Pathways to Nature and Soul

‘Pathways to Nature and Soul - Soulcraft Practices for a Sacred Life’ is a seven days training course organized by Actions for Change from Romania bringing together human workers who are willing to discover and explore the inner and outer nature, their soul and powers and learn how to guide others towards the nature-based and soul-centric transformational development.

Addressing the great longing for uncovering the mysteries and potentials of our individual lives, of finding the unique gift we were born to bring to our communities, ’Pathways to Nature and Soul’ is a profound experiential immersion into the wild depths of Soulcraft- a set of nature-based practices designed to evoke the life-shifting experience of soul encounter.

Pathways to NATURE: We humans are NATURE. We are not separated, we are the human part of nature. We are the river with its ability to flow purposefully down the valley, we are the wild purple flower with its grace and we are the mysteries a dark forest evokes. Nature is our source for beauty and creation as well as the greatest teacher of them all. There is a need of cultivating a deep reverence for nature and an embodied relationship through which we can serve the Earth community.

Pathways to SOUL: We refer to SOUL as being our uniqueness, the exquisite set of qualities, powers, capacities, that we were born to inhabit. The poet David Whyte paints with words an image of Soul, ‘the truth at the center of the image we were born with’. Soul is like a seed, an acorn, humans are invited to explore and be in a most truthful relationship with, claim it and embody it while serving the world, of humans and more than humans.

In this program we will explore the NATURE-BASED MAP OF THE HUMAN PSYCHE (The Map of Wholeness), developed by Bill Plotkin, which identifies and describes the capacities of the human wholeness. The human nature owns astonishing resources, untapped potentials and depths that we might not even know exist until we discover how to access them, cultivate their powers, and eventually integrate them into our everyday lives. In this program, we’ll access these depths and potentials — which we call the four facets of the Self, or the four dimensions of our innate human wholeness — and also the four sets of fragmented or wounded subpersonalities that form during childhood.

During the program we will also use the NATURE AND THE HUMAN SOUL DEVELOPMENTAL WHEEL another model developed by Bill Plotkin, which is an eco-psychology of human development which reveals how fully and creatively we can mature when soul and wild nature guide us. Nature and the Human Soul wheel presents a model for a human life span rooted in the cycles and qualities of the natural world, a blueprint for individual development that ultimately yields a strategy for cultural transformation. This model defines eight stages of human life - Innocent, Explorer, Thespian, Wanderer, Soul Apprentice, Artisan, Master, and Sage - and describes the benefits, tasks and challenges of each.

Participants will be guided on a journey to reconnect with their inner self, body, mind and emotions, to express openly and creatively, and by being invited to get out of their comfort zone to cultivate trust, openness and connection with themselves, others and nature as the foundation for becoming a source of heart-based positive transformation for the community.

During the training course we intend to:

- explore and own the 4 facets connected to the 4 directions of the human psyche based on the model of The Nature based Map of the Human Psyche in order to live our life from wholeness.

- discover and explore the 8 Soulcentric and Ecocentric Stages of human development based on the model of The Nature and the Human Soul in order to find our place in the World and be in service to life.

- exploring Soulcraft nature-based practices in order to cultivating inner gifts and soul-powers through connecting and immersing with Soul through stories, poetry, artistic expression, ancestral practices and ceremonies;

- create a commUNITY of heart-minded, dedicated people who create transformational learning environments in order to support and guide the authentic growth of all young people, including the ones facing mental health difficulties.

The guides of the program:

SANDRA HOREA: Sandra is a human development guide and mentor who creatively and heart-fully invites people to be in intimate and meaningful conversations with their Soul. She is guiding and accompanying humans on their psycho-spiritual development. She calls them to fall in love with nature, metaphor, symbol, feeling and therefore with themselves and live their bigger lives delivering their gift to the hungry world. As a guide, she creates purposeful spaces of self-discovery incorporating in her work her experience regarding depth psychology and soul-based practices, eco-centric development, embodiment, storytelling, poetry and deep imagination. She has a wide experience of 12 years in working with youth and adults in facilitating spaces of personal and community transformation. She graduated the Wild Mind Program (focusing on eco-depth psychology of wholing and healing) within Animas Valley Institute from the USA and at the moment she is studying within the same organization, further more the mysteries of psyche within SAIP - Soulcraft Apprentiship and Initiation Program, an in-depth study of soul-initiation practices and guiding skills.

BOGDAN ROMANICĂ: Bogdan is a human development guide, trainer, and mentor, from Romania. In his work, he is intuitively combining elements of psychology, nature connection, experiential learning, outdoor education, storytelling, and art. He loves exploring nature and the human soul. He feels in his element when inspiring and empowering people to become the best versions of themselves. He has worked locally and internationally in the field of human development since 2010. He developed his craft by engaging consistently in deep and meaningful work and training with the Animas Valley Institute from the USA (organization founded by Bill Plotkin), the Mankind Project, Illuman and other organizations and teachers. Born in Romania, he feels deeply connected with the lands where he lives, the hills, mountains and forests that spread not far from his city, Cluj-Napoca.