Rewild
Nature
One Small Space
at a Time
Mother Tree Hub
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As you improve your skills at picking up feelings from plants and trees you will discover that plant energies within ecosystems gather into energy guilds. Often these guilds are strongest around Mother Trees. Like all plants, trees provide energy emissions, which also carry communication between themselves and others.

We really have a lot to learn about how everything works – and how everything is connected. Join us for a presentation about the importance of Mother Trees.
Experience, Perspective
and a Different Way Forward

For more than three decades, Wildcraft Forest has developed programs exploring the relationships between people, nature, forests, communities and the deeper dimensions of human experience. Coaching & Consulting brings that experience directly to individuals, leaders, organizations and communities seeking new perspectives and new possibilities.

The work is led by Don Elzer, a founder of the Wildcraft Forest School, drawing upon his experience in community development, forest therapy, shamanic practice, spiritual ecology, ecological restoration, nature-based education and land design.

These are not conventional consulting packages built around predetermined solutions. Each engagement begins with the circumstances, questions and aspirations of the client. The role of Wildcraft Forest is to help clients step back, examine assumptions, recognize possibilities and develop approaches that may not be visible from within their existing routines.

Specialized Coaching & Consulting

  • Shamanic Coaching
For individuals and leaders seeking deeper perspective, clarity, purpose and direction during periods of change and transition.

  • Forest Therapy Coaching
For individuals seeking to reconnect with nature, unplug from modern life and develop a healthier and more meaningful relationship with the natural world.

  • Forest Therapy Practitioner Coaching
For guides and practitioners seeking to establish, improve or expand their Forest Therapy practices.

  • Applied Forestry Relational Intelligence
For forestry professionals, companies, NGOs and communities seeking to rethink strategic decisions and behaviours through a broader understanding of their relationship with forests and living systems.

  • Sanctuary Forest Design
For individuals, landowners, farmers and communities exploring new approaches to land, farm and community planning and looking for opportunities to live, work and grow differently.

  • Shamanic Coaching for Athletes, Teams & Coaches
For athletes and sports organizations exploring presence, purpose, resilience, identity, team culture and the human dimensions of performance.


A Relationship, Not Just a Session

Wildcraft Forest coaching and consulting can take the form of a single conversation, a multi-session coaching series, an extended consulting engagement or an ongoing relationship.

Online or in person. Individual or organizational. Focused or long-term.
The common thread is an invitation to step outside the familiar, look at a situation differently and discover what might become possible.

Wildcraft Forest Coaching & Consulting — a different perspective for people ready to explore a different way forward.

Wildcraft Forest Coaching & Consulting

Forest Therapy Coaching
Reconnecting People with Nature, Place and Themselves

Modern life can create a profound separation between people and the natural world. Screens, schedules, work environments, urban living and the constant demands of daily life can leave little time for quiet observation, movement outdoors or meaningful contact with the living systems around us.

Forest Therapy Coaching is a Wildcraft Forest coaching service for individuals who want to change that relationship.

The work is designed for people who feel disconnected from nature, overwhelmed by the pace of modern life, or simply recognize that they need to spend more time outside and develop a healthier rhythm between technology, work, relationships and the natural world.

Rather than treating time in nature as another activity to add to an already crowded schedule, Forest Therapy Coaching explores how nature can become part of a person's way of living.

The coaching process may include guided forest experiences, nature-based practices, reflective conversation, unplugging strategies, sensory awareness, mindful observation and the development of a personal relationship with place. The objective is to help individuals discover what happens when they regularly step away from screens, noise and artificial environments and spend meaningful time in the forest.

This can be particularly valuable for people seeking greater balance, restoration, perspective and connection. It may also provide an opportunity to examine the habits and routines that keep people disconnected from the natural world.

The approach is personal rather than prescriptive. There is no requirement to become an expert in nature or to adopt a particular philosophy. The starting point is simply curiosity and a willingness to spend time differently.

Over time, the goal is to help clients develop their own nature practice—something that can continue beyond the coaching relationship and become part of everyday life.

Forest Therapy Coaching asks a simple question:
What might change in your life if spending time in nature became something you needed rather than something you occasionally managed to fit in?

Wildcraft Forest provides the experience, guidance and perspective. The client develops the relationship.


Forest Therapy Practitioner Coaching
From Forest Therapy Training to a Living Practice

Completing a Forest Therapy or Forest Bathing training program is only the beginning. Many practitioners leave their training with knowledge, certification and enthusiasm, but discover that building a sustainable practice requires a different set of questions.

Who are my clients? What should I offer? How do I guide different people? How do I create meaningful experiences? How do I communicate the value of Forest Therapy? And how can I build a practice that actually works?

The Forest Therapy Practitioner Coaching Series is designed for guides, practitioners, educators and emerging Forest Therapy professionals who want to establish, strengthen or rethink their practice.

This coaching is provided through Wildcraft Forest and draws upon Don Elzer's many years of developing and delivering Forest Therapy education, including the development of the Yasei Shinrin Yoku approach and the training of practitioners internationally.

The work begins with the practitioner rather than a standardized business formula. Some clients may be establishing their first practice. Others may already be guiding but want to develop a clearer identity, improve their programs or find new markets and partnerships.

Coaching may explore:
•Developing a distinctive Forest Therapy practice
•Designing experiences for different audiences
•Improving guiding skills and client relationships
•Working with businesses, schools, healthcare organizations and communities
•Developing workshops, retreats and specialized programs
•Communicating the value of Forest Therapy
•Building partnerships and referral networks
•Creating sustainable pricing and business models
•Expanding from individual guiding into organizational programs
•Developing a long-term professional direction

There is also an important creative dimension to the work. Forest Therapy does not have to look the same everywhere. Practitioners can develop approaches that reflect their landscape, culture, community and personal experience while maintaining a strong foundation in the principles of nature connection and therapeutic forest experience.

The objective is not simply to produce more Forest Therapy guides.
It is to help practitioners become better guides, stronger educators and more capable stewards of the practice itself.

Whether someone is taking their first steps toward establishing a practice or has been guiding for years, Wildcraft Forest Practitioner Coaching provides an opportunity to step back, examine what they are doing, identify new possibilities and develop a clearer path forward.


Sanctuary Forest Design
Rethinking Land, Farm and Community as Places to Live, Learn and Thrive

There are people and communities who look at a piece of land and see more than a property, a farm, a forest or a development opportunity. They see the possibility of creating a different way of living.

Sanctuary Forest Design is a Wildcraft Forest coaching and consulting service for individuals, families, landowners, farmers and communities who want to approach land and community planning from a different perspective and discover opportunities that may not be visible through conventional planning.

The work begins with a simple question:
What could this place become if we designed it around the life we actually want to live?

Rather than beginning with a predetermined development model, Sanctuary Forest Design looks at the relationships between land, people, food, forest, water, shelter, education, work, recreation and community. The objective is to understand what already exists, identify what the land can offer, and explore how those elements might be brought together into a more meaningful and resilient whole.

This approach draws upon Don Elzer's decades of experience with Wildcraft Forest, ecological restoration, forest education, wildcrafting, nature-based learning, spiritual ecology and the development of Sanctuary Forest and Forest Commons concepts.

A Sanctuary Forest engagement might involve a family considering how to establish a long-term homestead, farmers exploring new uses for their land, landowners looking at regenerative possibilities, or a group of people imagining a small community built around shared resources, learning and stewardship.

The process can explore questions such as:
•How can the land provide more opportunities for food, income, education and recreation?
•How might forest, farm and residential areas work together?
•What possibilities are being overlooked because of conventional approaches to land use?
•How can people create places where work, learning and daily life become more connected?
•How might land support aging, family life, community and future generations?
•What could be created through cooperation rather than individual ownership and isolation?

Sanctuary Forest Design is not a conventional architectural or engineering service, nor is it a predetermined development model. It is a strategic exploration of possibilities that can precede and complement professional planning, design, engineering and regulatory processes.
The goal is to help people see their land differently.

Sometimes a farm can become more than a farm. A forest can become more than timber. A residence can become more than a house. A collection of properties can become a community.

Sanctuary Forest Design helps people explore those possibilities and begin creating places where they can live better, connect more deeply and build something meaningful for the future.


Applied Forestry Relational Intelligence
Helping people and organizations change the way they think about forests, land and the living systems around them.

Wildcraft Forest Coaching & Consulting works with individuals, companies, NGOs and communities that are rethinking how they relate to forests, land and natural systems.

The Applied Forestry Relational Intelligence Series is designed for organizations and leaders who recognize that many of today's environmental, forestry and community challenges cannot be addressed simply by applying more technical solutions to the same old problems. 

Sometimes the deeper opportunity is to change the way we think, make decisions and understand our relationship with the living systems in which we operate.

This work draws upon Don Elzer's decades of experience developing Wildcraft Forest programs in forest education, ecological restoration, forest therapy, spiritual ecology, wildcrafting and nature-based learning. It brings those experiences into a coaching and consulting relationship designed around the specific circumstances of the client.

The work may involve a forestry company examining its strategic direction, an NGO reconsidering its approach to conservation, a community developing a new relationship with its surrounding forest, or an individual leader seeking to rethink the assumptions that guide their professional decisions.

The central question is simple:

What changes when we stop looking at the forest only as something to manage and begin understanding it as a complex web of relationships?
Relational thinking does not mean abandoning science, economics, planning or professional forestry. Instead, it asks us to expand the field of consideration. Ecological relationships, community relationships, cultural values, human experience, stewardship, reciprocity and long-term resilience can become part of the strategic conversation.

Coaching and consulting engagements may explore organizational culture, strategic planning, land-use decisions, community relationships, ecological restoration, forestry practices, new program development, leadership and the creation of regenerative initiatives.

This is not a standardized consulting package. Each engagement begins with understanding the client's situation and identifying where a shift in thinking could create new possibilities.

The objective is not to provide a predetermined answer.
It is to help clients see the situation differently, recognize relationships that may have been overlooked, and develop strategies and behaviours that are better aligned with the living systems in which they operate.
For organizations facing a rapidly changing ecological and social landscape, Relational Intelligence can become more than a philosophy.
It can become a strategic capacity.


Shamanic Coaching
Exploring the Deeper Patterns That Shape
How We Live, Work and Lead

There are times in life when conventional advice and problem-solving are not enough. We may know what we are supposed to do, yet still feel uncertain about the direction we are taking. We may be experiencing a major transition, questioning our purpose, struggling with a decision or sensing that something deeper is asking for our attention.

Shamanic Coaching is a Wildcraft Forest coaching service for individuals, leaders and people navigating periods of change who want to explore their circumstances from a deeper and more intuitive perspective.

The work draws upon Don Elzer's many years of developing and teaching shamanic and biofield-based practices through Wildcraft Forest. His approach has been shaped by long experience working with nature, traditional knowledge, spiritual ecology and the relationship between human beings and the natural world.

Shamanic Coaching does not attempt to provide a predetermined answer or tell a client what they should do. Instead, the coaching creates a space for deeper inquiry. Conversation, reflection, nature-based practices, symbolic exploration, observation and shamanic perspectives may be used to help a client examine the patterns, relationships and assumptions influencing their lives.

The approach can be useful during personal transitions, changes in career or relationships, leadership challenges, creative periods, questions of purpose, or moments when an individual is looking for a different perspective on the direction of their life.

For business and community leaders, the same approach can provide another way of examining decisions, relationships, organizational change and the larger environment in which they operate.

At the heart of the work is the understanding that human beings do not exist separately from the world around them. Our relationships with people, places, communities and the natural world can influence how we understand ourselves and the choices we make.

Shamanic Coaching offers an opportunity to slow down, step outside familiar patterns and explore what may be asking to emerge.

The coach does not provide the answers. The coaching creates the conditions in which the client can discover what they already know—and what they may not yet have considered.

Through Wildcraft Forest, Shamanic Coaching becomes a private and highly personal exploration of change, purpose, relationship and possibility.


Shamanic Coaching for Athletes, Teams & Coaches
Developing Presence, Purpose, Resilience and Team Connection

Sport is more than physical performance. Athletes and coaches work within a complex world of pressure, expectation, identity, competition, relationships, transition and uncertainty. At the highest levels, the physical skills of sport are only one part of the experience.

Wildcraft Forest Shamanic Coaching for Athletes, Teams & Coaches offers a different environment for exploring the human side of athletic performance and leadership.

Drawing upon Don Elzer's long experience developing Shamanic Coaching, nature-based education and spiritual ecology programs through Wildcraft Forest, the program uses conversation, reflection, nature connection, personal ritual and experiential practices to help athletes and coaches explore the deeper patterns that influence how they train, compete, lead and respond to change.

The work is not presented as a performance technique or a substitute for athletic training, sports medicine or psychological care. Instead, it provides a complementary space for athletes and coaches to step outside the normal competitive environment and examine their relationship with sport and with themselves.

Individual Athlete Coaching

Individual coaching can be delivered online or in person and may be particularly valuable during periods of transition, uncertainty or heightened pressure.

Sessions can explore personal identity, focus, purpose, resilience, competition, setbacks, preparation, relationships, leadership and the transition between different stages of an athletic career.

Online coaching combines private conversation with nature-based practices that athletes undertake in their own environments. The athlete's local landscape becomes part of the coaching process.

A 12-week program, for example, can create an ongoing cycle of:
Conversation → Practice → Experience → Reflection → Integration

In-Person Athlete & Team Experiences

Wildcraft Forest can also provide in-person experiences for athletes, coaches and teams in a natural setting.

Away from the normal training environment, a team can explore its identity, relationships, shared values and culture through guided experiences in the forest. Activities may include walking, observation, silence, storytelling, fire-based reflection, nature connection and the development of simple team rituals.

The objective is not conventional team-building. It is to create an environment where people can experience themselves and one another differently.

Coaching for Coaches

Coaches can participate independently or as part of a team program. Coaching provides an opportunity to examine leadership, communication, team culture, personal expectations and the responsibilities that come with guiding others.

Two Ways to Participate

  • Online Coaching
  • Private one-on-one sessions supported by practices and reflections that athletes undertake between sessions. This format makes the program accessible regardless of location.

  • In-Person Coaching & Team Experiences
  • Individual or group experiences conducted in a natural setting, where the landscape itself becomes part of the coaching environment.

Both approaches are built around the same principle:
The athlete is more than the performance. The coach is more than the role. And a team is more than the people wearing the same uniform.

Wildcraft Forest creates space for athletes, coaches and teams to explore what lies beneath performance—and to return to their sport with greater awareness of who they are, what they are doing and why it matters.


Meet the Coach
Don Elzer - A Founder of the Wildcraft Forest

For more than 30 years, Don Elzer has been exploring the relationship between people, nature, traditional knowledge and the deeper dimensions of human experience. As a founder of the Wildcraft Forest, he has spent much of his career developing educational programs that bring these worlds together through direct experience, conversation, observation and learning in nature.

Don's work has never been confined to a single discipline. His experience includes forest therapy, shamanic practice, spiritual ecology, wildcrafting, ecological restoration, nature-based education, traditional skills and the development of innovative learning environments. Over the years, he has created and delivered programs for individuals, professionals, educators, forest practitioners and people seeking a different relationship with the natural world.

The coaching and consulting work offered through the Wildcraft Forest represents a natural evolution of that experience.

Rather than presenting himself as an outside expert who arrives with a predetermined solution, Don approaches coaching as a process of exploration. His role is to listen carefully, ask questions, recognize patterns and bring forward perspectives that may not be visible when someone is immersed in their own circumstances.

His approach has been shaped by years of working with people in forests and other natural environments, where conventional assumptions often begin to fall away. Nature creates a different context for conversation. It can slow the pace, change perspective and provide an opportunity to consider questions that are difficult to address within the routines of everyday life.

Don's coaching relationships can be highly personal, but they can also extend into professional and organizational environments. Business owners, community leaders, educators and organizations may engage him when they are navigating change, developing new ideas, reconsidering their direction or looking for ways to bring greater meaning and connection into their work.

The Shamanic Coaching Series represents one expression of this larger Wildcraft Forest approach. It draws upon the shamanic and biofield work Don has developed and taught for many years, while adapting those practices to a contemporary coaching and consulting relationship.

Other Wildcraft Forest coaching and consulting series will draw upon different areas of Don's experience, including Yasei Shinrin Yoku, Sanctuary Forest Design, Spiritual Ecology, nature-based education and regenerative approaches to land and community.

At the center of all of this work is a simple principle:

Sometimes the most useful thing we can do is step outside the familiar environment, slow down and look at our lives from a different place.
That is the space Don creates through Wildcraft Forest Coaching & Consulting.


CONTACT US

​If you have questions about our Coaching and Consulting offerings please contact our Mother Tree Hub front counter at Wildcraft Forest Extension Services: 

By Email: wildcraftforestextension(at)gmail.com 

By Phone (secure landline): 250.547.2001






If you believe that you might benefit from the Mother Tree Hub and you are willing to expand your relationship with nature please contact us.

Contact our office by email at the Sanctuary Forest Network: services(at)sanctuaryforestnetwork.com

Or you can call the Wildcraft Forest on our direct line at:
250.547.2001

COACHING AND CONSULTING
The Mother Tree Hub
An information portal produced by the Wildcraft Forest Foundation with support from the Regional District of the North Okanagan Conservation Fund; the David Suzuki Foundation and other community supporters.

The Wildcraft Forest Foundation offers skills, insights and
inspiration for creating good stewardship and positive change.

Located at the Wildcraft Forest 
1981 Highway 6 Lumby, British Columbia
Discovery Centre – 250.547.2001 Email: services@sanctuaryforestnetwork.com

Main Website: www.wildcraftforest.com
Extension Services: www.wildcraftforestschool.com
Resource Centre: www.mothertreehub.com

This website and all material is copyrighted by the Wildcraft Forest Foundation


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