Archive for the ‘Experiential Education’ Category
23/02/2012
First chapter of a soon to be published book.
By Ken Wylie
Larry Stanier, LA Traviata Crown Fracture, January 21 2003
There is a clear message in my gut. There is no stable snow to ski on the slopes of Tumbledown. I feel sick with dread about going here. My heart is screaming at me to turn around. I need to listen to myself.
With all of my party completely committed to the exposed mountainside there is a sudden enormous release of energy from deep beneath the snow. A massive WHUMMMPH!!!!! I hear a number of people hauntingly yell from above; “AVALANCHE!!!”
(more…)
Posted in Climb/Ski/Mntneering, Experiential Education, Leadership, Spiritual | Leave a Comment »
19/02/2012
What? Quit Using Fed Notes??
What Money Is & What Money Is Not – Living Without Money
A Walden for the 21st century, the true story of a man who has radically reinvented “the good life”.
In 2000, Daniel Suelo left his life savings-all thirty dollars of it-in a phone booth. He has lived without money-and with a new-found sense of freedom and security-ever since.
The Man Who Quit Money is an account of how one man learned to live, sanely and happily, without earning, receiving, or spending a single cent. Suelo doesn’t pay taxes, or accept food stamps or welfare. He lives in caves in the Utah canyonlands, forages wild foods and gourmet discards. He no longer even carries an I.D. Yet he manages to amply fulfill not only the basic human needs-for shelter, food, and warmth-but, to an enviable degree, the universal desires for companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement. In retracing the surprising path and guiding philosophy that led Suelo into this way of life, Sundeen raises provocative and riveting questions about the decisions we all make, by default or by design, about how we live-and how we might live better.
Editor’s note: It sounds like we have another Outward Bound success story here. I read that Suelo has been an OB instructor. Good to see he’s living the dream, and it looks like some of the OB values rubbed off, but I’m sure he had influences from more than just Outward Bound.
Tags:Daniel Suelo, Mountain Spirit Institute, Outward Bound, Sundeen
Posted in Books, Conservation, Experiential Education, Health, Inspirational People, Leadership, Mountain People, Spiritual, Sustainable Living/Communities, Sustainable Travel | Leave a Comment »
06/02/2012
Rachael Umbriano is Taking a Big Bite Out of Life
I met Rachael at a recent wilderness emergency medicine refresher course in North Conway, NH where we were both participants. Rachael just finished a year-long stint studying in Italy and traveling to 40 countries in her spare time while in Europe. A rock climber and go-getter, Rachael has some cool ambitions – see her vid below.
Learn how getting out of the U.S. for an extended period can shift your perspective. The Aussie’s and Kiwi’s call it an O.E. (overseas expedition). Most Americans, due to our work and study schedules, plus our limited work reciprocity with other countries only take short visits abroad. Rachael doesn’t fit that stereotype.
Tags:education, Europe, experienital learning, Italy, North Conway, OE, Overseas Expedition, Product Design Mountain Spirit Institute, Rachael Umbriano, Solo, traveling
Posted in 1- Video Posts, Experiential Education, Service, Traveling | Leave a Comment »
23/01/2012
By: R. Richards
The wonder of a palm frond in the morning sun, nz.
I’ve often been thinking how having a child is like teaching an 18-yr Outward Bound course, for the parents. The bus arrives when the baby is born and it may leave when the teen turns 18, but maybe not. Of course, no one wants to hear the worn our phrase, “you learn through your children” but I’m reminded of the Kogi tribe (see the BBC film Elder Brother’s Warning) in the Colombian Sierra Nevada mountains who hide their shamans-in-training in a darkened hut, never seeing the light of day until their 18th birthday. Then, after years of preparation, after telling them what the world looks like, they see their world for themselves, for the first time with their own eyes. As the wonder of a baby, with new eyes, but with training, so they can see their world more clearly to do their shamanic work.
Seeing our baby boy look with glee at the morning sunrise, and the light shining through some palm leaves this morning is an eye opener. I felt “more aware” after I survived being tossed around in a van roll-over in 1988. “Everything looked new and pristine”, as Eckhart Tolle put it after his awakening experience. I felt like lucky to still be on the planet. That default feeling subsided after a few weeks, and now I have to work at being present by doing what I call “remembering my spiritual practice”. For me it’s meditating and listening to Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now. Reminders can take almost any form as long as it helps
An Eye Catcher - Are you watching though?
bring one back to their center. In recent talks with newly elected Mountain Spirit Institute board member and mountain guide/instructor Ken Wyle, he’s been relating how writing his book on being buried in an avalanche which killed seven people, is a catharsis. Tolle says that people who are more conscious in their lives have usually had some tragic loss in their life that shook them out of the dream state we call normal life.
Our baby boy, laughing as he looks out the window of our van whizzing down main street in Kingston New Zealand, is a reminder to me – “What am I missing? I want to see like he sees!” The good news, it’s wholly possible. I’ve been seeing, more than dreaming during the last ten years. And it’s obivous when I’m not present. I might go a whole morning or day and realize I’ve not been present until something catches my eye, like a detail of a stem in a vase, or the bustle in supermarket, or of course, a sunset.
Learning to see and live in the moment sure beats the alternative, and I’m not going back. When you beat your head against a wall long enough, you finally decide you’ve had enough of that, and make the choice to stay in peace, no matter what happens. A side benefit of being at peace is your mind isn’t filled with crap, so you are free to see such things as the morning light shining through some palm fronds.
Images: R. Richards, taken this morning
Tags:Awareness, Echart Tolle, Learning to see, love, Meditation, Mountain Spirit Institute, Mountains, Open Hearted Listening, Shamanic Studies
Posted in Books, Experiential Education, Film/DVD, Indigenous Wisdom, Inner Work, New Zealand, Power of Place, Spiritual | Leave a Comment »
14/01/2012
Check out the South Coast Environmental Society, and stay tuned for the video, “Welcome to the Food Forest”. There are tons of volunteer opportunities as well.
Tags:Invercargill, Kingston, Mark Baily, Mountain Spirit Institute, Randall Richards, Randy, Riverton, Robert nd Robyn Guyton, South Coast Environment Society, South Island, Volunteer opportunities, Your Food Supply
Posted in 1- Video Posts, Conservation, Environment, Experiential Education, Health, Holistic Living, New Zealand, Sustainable Living/Communities, Your Food Supply | Leave a Comment »
06/01/2012
Graeme Dingle, New Zealand mountaineer does good
Graeme Dingle is fast becoming one of my role models, and I’ve never met the man. I intend to though. Maybe if I’m fortunate, we may collaborate on a co-venture project helping to connect people to the mountains, who knows. The more I learn about Mr. Dingle, the more I like and respect who he is, what he stands for, and what he’s accomplished in outdoor education.
Here’s an article from the Directions Magazine
By Laura Crooks
Inspiring New Zealand teenagers to reach their potential was a plan born during a trip to the Arctic by adventurer Graeme Dingle and partner Jo-anne
Wilkinson in the early ’90s.
Why did you think New Zealand needed a specific programme to help the country’s youth?
I set up the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre (OPC) in 1972 and I thought that was my contribution to New Zealand in terms of young people. But it was really just the start, because I learnt so much about youth development through it and I got to thinking about the business of dealing with harder kids than those we met at OPC. I felt that for kids who had low confidence and low self-esteem, a one week experience in the wilderness wasn’t enough – it needed to be a continuum of things that really built on what had been learnt in that first period. I then set out to do the first continuous circumnavigation of the Arctic and in the Arctic you get a lot of very unusual communities – they’re very isolated and they live in such extraordinary circumstances where it’s light half the year, then continuously dark the other half of the year. They have very high rates of suicide, the kids don’t have too much to look forward to, and that started us thinking. But it didn’t really hit home until we got back to New Zealand – that here we lived in paradise and yet we had one of the highest rates of youth suicide, youth incarceration, dropouts from school unplanned teenage pregnancy – the works. The main catalyst was going to see Once Were Warriors – that was the thing that finally made us say: “Let’s do something about this”. So, Jo-anne and I invented Project K. basically. The Project K Trust grew into the Foundation for Youth Development (FYD) with nearly 20,000 young people in programmes each year. The FYD runs programmes for kids aged 5 – 18, and Project K is one of these. (more…)
Tags:Artic, Experiential Education, Graeme Dingle, Jo-anne Wilkinson, Mountain Spirit Institute, Outdoor Pursuits Centre, Outward Bound, Project K, Sir Edmund Hillary, teenage suicide, Youth at Risk
Posted in Experiential Education, Inspirational People, Leadership, Mountain People, New Zealand, Service | Leave a Comment »
28/11/2011
Why are you here?
This post refers more to for-profit ventures, but it applies to anyone wanting to make a difference. I started Mountain Spirit Institute over 12 years ago, and still keep the fire burning.
Ed.
Startups Are Hard. So Work More, Cry Less, And Quit All The Whining
“I slept at work again last night; two and a half hours curled up in a quilt underneath my desk, from 11am to 1:30pm or so. That was when I woke up with a start, realizing that I was late for a meeting…But it was no big deal, we just had the meeting later. It’s hard for someone to hold it against you when you miss a meeting because you’ve been at work so long that you’ve passed out from exhaustion.”
Suddenly everyone’s complaining about how unfair things are in Silicon Valley. How hard everyone has to work so darn hard, and how some people don’t get venture capital or a nice sale to Facebook or Google even though lots of other people are getting those things.
Silicon Valley is an unfair place, say all the headlines. The CNN racism documentary was just one piece of this. Another are the cries from the press that Zynga would actually consider renegotiating contracts with highly compensated employees no longer pulling their weight. Expect more articles soon about the woes of being asked to work hard at a startup. People are working so hard, they’re crying themselves to sleep!
As if all of this was new. The quote above isn’t from some overworked Zynga engineer. It was written in 1994 by Jamie Zawinski, an early engineer at Netscape. Here’s more: Read the rest of this story..
Tags:donataions, motivation, Mountain Spirit Institute, Non-profits, Perserverance, Quotes, Start-ups
Posted in Experiential Education, MSI News | Leave a Comment »
15/09/2011
The North Face makes good
Cedar Wright on Turning his Passion into Purpose and an upcoming Expedition to Summit for Someone
By Cedar Wright, The North Face
This year I had the privilege and pleasure of attending several Outdoor Nation events to represent the North Face as a proud advocate of the movement to get more youth outside. I told my story of finding passion and direction through climbing in Yosemite, to hundreds of young people who are committed to turning the tide on the sad reality that at no time in human history have kids spent less time outdoors.
I spoke alongside Juan Martinez who is an Outdoor Participation ambassador for The North Face’s initiative to inspire more people everywhere to explore and push their personal limits in the outdoors. His story of growing up surrounded by the negativity, gangs, and crime in South Central LA and then having his life changed by getting the opportunity to camp out and see stars for the first time was truly inspirational. Juan’s journey reinforced what I have always believed; that these programs are invaluable for creating a bridge from the hustle and bustle of urban life to the quiet magic of Mother Nature. read the rest of this story..
Ed note: I take back everything I ever said about The North Face. Well, we still need to curb consumerism for consumerism’s sake, old stuff will do, and when that’s trashed, but durable goods. But I do commend the company for their initiatives in funding worthwhile orgs and projects under their grant program called the Explore Fund.
Tags:Cedar Wright, Consumerism, Explore Fund, grants, Juan Martinez, Mountain Spirit Institute, Outdoor Nation, Service, The North Face
Posted in Climb/Ski/Mntneering, Experiential Education, Service | Leave a Comment »
08/09/2011
Teddy Roosevelt on "Staying in the Arena"
What does it mean to be a good citizen these days?
Teddy Roosevelt had some definite ideas on the subject. Below is an excerpt from his speech Citizenship in a Republic.
And from where does the term Tenacity of Pursuit come?
Kurt Hahn, the founder of Outward Bound considered “the tenacity of pursuit” to be one of his key outcomes of a good education.
Kurt Hahn
Says Hahn, “I regard it as the foremost task of education to insure the survival of these qualities: an enterprising curiosity, an undefeatable spirit, tenacity in pursuit, readiness for sensible self denial, and above all, compassion.”
TR’s life shows us that hard work, tenacity, and a desire to do the right thing can get you far in life. In the most memorable section of his “Citizenship in a Republic” speech, Roosevelt captured his life philosophy in just a few sentences. “The Man in the Arena” tells us that the man we should praise is the man who’s out there fighting the big battles, even if those battles end in defeat. In our day, when cynicism and aloof detachment are considered hip and cool, TR reminds us that glory and honor come to those “who spend themselves in a worthy cause.”
The Man in the Arena
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Tags:Citizen in a Republic, Community, Kurt Hahn, Mountain Spirit Institute, Service, Tenacity of Pursuit, The Man in the Arena, Theodore Roosevelt
Posted in Experiential Education, Inspirational People, Leadership, Quotes, Service | Leave a Comment »
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