New free video series- starting soon!
I have been very influenced by my teacher and friend John Vervaeke and his profound YouTube series entitled “Awakening from the meaning crisis” which I discovered in 2019 shortly after it was released, and have studied ever since. The 50-hour series is a comprehensive course that follows the evolutionary, historical, developmental, and philosophical journey of human cognition, including its present-day challenges, and plausible solutions.
Discover John Vervaeke and the Awakening from the Meaning Crisis series here’
Find my conversations with John here.
About
What I am offering is a primal response to some of the elements of John’s teaching that have impacted me and given me insight into my own work as a nature educator. It is my hope that these videos will help to expand the reach of John's work and perhaps make it more accessible to those of us who like to ape around in embodied practice.
In this series, I will be exploring the connections, insights, and impact of John’s project in relation to the elements of our core curriculum. We will explore core concepts that are relevant and meaningful in the context of the developmental journey of training in the primal arts including: awareness, movement, tracking, survival, healing, combat, personal growth, team dynamics, leadership, teaching, mentoring and more.
My name is Ben Sanford and I am the founder and lead guide at Tribal Edge, a primal arts training center on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. For the last twenty years, I have offered courses, coaching, and consulting in the science, art, and philosophy of human-nature integration.
Our training at Tribal Edge includes what John refers to as a timeless and integrated “Ecology of Practices” that honors what is relevant and meaningful to participants both individually and collectively while facilitating a journey that brings them back home to themselves, the earth, and the mystery of life.
Why an ape man’s response?
After a lifetime of hands-on training in the primal arts, and climbing trees as a professional arborist, I am keenly aware of the primate that I am, and I arrived in the arena of John’s conversation from a non-conventional approach, to say the least. Although I have been a lifelong student, I was not trained academically beyond a couple of years at a community college and have sought out experiential learning and traditional apprenticeships. My out-of-the-box education led to the design and facilitation of an integrated holistic curriculum, ecology of practices, and teaching method.
I have come to understand John’s teachings from a bottom-up journey, and only recently have I gone “back to school” to complete a formal degree in science education and instructional design. In the eyes of the academic arena, I assume much of my journey would seem like “aping” around, and I have taken the hard way off the beaten path in pursuit of wisdom. My hope is that this positions me as somewhat of a bridge between the functional and embodied practice and academic theory that may afford a connection between both arenas and help expand these teachings is some small way.
My Intention
It is my intention to share how John’s work converges with my work and the primal journey and share some of the concepts, perspectives, skills, and practices that we use at Tribal Edge to embody them.
It is my intention to keep things simple and accessible to a wider audience than may come across John’s work and to hopefully inspire others to discover for themselves the gift he is offering.
It is also my intention to be humble and transparent and I want to be clear that I am sharing my own understanding of John’s work and will not be attempting to critique or add to his work but merely using it to expand and interpret my own work.
I will do my best to provide references when appropriate, however, I am relying upon John’s work as a source and will usually reference him and encourage you to research his work and the vast resources he references.
I am hoping to learn more from you and I look forward to the conversations and ask for your feedback and corrections in hopes of improving my understanding.
I also will be speculating, hypothesizing, and reaching in some cases to explore connections, and I ask for your patience as I take some creative license to explore my thoughts in real-time.
There is much of John’s work that I do not yet grasp or am unqualified to speak on, so I do not intend to cover all of his material in a balanced way. I will likely be selecting parts that align with the primal journey I wish to share with you.
There will be little if any editing of these videos and I will be adding a transcript and article/essay version of the transcript with updated edits.
I will also be including some practices and exercises to try that we use at Tribal Edge to help you integrate your knowledge in an embodied and participatory way.
John Vervaeke, PhD is an award-winning lecturer at the University of Toronto in the departments of psychology, cognitive science and Buddhist psychology. John teaches Tai Chi, meditation and online on YouTube including Awakening from the meaning crisis, Voices with Vervaeke, and Meditating with John Vervaeke.
Learn more about John Vervaeke Website: www.johnvervaeke.com
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/johnvervaeke
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Vervaeke.John/