Shadow Training – May, 2025

The Shadow is the hidden side of our psyches, with both its “positive” and “negative” aspects. The Shadow is not what we know about ourselves and don’t like (and perhaps keep hidden) but, rather, what is true about us but know absolutely nothing about … and would deny if “accused.”

During this training, we’ll develop our skills, as nature-based soul guides, in being with and working with:

• The Shadow: strategies for spotting, unmasking, and assimilating the dark shapes of Shadow

• Projections and transferences

• Loyal soldiers: the subpersonalities that have been keeping us “safe” since early childhood by keeping us small

• Sacred wounds — our core vulnerabilities — that have kept us stuck in the Old Story, but that also provide the priceless opportunity, when we are ready, to remythologize our lives.

• Overpowering emotional charges triggered by other people and by encounters in the natural world

Working in dyads, triads, and full group, we will practice underworld guiding by working with Shadow elements that emerge between us in the training group, in our dreams, in our lives more generally, and while wandering on the land and interacting with the Others. We’ll hone our skills by serving as guides for each other, and through discussion, feedback, and suggestions.

The training will also include instruction and practice in the guidance of the Heart Warrior Council, a format for acknowledging projections and transferences existing within the group and for uncovering the soul-revealing experiences waiting there.

This training is designed primarily for trainees in the Animas SAIP program, but is also open (by application) to guides working in the settings of wilderness, rites of passage, soul initiation, psychotherapy, coaching, etc.