Tuning to the Desert with Brandon Wert and Cameron Newell – G25070112
Every day of our lives we are immersed in the physical world, yet how often do we notice our surroundings or reflect on the experience of our environment?
Tuning to the Desert offers participants daily opportunities to engage in a very particular environment: The red-rock-high-country desert surrounding Ghost Ranch, NM.
Each day we will spend significant time exploring this visually spectacular and dynamic environment through hiking, kayaking, and mindfulness practices such as attentive stillness, ephemeral art, and Lectio Divina (sacred reading) in nature .
Each day’s explorations will be framed by one of the elements: Earth, Air, Water and Fire. Course participants will have the opportunity to reflect on and share their experience of the elements and environment through daily conversations guided by provocative questions, personal storytelling and ephemeral art.
The ultimate direction and depth of our collective experience will be informed and enriched by each course participant’s openness with the group, personal narrative and willingness to engage and reflect through the creative process.
Instructors
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Brandon WertBrandon and his partner Jodi split their time between Durham NC and the small rural community of Cascabel AZ, just over the mountains to the East of Tucson AZ. Together they enjoy traveling back and forth to spend time with their two adult daughters, friends and family.
A throughline of Brandon’s work is facilitating group experiences in natural and wilderness settings, leading a variety of courses and programs for over 20 years.
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Cameron NewellHey! I am a Forest School practitioner, musician and social worker from Edinburgh, Scotland. I spent the summers of my youth growing up at Ghost Ranch and worked at the ranch on College Staff in 2014 and 2015. The ranch played a huge role in shaping who I am today, and I am delighted to be returning as an instructor to connect others to the magic of this place!
For the last few years I worked for a Scottish rewilding charity in a community and education role. My job was to connect people to their local woodlands and work to improve the biodiversity of their local areas, helping to bring back native species that have for so long been missing from the Scottish landscape. As a Forest School practitioner, the favorite part of my job is getting to facilitate reflective and creative activities in the wild, which allow people to become more attuned to the natural world around them, and in this process, more attuned to themselves. As co-instructor I will be sharing these resources within the Tuning to the Desert week.
The other main passion in my life is music! I have played the fiddle since I was 4 and have grown up immersed in the Scottish folk music tradition. In 2020 I completed a masters degree in Scottish Music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Since then I have worked part time as a musician and composer, drawing a lot of inspiration in my music from the beautiful Scottish landscapes around me. I will be bringing my music to the week at the ranch, and hope to encourage others in nurturing their inner creativity as the week goes on.