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EcoSomatic Leadership Intensive

Offered by Henry Kimsey-House

and Doug Silsbee

We are committed to bringing forth
an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling,
and socially just way of being on this earth.

You have a part to play.

The time is now.

EcoSomatic Leadership provides a forum to deepen our own aliveness as part of the living body of the earth, for the sake of creating a more meaningful planet-centered perspective for taking action as leaders in our communities.

In the midst of existential social, environmental and economic disruptions, there is an invitation for our individual and collective offers to benefit the healing and ongoing vitality of the entire life-giving system of which we are a part. There is a call for us as leaders to open and expand our consciousness of the impact of our actions on humans, the living earth and the interrelationship of all of life for generations to come.

EcoSomatic Leadership springs from a dynamic interdependence of three themes:

Eco – living beings in relationship with each other and the whole,
Soma – awareness and expression of embodied, present-moment experience, and
Leadership – taking responsibility for creating and influencing our world

We will explore how feeling the earth expressed through our own bodies generates a dynamic commitment to take a stand for the beauty, majesty and ancient wisdom of the natural world. Our embodiment as earth illuminates our responsibility and supports us in returning to work, family, place and community with leadership commitments that respect our ecological context, including our own somatic experience of aliveness.

Join us in this remarkable wilderness lodge setting to discover and share your answers to these essential questions:

How do we build and sustain deep connectedness with ourselves, with each other, and with the living network of the earth?
How does the natural world orient, shape and restore us?
What opens in us with the realization of our place in things?
How do we listen deeply into the internal imperatives that rise up out of our relationship with the earth?
What actions will we now take to extend our aliveness into the world, and embody a stand for what we most deeply care about?

Participants

We invite highly visible decision makers in the fields of scientific inquiry and political influence. Those who play key roles in their neighborhood and wonder what practical steps they can take to be better stewards. Young people who have not yet declared a domain of influence. Those who live in a world divided and in conflict between heart, mind, and body. We invite those who have never spoken aloud their love for this earth as well as those who have fought, protested, tied their bodies to trees, and fallen down weeping or in a rage. And, we invite those who are newly articulating their place on our beautiful earth.

Details

This eight day intensive will be held at the spectacular Vallecitos Mountain Ranch, surrounded by 300,000 acres of wilderness in northern New Mexico, from September 2-9, 2012. This beautiful off-the-grid Lodge is fully solar-powered, with comfortable accommodations and exquisite vegetarian food.

The retreat will integrate individual, partner, and small group somatic practices, solo time on the land, teaching, community ritual, conversation, and creative processes, and individual reflection.

Collectively we will explore the nature and context of commitment at the edge of evolution.

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Henry and Doug have recorded a couple of podcasts, which you may access here. The first is a conversation about the EcoSoma; the second addresses EcoSomatic Leadership.

EcoSoma conversation: Download or listen now:

Leadership conversation: Download or listen now:

Also, Henry and Doug will conduct a virtual conference, for anyone interested in this work, at 2:00p ET on February 21, 2012. In this call, the faculty will present more about this life-affirming work, lead several practices and small group conversations, and respond to questions about the call.

You must register in advance for the call. Please register even if you know you can’t make the call; the call will be recorded and audio links will be sent to all those registered.

Costs and Registration

Cost for the retreat, including meals, is $2,695. Until March 31, a special Early EcoSoma price of $2,195 is available. A non-refundable deposit of $800 will hold your space until July 31, at which time the balance is due.

Because of the experimental nature of the design and our commitment to shape the entire process as an experience of emergence and deep listening, we intend to solidify the group as early as possible. We expect most of the intensive seats to be full by March 31.

Those committed to the course are invited to participate in a series of four virtual conferences with the faculty starting in May, engage in somatic practices and reading, and share responsibility for shaping the community in preparation for the intensive itself. In essence, this extends the field of the experience over four months, culminating in the September intensive. What happens after September will emerge from the intensive.

The Early EcoSoma price is only available after a conversation with a faculty member. Please email Henry or Doug to set up a time to discuss the program; either can provide a code to enable the Early EcoSoma price.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

- Wendell Berry

Faculty

The EcoSomatic Leadership retreat will be designed and facilitated by Doug Silsbee and Henry Kimsey-House.

Henry Kimsey-House, Co-Founder of CTI, is the main designer of the CTI training curriculum, including coaching and leadership programs. He is also co-author of the industry best-seller, Co-Active Coaching. In the 1980s, Henry became one of the first professional coaches, with a specialty in coaching artists and actors. In 1992, he turned his creativity to co-founding and co-designing the curriculum for CTI. Today, Henry continues to develop and refine the CTI coaching curriculum, leveraging his creative insights and experience as an actor. He has a global reputation as an innovative designer of provocative learning programs.

Doug Silsbee is a thought leader in the fields of presence-based coaching, leadership development and resilience. He is a master teacher and coach, has worked with senior leaders on five continents, and is a major contributor in the coaching industry. Doug’s two influential books, The Mindful Coach and the award-winning Presence-Based Coaching, provide the foundation for his ICF-approved coach training program. He is a Master Somatic Coach with Strozzi Institute, and a sought after presenter at major conferences. Doug is a wilderness adventurer, owner of a carbon neutral retreat center in the mountains of North Carolina, and proud grandfather.