONCEPTS
(Secondary concepts are those concepts that are not foundational, but that are important if the facilitator can work them into the session – otherwise students will read about them on their own in the reading assignments): True Self; archetypal energy; expectations, and assumptions
INTRODUCTION
As an icebreaker exercise, ask participants to discuss their experiences with nature as teacher. Start this activity by asking for volunteers to tell a story in which they learned something from nature, or they had the opportunity to use nature as a teaching tool. This discussion lays the groundwork for the activities in this session.
If homework was assigned (e.g. exercises from the workbook that there wasn’t time for at the previous session), ask if there were any questions about the materials and have students share their experiences in completing the activities. Try not to spend more than ten minutes or so on this portion of the session.
NOTE: The My Own Animal Legend exercise and subsequent reflections will require most of the session. This activity is the central portion of this session because in the My Own Animal Legend exercise you are looking for ways in which students may draw upon the archetypal energies of various animals, places, and situations to describe their own journeys. The story created in this exercise is a projection of their own consciousness onto the scenario offered by the exercise. Don’t try to put too much interpretation on their stories; instead, let them interpret them for themselves using the guidelines in the exercise. Since this is such a lengthy exercise, you will probably not have time to complete it during the session. I’ve gotten around this in two ways: The first is to complete it at home and discuss it at the beginning of Session 10, but my preferred method is to assign it as homework at the end of Session 8 and prior to the beginning of Session 9. That way the story itself will have already been created, and you can dedicate the class time to the reflections and discussion.
SESSION 9 OUTLINE
9.0 Animal as Teacher
This section introduces the idea that our culture already uses animals as teaching tools and symbols. From fairy tales involving animals to sports teams with animal mascots to our pet names for each other, animals as teaching tools are ingrained in our existence.
If you assigned the first part of the My Own Animal Legend exercise as homework, your students will already know that we will be using our ideas and archetypes about animals in today’s exercise. If you’re doing the activity in the session instead, you may wish to discuss how the exercise draws on our archetypes and ideas about animals and uses them to depict our own inner journeys.
EXERCISE: My Own Animal Legend PRIORITY 1
If you are doing this activity in class, don’t use more than half the time available on the exercise. If you assigned it as homework, use the first part of the time available to discuss what the experience of completing the assignment was like.
My Own Animal Legend is based on the template mythologist Joseph Campbell created in his work, Hero with a Thousand Faces. The template for this journey is itself an archetype used in crafting many legends throughout the world. It is a story about transformation. Ask volunteers to describe any transformations they may have achieved during this exercise, or during the progress of this series of workshops.
EXERCISE: Lessons from My Own Animal Legend PRIORITY 1
Have students do Lessons from My Own Animal Legend during the group time. When the exercise is completed, facilitate a discussion about student responses to the questions. Ask them to discuss what the experience was like for them, and how accurate they felt the interpretations in the Lessons from My Own Animal Legend questions were. Did they learn anything about themselves by completing the exercise?
9.1 Nature as Teacher
When I have done this session in workshops in the past, we have occasionally acted out the stories people have written. This has been especially enjoyable when people were able to wear the masks they created in the Faces and Masks exercise during the performance. If anyone is interested in doing this, you might ask them to do a brief presentation of their own animal legend while directing the performance. You should only do this if time permits.
The true nature of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is the ability to see the world as it really is, free of expectations or assumptions. When we are able to do this we are able to create our own world by changing our beliefs and assumptions. One way to do this is to allow nature to teach us.
Conclude today’s session by asking volunteers to share what they have learned from today’s experiences and how they have learned from nature.
HOMEWORK
Have students read the Session 10 materials prior to the next session; have them complete any exercises from Session 9 that weren’t covered in the session itself; ask them to bring any questions about the materials or the exercises to the next session.
DISCUSSION PERIOD
At the one-hour mark, invite group participants to stay for the discussion period. Point out that the thirty-minute post-session discussion period is optional. Note who stays for the discussion, and who leaves. Work at the next session to more actively engage those who leave.
