In spring 2016, we’re running this unique collaboration with wilderness experts Way of Nature in the mountains of the Spanish Pyrenees. It’s a chance to escape from the pressures of modern life and spend some time considering the world as a whole, our place in it, and where we are all going now.
Led by Dark Mountain co-founder Paul Kingsnorth and the team from Way of Nature, we will guide a journey into wilderness of many kinds. We will first hike to a high mountain base in a place between civilisation and the wild. We will make a safe home from which to prepare for a quest into the dark. And from there, we will venture off on adventures that look to truth, to grief and to hope within our souls. We will consider, and seek to address, the challenges of living in an age of mass extinction and climate change:
How do we deal with the grief of ecological crisis?
How can we still be useful in the world?
What can we do and what can we not do?
What lies beyond both false hope and false hopelessness?
Way of Nature will support this intellectual journey by providing tools to reconnect with ourselves and with nature and to open up to all of our senses and our hearts. Throughout, we will be supported by the incredible power and beauty of this part of the world. And at the heart of the journey we will go out on a 24 hour ‘solo’ – a personal expedition to a special place in the wild.
On our return we hope to bring back new friendships, new sources of stillness and strength, new ways of finding balance and purpose, and a sense that from the darkness there is light.
We will set out into the shadows as a group of twenty explorers. We would love to see diversity in thinking, creating and doing. We can’t wait to see what we might experience and do together.
Travel
Shadows in the Wild will take place in the Alta Garrotxa Nature Park. The Alta Garrotxa mountain range flows from the wide plains of the Costa Brava and rises up towards the High Pyrenees. It’s an old land, rich in a culture and history moulded by Greek, Roman, and Arab peoples. Here, the Sant Aniol valley is carved deep into limestone cliffs by a clear mountain stream – a place of great natural beauty and power. Our base will be at one of the highest points of the Alta Garrotxa, looking back towards humanity. Solos and activities will take place deeper in the valley and the mountains.
We may be able to support a small number of people with limited mobility in arriving and departing to/from base camp but not on some of the longer hikes. Please contact us for more information on this.
Price
Standard price: £745
Voluntary high income or paid by work: £1,195
Low income: £395*
*We are able to offer four low income places on Shadows in the Wild. To apply, please contact us with a description of why you would like to come and be part of the journey.
Registration Deadline: 21st January 2016
Booking
To book please email info@wayofnature.co.uk and we will send you a Welcome Pack and Registration form.