TrackersTEAMS: Teen Full-Time Immersion
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For millions of years, and most of human history, hunter-gatherer cultures raised their children competently, aware of their roles, and aware with their senses. Spending nearly every moment out-of-doors they were completely connected to nature through their lives and livelihoods. TrackersTEAMS: Teen Full-Time Immersion moves beyond conventional schooling and returns to this timeless way of learning that is both collaborative and rich in experience. We believe our culture needs to make 'common sense' common again. We train children and adults in competency and accountability through a deep, experiential connection to nature and community. We see the natural world as much more than an outdoor classroom; our survival depends on our collective health; both the health of humans, and that of the land. Our programs don't just teach children about nature, we make the natural world an everyday reality in our lives. This hands-on program reclaims adventure from TV and video games by creating participatory experiences that guide the senses, offering an opportunity for parents, children, and instructors to fully explore our own rich stories. Our staff is committed to building an inclusive team spirit with an eye for the individual participant's needs and safety in the outdoors. Through continuous conversation of everyone involved, we take the time to develop a diverse range of experience in many areas, including wild edible plants, animal tracking, awareness of ecology, wilderness living skills, outdoor savvy, martial arts, theater improv and much more. This program is not for everyone. We not only work with students, we are in partnership with families. This program is for the mother, father, sister, brother and teen who are really ready to change their relationship to the natural world. We are looking for students and families willing to let their children become ambassadors for a culture that does not yet exist. This is ongoing immersion in nature like no school can provide. We want to go farther than wilderness programs who feature outdoor learning and mentoring. From moving with deer, bow in hand, ice thick on the plants, to sea kayaking the Pacific, riding waves while trawling for fish, we want a full rite of passage everyday. One where we rediscover new depths of experience and connection. Set up an appointment to learn more, apply or Contact Us.
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TrackersTEAMS: Teen Full-Time Immersion includes
Who Ages 13-17 Standard Application To ApplyApply by email, send us a WORD document (can't open this, Contact Us) |
TrackersRITES Immersion Program provides 3 different options of learning days that cover several core themes that significantly compliment and enhance each other:
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TrackersTEAMS: Rooted in the Reality of Success
Hunter-Gatherer Skills: Habitat as HomeThe urban sphere of Portland is unique. The instructors make their own living gathering with seasonal rhythms and so will you. They specialize in plant propagation, gathering and preserving. The Willamette Valley of Portland, Oregon becomes your larder and home. |
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| Peter & Taryn on Hunter-Gatherer Life |
Hunting is a key rite of passage OPTION for those who choose it. This is one of the few residential programs and definitely the most accessible that provides the foundation for you to experience this profound conversation with the living world. Wild edible plants are the basis for healthy living. As you progress through your year you become sewn into the dance of the seasons. Our bodies become clocks attuned to the cycles of the plants.
The Trackers Eye, Mind & Heart
Some people believe an Animal Tracker only follows footprints on the ground. Tracking can be that, but also much more. Included in its scope is the constant awareness of feedback from the land, such as the ebb and flow of bird sounds and songs. TrackersNW commits our support to the best tracking instructors in the country. Our instructors do not consider themselves your mentor but instead the true tracker considers herself a collaborator. You come into our classes knowing our instructors are there to grow with you, the land and the art of tracking.
Tracking connects you to the Hunter-Gatherer thematic and also takes your hyper-sensory awareness to whole new level. Dancing with the animals, a human being perceives and relates in many spheres of ecology simultaneously. The moving and physical body, the categorizing and dissecting mind, and the empathizing heart. You develop tools of perception that find value both in urban and wild landscape. Your mind starts to create living maps and stories telling us about an entirely different world moving on the edge of our awareness. This peels back layers of perception and we really "step through the looking glass."
Personal Health & Training: Health & Wellness
In this culture we often ascribe an inability to surmount challenges in our lives to a lack of willpower, or skill, or other such abstract factors, yet often we can find their source in our lack of health and wellness. Mental focus, a positive mental attitude, and a joy in your physical body comes to you as you deeply reflect and act on your own unique nutritional needs, and physical expression.
Using such resources as the bio regional martial and movement art SHIFT, you learn from world-class instructors on how to let your primal self out and truly express a wild and hyper competent body awareness. A core focus is practical training for Body Control including muscle attunement, consciously shifting internal temperature and accelerated healing.
Interpersonal Clarity & Peacemaking
The skills as a tracker in experiencing the needs and emotional dynamics of wild animals will find application on a profound level in your human relationships. By increasing clarity and honesty of your own needs, and raw feelings, your understanding and empathy in your human relationships shoots through the roof. Then relating to family, village, and collaborators, loses its "high-stakes" element, and you regain balance and receive nourishment of what makes you human. In the same ways you respect the animals you track for their hungers, fears, and joys, you start to understand the people you care for and collaborate with, at a deeply rich level.
DIY: GREEN Creative Engineering, Auto Mechanics, Welding & Industrial Design (bio fuels truth and industrial recycling) MacGyver STUFF!
Ever since you were a kid you knew the value of it. Making something AWESOME from nothing! How would you really build the post-apocalyptic bus from the Road Warrior, how do you become the jack of all trades that can only see possibilities from JUNK? Students actually go to junkyards, pull parts, take out the welding torch and make hyper functional rolling, catapulting and floating art!
Art, Theater, Music & Design
We explore functional ways of making music and art that really tell our story. Many of our instructors are well known Portland artists, designers and theater teachers.
In the art of improv and performance we learn how to spontaneously move together. You start to think and act on your feet and actually celebrate being "caught off guard" as opportunity to be creative. You learn to read your "partner" with subtle and silent communication.
In visual, writing, and verbal arts you develop the craft of storytelling. We feature students works in multiple art showings (if they wish) and suggest many creative possibilities for a living as storytellers who foster more life with their eloquence.
Synthesis
All these skills work together to produce a truly "wild family." They create in us what we call "bad ass" factor but also hyper-competency. The ability to walk through anywhere and hold your own with confidence and care.
We learn these things as collaborators and the axiom is always "less talk and more rock." Everything becomes hands on. Conversations and debriefs do accelerate the learning yet they take on the feeling of collaborative "jam sessions" that spur your creative process.
Compass 
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| Arriving National & International Participants Its easy to fly into Portland's airport and get a ride out to your workshop. We pick up and host up to two nights before. Fees $75 for each non-workshop night: meals and safe lodging included. Contact Us to make your travel arrangements. | |
