The Foundational Presence Walkabout is specifically designed as a weeklong collective retreat and deep dive into the value of reflective and dialogue practices combined with the Power of Place. It offers the most depth and skill development. If you are committed to creating the time and space for this depth of exploration of both individual and collective levels of Presence, this is the program I recommend.
MY PROMISE
This program is not a “quickie” or “executive briefing”: it is an intense immersion learning experience. Over seven days we co-create an in-depth awareness, skill building and integration experience. Each walkabout program evolves into a unique design based on those who gather and their needs.
I will share with you:
- Special Places that offer different gifts here in Northern New Mexico
- Practices that have sustained and inspired me for over 30 years, and,
- Ways I have developed my capacity to integrate body, mind and spirit into my work with individuals and groups.
Your Takeaways: In addition to those listed for all walkabout programs...
- You will leave with greater knowledge of your gifts and a stronger and more grounded sense of your self.
- Regardless of your particular arena of work, this time will expand your personal and professional skills.
- Your resilience and capacity to center and be fully Present will become deeper and more flexible.
- You will leave renewed and with new clarity around whatever question(s) you bring with you.
- You will be better equipped than ever before to help others move through and beyond their limitations into new possibilities and more powerful results.
Below is a comprehensive overview of the program. I've created internal links for convenience in moving through the information. For more detail or questions please contact me.
Introduction
The Walkabout
Program Outline
Sample Inquiries from Past Walkabouts
Logistics, Travel & Lodging
Registration
Your Guide
Words from Past Participants
INTRODUCTION: A WATERING PLACE...
The Presence Walkabout is a time to experience the power of Place and Presence and hone your capacity to be fully present, to listen more fully, to gain new perspective and become a more effective leader in both your work and your personal life.
In all journeys there are times of deep exploration and quickening, rest and renewal. In the Foundational Presence Walkabout these interweave and catalyze each other. This is a time and space to come to rest within the rapid and complex pace of daily life. To breathe deep. To walk upon and with the Land. To be enfolded by silence. To listen for the voice of wisdom, essence and purpose. It is a time of reconnecting with the flows of personal rhythms. Of coming to center, renewal and discovery. This week is a time to re-member and re-enliven your connection with Purpose, Passion and Spirit.
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THE WALKABOUT
Walkabout is a word used to describe a journey that was first studied among the Aborigine of Australia. The journey is undertaken to a 'belonging place' to renew relationship with the principles that guide one in this lifetime. A group or an individual may go on a walkabout. It can be a walk to where they originated; where the particular "songline" that is their legacy traverses the Earth. The "songlines" are an aborigine tradition of co-creative partnership with the Land. On a walkabout, the portals that open and the insights that emerge are congruent with the journey of each individual and/or group.
Presence Walkabouts are designed in the spirit of partnering with the Land to deepen listening and discernment individually and collectively. You will have the opportunity to visit many different landscapes, both inner and outer. You will discover your unique relationships to these landscapes and the depth and aliveness that being fully present to them can bring to your work and your life.
Some of the features of the inner and outer territories we will walkabout in may seem familiar to you. Yet, you will experience them in new ways as you engage places and activities through this ancient and powerful form of walkbout. You will experience how the natural world can be both container and active facilitator of learning. You will feel Silence come alive within you and change your listening and ways of knowing. You will be drawn deeper into your own capacities and belonging by the call and response of your own natural rhythms. You will learn directly what it means to embody dialogic inquiry and Presence.
The Land in all its many architectures and seasons is a powerful learning partner, teaching us the essence and power of Place. As we embody the gifts of grounded equanimity and deep listening that the Land offers, our work is deepened and changed. Our invitations to others to stretch, explore, step forward more authentically, become more resonant and powerful attractors.
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PROGRAM OUTLINE
For Current Dates Visit CALENDAR
First Evening - Theme: Entering with Intention
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Evening - Convene 5:30pm - BBQ
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Welcome and Introduction to Program Flow
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Foundational Framework(s)
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Preparation for tomorrow's walkabout
Day One - Themes: Silence, Stillness, The Role of Ritual & Ceremony
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Morning walkabout
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Labyrinth
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Lunch together
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Personal time
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Collective reflection on walkabout
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Storytelling and listening to discover core themes
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Discovering what gifts we each bring to the week
Day Two - Theme: Belonging, Safety & Collective Presence
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Creating sacred space and collaborative workspace
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Crafting our collective "homebase"
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Lunch together
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Listening and noticing what is - a collective activity
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Preparation for tomorrow's walkabout
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Evening on your own
Day Three - Theme: Paradox & Perspective; Dialogue, Inquiry & Reflection
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Morning walkabout
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Personal reflection
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Dialogue - walkabout experiences, insights, and application
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Reflection on Day
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Preparation for tomorrow's walkabout
Day Four - Theme: Water as Metaphor; Leadership; Collective Intelligence; The Role of Play
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Morning walkabout
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Lunch together
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Dialogue - walkabout experiences with Water and applications to leadership, creating conditions for collective intelligence and the role of play in life and work
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Preparation for tomorrow's walkabout
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Evening on your own
Day Five - Theme: Expansiveness & Discovery; Your Place in the Whole; Integration
Day Six - Theme: Ways of Collective Sensing & Knowing; Integration Practices
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Creating a collective map of the territory explored this week
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Sensing into and giving form to what is unfolding for us as individuals and as a group
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Integration practices for transferring and grounding insights, learnings and skill development in your day-to-day life and work
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Evening - Celebration - form TBD
Day Seven - Theme: Closing & Bridging
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LOGISTICS, TRAVEL & LODGING
Each group is limited to 15 people. We meet in one of the most beautiful international destinations: New Mexico. Our opening and closing council fires as well as our day to day dialogue circles convene at Paseo del Ojo, midway between Santa Fe and Taos. The land here is known for its beauty and power, the depth of its silence and its expansiveness. Our time on the land will be a primary thread in our work together. Each of the seasons brings us its unique and rich questions and alchemical energies.
Arrival and departure dates and times vary with the seasons and years. CALENDAR
Click the links below to download pdfs with helpful information.
Download Travel and Lodging
Download Restaurants
Download What to Bring to Your Walkabout
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REGISTRATION
There are two steps to the registration process.
1) Contact me. I would like to hear something of what calls you to this experience and you will have an opportunity to ask any questions you may have.
2) If, after communicating with me, you are confident this is the program for you at this time, I will ask you for a non-refundable deposit of $150 as a symbol of your desire to be with us and your commitment to yourself and the group.
FEES:
Full: $925/person
Early Bird: $850 paid in full 60 days before the first day of the walkabout.
The balance of your registration is due 45 days prior to the first day of the walkabout.
Cancellations: Between 45 and 30 days before the program start I will refund your fee minus the $150 deposit. Within 30 days of the program start I will refund 50% your fee minus the $150 deposit.
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YOUR GUIDE
To read my bio and a brief history of walkabout in my life and work please visit ABOUT ME/US.
WORDS FROM PAST WALKABOUT PARTICIPANTS
What Glenna created was the environment where the aspirations and quests of strong and distinct individuals became clearer as one's sense of self sharpened. I connected to my strengths and my challenges and learned, as never before, that heart-driven well-guided groups are a terrifically important frontier in the equation of fostering presence and tending to the core issues facing us and our many cultures.
- Robert Corman
It was like no other retreat, training or workshop I have done. I came with little expectation and I was very surprised, and pleased, with the quality of relationship that was borne out of our shared commitment to show up. The places in nature were very special and contributed to the field we created which I can only describe as spiritual intimacy. It felt like a true circle of the heart.
Thank you, Glenna, for your skill in creating a safe, sacred container and in weaving our circle, and thank you for your wonderful heart that was always present and very much open. I know this allowed us to listen in another way, with the ears of our own hearts, to the other voices of our selves speaking. What a remarkable group of people you attracted!
- Ken Robinson
What has really left an impression are two concepts...the unfolding of Purpose and the sense of one's Place. This has deeper levels of meaning for me than what the words may imply. The Walkabout fosters this important aspect of recognizing a need to be in relationship to the Earth and the land.
This form of relationship building....consciously engaged...being in the body and being on the land...seems to me to be connected to some larger purpose of which I feel a small part... a new way of knowing unlike what we have been living since the age of reason.
– Lorna Dwyer
What feels resonant in me is the magic of the deep deep power of listening. And boy can that be challenging!
Our ability to help groups come together in a way that allows for the transformation of the way that they think together, feel together and create new possibility together will rest, in part, with our own ability to create a container for the kind of deep listening that heals and elevates mind, heart and action.
After our week together, I feel refreshed and renewed and grounded in a richer way of Being with others. I thank you all for helping me see the possibilities in myself and others.
– Paul Cello
Never have I been in a "training" session where I was given time to really think...sit and think...walk and think... smell the fire and think... listen to the river and think. This was truly a one of a kind ...chance in a lifetime learning event. I am grateful for Glenna Gerard's wisdom and capacity to create this container of spirit filled learning and sharing.
-Nikki Moss
"Compounded interest"... an image that comes as I sense the energy from the summer Walkabout and sense into the convening of the fall group. It is an image of a sacred field... growing in some exponential way as we hold one another in our prayers and meditations, in our hearts and bellies and minds ... an antidote to the hurricanes; a healing force ...
- Becky Winslow
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