Tracking - Telling a Story

During the tracking course I was running this weekend, we were working up in the sand dunes at Braunton Burrows. I had set up a sandbox exercise to see if we could pick up on peoples intentions laid in their tracks.

We later decided to tell a story instead of just placing an intention into a track. It turned out to be an interesting exercise, twice I placed a story into the sandbox which consisted of the beginning, a middle and an end, it was a very short story there were just seven tracks laid in the sandbox, which had been covered up afterwards so that Felim would have no real idea which way I had moved in the sandbox.

I asked him to find track number seven in the sandbox, while Felim was trying to locate the track without being able to see the tracks I wondered if he would pick up on the part of the story that gave me the most fun which was the middle part of the story. What followed next was very interesting Felim did indeed pick up on the middle track.

He also picked up on the important track in the second story as well, in each case it was the part of the story with the strongest intention. I realised that I could now take this exercise to another level and I am looking forward exploring the possibilities of moving this exercise to new levels.

Tree Hugging Gave Him Hope.

A friend of mine shared an experience he once had.

He was walking home after a night out on the town and as he cut across Hyde Park at 5 am, he approached a large Oak Tree, walking around it he was surprised to see a Police Officer in uniform hugging the tree.

He said it gave him hope

How does Natural Awareness work?

Natural Awareness gets participants to connect with their heart and to transfer the lessons learnt from nature (be it connecting with a tree, an animal, plant or another human being) into an opportunity to change old behaviour thus creating the potential for new healthy behaviour to manifest, by becoming more self-aware. Within an established therapeutic-programme, individuals can reflect upon their experiences through listening, discussing and processing with their peers/counsellors who have shared a similar experience, by abstracting practical insights about their behaviour and that of others.

Nature-Awareness could be seen as a “Halfway House” (Greenway, 1995, p. 133), who introduced this concept along with alternative methods like yoga and meditation into his wilderness-programme, the outcome of which was that before and after a wilderness-experience he found that “…dysfunctions almost completely ceased” (p. 133). Because Nature-Awareness comfortably functions between a residential and wilderness setting, (reducing our physical impact on the wilderness), nature becomes more accessible as part of an individuals healing process. Lau & McMain (2005) state that “… recent innovations in psychological treatments have integrated mindfulness meditation techniques with traditional cognitive and behavioural therapies, challenging traditional cognitive and behavioural therapists to integrate acceptance - and change-based strategies” (p. 863), with the emergence of mindfulness (the so called Third Wave) models like CBT are advancing, creating the potential for greater integration of alternative-therapies.

While not a stand alone intervention Nature-Awareness promotes behavioural, cognitive and affective change demonstrating an integrated approach which synergistically works with other therapies, such as Cognitive Behavioural Techniques (CBT), Transactional Analysis (TA), Gestalt (GE), 12-Steps (STEPS) which is used to deliver an end result GREATER than the use of a single therapy used in isolation, as an intervention Nature-Awareness can and does compliment main stream models.

Drawing Great-spotted Woodpecker by Geoffrey McMullan

Lifting the Veil & Bird Language

Below is a letter from a friend who attended one of my tracking courses, I felt it would be good to share with you how much he got from it. He talks about about a lots of powerful things like being in the moment and emptying the mind, understanding what the birds and nature are telling us.

Hi Geoffrey,

"Lifting the Veil delivered everything I wanted and more! A radical paradigm shift from what I thought tracking was all about and also an experience at a deeply personal level. Thank you for your patient instruction and for showing me what's possible."

One of the learning's I got from Lifting the Veil (tracking course) was being aware of birds. Bird behaviour, birdsong, calls, alarms. I can see how much information there is available to us if we choose to become aware of it. So have been trying to learn about birds and have started taking pictures as a way to learn about them and have been really enjoying it.

Checking in with peripheral vision has helped loads, for example: when sitting in hides looking for warblers in reeds. Just sit, relax, let my focus drift out a bit be aware of everything in visual field at the same time. Anything that moves I'm straight on it much quicker than I would have previously.

I practice trying to maintain peripheral vision, peripheral hearing and peripheral feeling at the same time. It's so intense! Such a high level of awareness it takes it out of me! You feel right "in the zone" though, an altered state of consciousness. I can't think in this state, just being, and it's great for grounding in the present, as in no future, no past, just the here and now. So when I need time out and to escape the daily grind it's a great place to go to.

I'm working weekends at the moment but when I sort my life out and get some free time... I'll book in again. I'm keen to learn more.

I've told one of my mentor about you, a lady called Emma Lane, ...as one of her clients was interested in learning tracking and nature awareness...

Your book looks awesome by the way. Well done for getting your creative juices flowing, I appreciate it takes a lot of time and effort to put something like that together. I've put it on my wish list of books to get...

If you're ever up in London... give me a shout. You're always welcome.

Kind regards

James