Inspire Urban Nature Awareness

**NOTE: please scroll down for workshop dates before selecting your reward.**

We dream of a world where humans see themselves as part of nature, where they take care of themselves and other beings and nourish the Earth's ecosystems.

In our cities the human story appears to dominate but if you open your awareness you will notice that there is wildness all around us.

Support our campaign to share in our journey of deepening nature awareness and be part of a community of nature-connected humans.

In October Jon Young, one of the world's foremost nature awareness mentors, tracker, author and co-founder of the
Wilderness Awareness School (USA), will be teaching in Australia for the first time. We are using this campaign to
invite our community to support us to immerse ourselves in this opportunity so that we may in turn share what we learn with our supporters back home.

Through combining indigenous skills with modern ecology, [Jon Young and the 8 Shields Institute] have developed core routines that are proven to build nature connection, creating happier and healthier people and communities. These routines, combined
with the nearly lost art of bird language, and a deep understanding of cultural mentoring systems, create a framework for regeneration of western society. - taken from
Art of Mentoring  

We plan to travel to northern NSW to participate in two of Jon Young’s workshops:

*Bird language: Revealing the secret language of nature; and

*Mind of the mentor: Building nature connected communities.

This experience will deepen our connection to nature around us and within us. On our return
we will share a taste of this experience with our supporters through a series of workshops and other offerings. Our hope is that we can inspire our supporters to deepen their own relationships with nature and generate an ongoing community of
interest in nature connection.

Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in
nature. Richard Louv, Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature deficit disorder

This project builds on the groundswell of interest in rewilding and nature connection seen in bush kinders, primitive skills and foraging workshops.  There is a great hunger for nature connection, particularly in urban environments. The
workshops we provide will bring the joy of nature awareness mentoring and bird language to our Melbourne community, children and adults alike.

Should this campaign prove successful we would like to work with a network of nature awareness facilitators to deliver more of this work such as bush camps, after school programs or workshops.
We want to inspire human cultures that understand, respond to and respect our interrelationship with nature.

People care for what they know; humanity's disconnection from the Earth has taken us down a path of destruction.
We want to reconnect people with nature, inviting us all to notice and read the patterns and interactions around our homes. We can't do this alone, we need to support each other in creating communities that observe, honour and support the flourishing
of all life.