|
April 7 is the deadline to SIGN UP for the
Mt. Vernon Sweetgrass Seminar Series
How wild is your creative side?
Whether you're a writer, an artist, or an entrepreneur, a deeper connection
with Nature will set you on a more meaningful path.
What does it mean to be wild?
How has domestication affected animals, humans, and the land?
How does Nature enhance our creativity and make us better leaders?
During three get-togethers at Mt. Vernon Country Club (20 minutes from Denver, Colorado), we will explore these questions, and more, through literature, journaling, hiking, a field trip to Lookout Mountain Nature Center, catered luncheons, an outdoor picnic, and attendance at a Denver screening of the award-winning documentary Sweetgrass: the last ride of the American cowboy.
An unsentimental elegy to the American West, "Sweetgrass" follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. This astonishingly beautiful yet unsparing film reveals a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed.
You may sign up for the entire series, or for a single event. Here's the agenda:
· DAY #1 Saturday, April 17, 9:00 - 4:30: Write and share spontaneous responses to Craig Child's book The Animal Dialogues; share our experiences in nature (Page will discuss her month alone in a remote cabin in the wilds of Wyoming); discuss "The Reciprocity of Nature" (from Dave Abram's book The Spell of the Sensuous); discuss Susan Griffin's book Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her (for men too!); attend naturalist presentation at Lookout Mountain Nature Center. WHERE: Mt. Vernon Country Club, Golden, CO. INCLUDES: coffee/tea, catered lunch, optional guided hike on private trails following the seminar.
· EVENING #2 Friday, May 14, 5:00 - 9:00: Share a group dinner in Denver; talk about the wild roots beneath the surface of our domesticated lives; and attend a Denver screening of the 90-minute, breathtaking documentary Sweetgrass (http://sweetgrassthemovie.com) about the last of Montana's Norwegian/American mountain sheepherders. We will meet downtown for dinner (place TBA) and go from there to the theater. INCLUDES: dinner and movie ticket (no-host bar).
· DAY #3 Saturday, May 15, 9:00 - 4:00: Explore what it means to "carry the Dreamtime origins" of the place where we were born; develop a list of the plants and animals who share our landscapes; lunch at Mt. Vernon's private picnic grounds; enjoy a leisurely afternoon hike with time for journaling, sketching, and solitude; create a personal plan for deeper engagement with the natural world. WHERE: Picnic grounds, Mt. Vernon Country Club, Golden, CO. INCLUDES: beverages and picnic lunch.
DEADLINE TO REGISTER: April 7, 2010
A LA CARTE COST: Day #1 $125; Evening #2 $50.00; Day #3 $125.00 (includes meals)
ENTIRE SERIES COST: $275.00 if registered by April 1; $300.00 after April 1 (includes meals)
"Look into the eyes of a domestic sheep, and you will see the back of its head. Look into the eyes of a bighorn...and you will see a lost map to place, a depth that we may extinguish before it touches us." Ellen Meloy, from "Brides of Place" And what of us? What of our lost map to place?
|
