Author: Michael Woodcock

Today I can confirm that I have all the elements in place to be able to offer day or regular weekly workshops in some stunning places within the Tararua and Remutaka Forest Parks. I’m also open to groups who might want a tailored workshop or rewilding day together.

I’m delighted to have DOC approval and consent to guide participants on nine consented tracks here in the Wairarapa – 8 are in the Tararua Forest Park and one in the South, in the Remutaka Forest Park. Approval also means I have passed the environmental standards set by DOC, as well as safety standards set by an independent auditor, and are now approved to operate in public conservation areas. The use of the logo also confirms that Live Like the River Flows pays fees to DOC to support conservation.

Live Like the River Flows has a Safety Management System that has been audited and certified by OutdoorsMark against the Safety Audit Standard for Safety management Systems Document Review. It complies with Department of Conservation Guidelines 2014, Health and Safety at Work 2015 and all relevant activity safety guidelines.

I am a member of Outdoor Training NZ. Through OTNZ I have entered their comprehensive trainer courses. Through them I have also passed my Police vetting check tobe able to work with young people. OTNZ is both a pathway for my ongoing professional development and a place to give something back. And I’m first aid qualified through Red Cross.

I look forward to meeting you and being able to guide you into some beautiful spots to be able to find a slower rhythm and reconnect with the sacred.

Today 150-200 species of plants, insects and animals went extinct. And if that is not frightening enough, the same is going to happen tomorrow and the next day and the next. Most ceased to exist because of human destruction of habitats or just plan wiping them out. What the f _ _ _ are we doing?

it’s 3:23 in the morning

It is with a sense of delight and a realisation of the possible that I write.

Recently I applied for and was granted Department of Conservation (DOC) approval to access nine walking track sites, with permission to guide people on these, within the Tararua and Remutaka forest parks.

This means that the experiences I want to offer now have a close to home centring, allowing me to hold most of my workshops  and retreats, along with rewilding days at these sites, with the primary location being within the greater Taratahi (Mount Holdsworth) area. A place with lots of space and magnificent native trees, easy formed tracks and the beautiful Awa – The Atiwhakatu River. The last part of the formal process is underway with an independent audit of my safety plan being conducted.

While DOC provides the authorisation, entering the ngahere (forest) for me has to be done with respect and dignity of the local Iwi – Rangitāne o Wairarapa and Kahungunu ki Wairarapa. Meeting with them to talk about the journey I’m on and the one I want to take others on, has been a very precious part of my own unfolding. I have learnt and have a deeper understanding and consideration, to do my best, to tell any of their stories and history in these locations, in an accurate and respectful way. To enter the ngahere with the reverence it and the people who have lived, died and passed through it, need to be shown.

I’m looking forward to meeting and working with those who attend workshops in these places  to reclaim a deeper connection with nature, to find their own sacred connections. The frist will be a pilot launch of my ‘Sacred Friday’s’ in late March. I might see you there.

Side stream before entering the Atiwhakatu

Be still. Listen. Can you hear it? The cry of the earth? My journey to date has been to arrive at the point where I fully believe that the only way we can have a hope in turning the environmental collapse around, is to reclaim the sacred. Now, if I have to write an easy to back that statement up, then you and I are probably not the right audience for each other.

The book to read, Spiritual Ecology – The Cry of the Earth – a selection of writers and their essay’s edited by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, is a book I find myself returning to time and again, especially on these long summer delayed commuter train trips to and from Wellington.

One of the writers is Chief Oren Lyons – a native American and  Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan he has said,  “In the absence of the sacred, nothing is sacred. Everything is for sale.” Susan Murphy writes about the price of “indefinite expansion turns out to be the forfeiture of climate conditions hospitable to our Species.” That the earth is “mere collateral damage in the pursuit of a single-minded, self-entitled idea.”

There are twenty-three writers, including Thich Nhat Hanh, Bill Plotkin, Joanna Macey, Vandana Shiva, Thomas Berry, who says amongst many pearls of wisdom, “We have broken the great conversation… We are not talking to the rivers, we are not listening to the wind and stars.”

While the writers point out how bad we have made things, it is still a book full of hope. Read it and see how you might answer the call.

Upcoming retreat – Into your own Unfolding – March  22nd – 24th

If you live in New Zealand, are Pakeha or from the northern hemisphere this is a must read book. Juliet covers everything from colonisation of this land and the colonisation as Pakeha of our sacred and spiritual connection with nature. Through our realignment with the southern seasons of celebration for Maori and our Celtic past we can reclaim our sacred and spiritual connections. We can find hope and be on the right side of what Joanna Macey calls the great turning.

If you read nothing more than the chapter – The Meeting Point, then you will have made a great investment in buying the book.