WHO WE ARE
Mission:
To provide people with an opportunity to explore themselves, their relationships, and their planet. Through connecting with nature and the community of the group, we offer a space where individuals can live their questions, speak their truth, look within, discover their world, and allow themselves to feel and be supported.
Our goal at the Wilderness Within is to provide an experience in nature that is focused on personal growth, self-reflection, healing, adventure, and fun. Recognizing a cultural need for ecological understanding, rites of passage, health, authenticity, and community, we have sought to create programs and experiences that allow individuals a chance for self-rejuvenation on a variety of levels. There is a lot that each of us can do to respond to all that we face in our own lives and in the world today. In taking a journey into nature, we are able to slow-down, and are presented with an opportunity to connect to our own truth, to the world around us, to each other, and to the mystery of life that sustains us. We offer a variety of experiences for a variety of people. Some of our trips are specifically therapeutic; where licensed therapists incorporate a nature setting to work intimately in challenging and supporting emotional growth (see Nature Therapy). Other trips are focused on rites of passage for all ages. Some trips focus on education and adventure. Regardless of the genre of the experience, every journey offers opportunities for nature immersion, community living, self-exploration, healing, and celebration. Our aim for all participants and clients is to:
- Take the time to feel deeply into themselves and their world
- Gain new and thoughtful considerations about the delicacy of our biosphere and the role human beings play in both the problems and the solutions.
- Initiate (or continue) their steps towards personal and planetary healing.
- Celebrate and grieve life in all of its complexity.
It is our hope that the answers to the challenges before us (both personally and globally) exist within the authentic and heartfelt expressions of people everywhere, and our intention is to help facilitate this expression.
Biographies
For over a decade, Garret Conway M.A. MFTI has been dedicated to the healing potential of the wilderness and rites of passage. He has worked extensively with a diversity of populations including inner city teenagers on probation, adults in life transition, families, university students, pre-school and school aged children, emotionally challenged special education students, and at-risk youth. He has lead wilderness trips all over the world and has directed wilderness leadership training programs, summer camp programs, ropes courses, and after school and university programs. Garret has taught ecopsychology, wilderness therapy, and sustainable living through the University of California and Humboldt State Extension and served as a clinical field supervisor and therapist for struggling families. He has an undergraduate degree in Community Studies/Wilderness Therapy and a Masters Degree in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Wilderness Therapy and is trained as a Wilderness First Responder. Garret is a co-founder of The Wilderness Within. His passion lies in relationship as a spiritual practice, being a father, healing through music, and ritual and in the ways the old wisdom tradition's and culture's practices inform modern therapy. He incorporates Gestalt, Somatic, Experiential, Family Systems, Mindfulness, and Transpersonal philosophies as well as nature based or ecotherapy interventions in his work as a family therapist and teacher. Garret currently serves as the executive manager of a resource center, teaches through HSU, and has a private practice in Santa Cruz, CA.
Will Scott is a gifted teacher and guide whose infectious enthusiasm and creativity can transform any trip into a lively, fun and soulful journey. An experienced wilderness guide, Will has worked with a variety of organizations to lead trips both locally and internationally. When not in the wilderness, Will is a teacher of environmental science and ecopsychology. He is a certified Wilderness First Responder and has trained in wilderness quest guiding with The School of Lost Borders. Will co-founded The Wilderness Within in 2003 and has devoted his time building and enhancing the program ever since.
Elaine Hirson, M.A. is a qualified wilderness leader with 13 years of backpacking and Nature studies experience. She believes that developing and maintaining a kinship with Nature is crucial for the overall well being of our human community and for all of our non-human relatives. She received her MA degree in Somatic Psychotherapy and has self educated understanding of ecopsychology that enhances her work as a wilderness leader. She is an avid gardener and sees this as the bridge between the vast wilderness and the urban wilderness. In 1997 she received a BA degree in Environmental Studies with an emphasis on California Natural History. She has a passion for the wonders of plants, birds, ecology, and humans relationship with the natural cycles of the Earth. She spent 3 years mentoring high school students and teaching California's cultural and natural history. This included teaching survival skills, ethnobotony, tracking and facilitating experiences that deepen ones attunement with themselves and the world around them. Elaine is a Certified Wilderness First Responder and Massage Therapist. She is currently working as a psychotherapist with elementary school children and high school youth in California.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in a suburb in central New Jersey, Keith received his B.A. at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and his M.A. in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in Colorado. He received additional therapeutic training from the Gestalt Institute of the Rockies. Keith has worked as a therapist in a variety of settings. He was a crisis clinician for an emergency psychiatric service in Colorado, where he evaluated and diagnosed children and adults in hospitals, jails, and homes, as well as provided direct intervention services for clients in suicidal and other acute psychiatric states. He has also been an outpatient therapist at the Longmont Mental Health Center, providing weekly counseling services to adults, families, and children suffering from a broad spectrum of psychological issues. Keith has facilitated a high school drug recovery group, and has led other teen groups focused on anger awareness and healthy expression. In May 2004 Keith became a field therapist for SUWS, a wilderness therapy program for struggling teens. At SUWS Keith fell in love with using the wilderness as a therapeutic ground from which to explore ones deepest truths. While at SUWS Keith led rites of passage rituals and therapeutic interventions focused on trust, attachment, and early adulthood transition. Keith is passionate both professionally and personally. He has a strong spiritual practice and intends to make choices that come from heart and soul. He believes that growth comes from courageously looking into one self, and taking total responsibility for our perceptions. He is a certified yoga instructor, and bodyworker, and has basic first aid/cpr certification. He has traveled internationally and likes to ski, hike, camp, read, play guitar and drums, and meditate. Keith now teaches family systems and other classes as well as advises at Naropa University.
Stuart Abel grew up in Northern California backpacking, hunting, fishing, hiking, and exploring wild nature. From the age of 11 until 19 he apprenticed with Headwaters Outdoor School where he studied nature awareness and tracking, wilderness survival skills, and ways of living in balance with the earth. His enduring love of the healing power of nature has led him to study herbal medicine, farming, Qiqong, martial arts, psychology, and ecopsychology. He treasures the attitude of wonder and curiosity, and strives to maintain this approach in his studies and teaching. His lifetime of benefiting from the joy, vitality, and transformation that nature and supportive human relationships can bring has compelled him to teach for several outdoor schools in northern California. He delights in sharing the wonders of the natural world with others: nibbling tasty wild edible plants, marveling at the vast tracks left by rivers and mountains, enjoying the warmth and companionship of a simple meal shared around a fire.
Shana Kale, M.A., received a degree in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University. She practices as a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern, and currently works as a school-based mental health clinician with East Bay Agency for Children (EBAC). With a background in Wilderness Therapy and Ecopsychology, Shana brings a passion for the natural world into her counseling work. She has taught gardening, visual arts, and ecopsychology to youth of all ages. She is a Certified Wilderness First Responder and Yoga Instructor, and is trained in leading Rites of Passage. She loves poetry, dance, art, music, and backpacking.
