Twenty-first Century Life Skills

By Hanneli Francis

Interbeing  has  emerged  as  a  new  philosophy  of  creating social  change  and  healing  in  our  personal  and  global  consciousness.  We need to realize our interbeing nature, to recognize the significant part we each play in the larger web of life.

This is the core philosophy of the School of InterBeing, a vision that is in the process of manifesting in southern Oregon. We will offer courses that inspire, revive and enliven the human spirit. Our focus is to provide trainings that are practical in nature, to support the whole human being in contemporary society. For example, imagine what your life might have been like if you had gone to a month-long course at the beginning of your adulthood that had taught you how to do a daily meditation and yoga practice, how to eat mindfully, and how to communicate clearly, with compassion and honesty? And further that you had been introduced to the possibility of natural construction and organic gardening, of working in harmony with the land through permaculture, and you had received the tools to sustain these skills long into the future? How might a course of this nature have changed the path of your life? How might it affect your life if you did it now?

In the first week of our course, students learn essential elements of self care: yoga, meditation and mindfulness practices, intuitive nutrition and self-massage. The second week we explore the Self in Relation communication, conflict resolution, and respectful touch and relationship. Once a healthy and effective way of relating is established, students are ready for the Self in Relation to Nature – natural construction, organic gardening, alternative energy, permaculture, and earth-based ceremony. Finally, in the fourth week, we focus on Integration & Holistic Activism, examining core societal beliefs and offering tools to keep our new skills rooted in our beings.

Mindfulness practice as taught by Thich Nhat Hanh is woven into the curriculum throughout the month.

The 21st Century Life Skills School is our gift to this generation and the next. We hope to offer tools to build understanding, confidence, and clarity, that will bring stability, inner peace, and the awareness of our true nature, the nature of interbeing. For further information, go to: http://www.wildpeace.com, or write interbeing@wildpeace.com.

Hanneli Francis is a certified Anusara yoga teacher, retreat facilitator and enthusiastic student of life, who currently thrives in southern Oregon.

D’vorah Swarzman is co-director of the School of Interbeing. She is a Thai massage practitioner and teacher, and practices with the Community of Mindful Living, Southern Oregon in Ashland, Oregon.