Renewal of the Creative Path

Though Native Eyes is on a break, we're still tracking. In keeping with this inward-turning season, we've been tasked with inner tracking of ourselves and our lives. So last week I worked on the Renewal of Creative Path exercise.

The staff of the Regenerative Design Institute has a practice that they use every midwinter to renew their focus and revitalize their energy. They call it the Renewal of Creative Path (ROCP). This powerful tool for realigning one's life trajectory and sparking positive change is one of the many tools I've been fortunate to find through RDNA.

It includes 7 parts. The first reviews times when we have been especially able to connect with the Earth. Part 2 focuses on the constant themes in our lives, the things that continually come up that help us feel creative and energized. The third deals with synchronicities around the natural world that form a pattern through our lives. The fourth helps to outline our special gifts, and the fifth part delves into blockages and obstacles in our paths. The sixth provides a framework for releasing false hopes and expectations, and asking forgiveness from anyone we may have harmed. The seventh step brings all the previous ones together in the formulation of an ideal scene for the coming year.

What follows is my story of how I came to Native Eyes, a story that became more fully articulated as a result of Part 3 of ROCP. I hope it might serve as inspiration for anyone who may feel drawn to this study, and who may think that it's out of their reach.

While finishing my degree at New College, I went to a talk by Jon Young at IONS. I was blown away by the depth of the 8 shields mentoring model. But I soon gave up on learning what I wanted because of the price of classes. Still I kept an eye out for further offerings.

After college I travelled to Burkina Faso in Africa. I met many amazing people, and was impressed with the Burkinabe’s generosity, human decency, emotional even keel and groundedness, and with their intensive and lively knowledge of place. I resolved that I would learn the same groundedness and knowledge of my place, and find a way to bring out the same generosity and human decency in my own culture.

Back in the Bay Area, I found out about the Kamana program, and was invited by a friend to begin studies with Kamana 1 together. I received a gift, then, out of the blue: Kamana III arrived in the mail, from my parents, before I'd even opened Kamana 1.

The same friend who brought me into Kamana invited me down to Blue House Farm as part of a Regenerative Design class. Farmer Ned found out that I was studying Kamana, and after a talk over the fire, planted the seed of the East Bay Tracking Club in my brain. I found the Integral Awareness Training Series (IATS) class online, but was again discouraged by the price tag and the timing. I gave up again and nearly forgot about the class. I continued working on Kamana, wandering the hills alone and learning about the land.

That winter, my employers decided to give me a bonus and a week of paid vacation – as long as I took my week sometime in January. I decided that I’d like to go bike touring around the Bay for a week – never mind that I’d never camped alone before, or gone bike touring, or that it was the darkest, coldest and wettest time of year. Then I remembered that Blue House Farm was in the area that I’d pass through on my way back up north, and I remembered IATS. The next class would be held exactly on the days I'd be near Blue House. And my Christmas bonus was just enough to pay for my tuition for one class. I registered immediately.

I got to IATS and met amazing people there. I found someone who lived in the East Bay and who wanted to help organize an East Bay Tracking Club, and many others who helped spark interesting and beautiful changes in my life. Through those friends and allies I found out about RDNA and Native Eyes. At the RDNA open house, I decided at once that despite the odd schedule, despite the cost, I would some day attend Native Eyes. Again I felt blocked by the price tag, and again I nearly forgot about it for half a year, while I worked on Kamana II and on organizing the EBTC.

The next year, thanks to the connections made in IATS, I found myself invited to the Native Eyes program on a partial scholarship funded by a work-trade internship with the Riekes Center. I quit one of my jobs, begged my parents for some cash to live on, and restructured my life over the course of one month to fit all my new schedules. And then I launched into Native Eyes.

I don’t have much time for Kamana II practice or solo wanders lately, but I have so much more direct experience, community connection, and mentoring than Kamana alone ever provided. And when I consider my eventual departure from the Native Eyes course, I can look at the binders for Kamana II and III and look forward to the studies that have been waiting on my shelf, drawing me along this naturalist’s path.