Somatic Ecotherapy Guide Training
April 29 - Sep 23, 2026 | Online
“Everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood”
— Pablo Neruda
About the Program
Welcome to the Somatic Ecotherapy Guide Training.
This program is a love letter to embodied truth — a five-month professional immersion into two profoundly powerful paradigms of healing and wholeness: somatic inquiry and ecotherapy. It is designed for those who feel called not only to deepen their own embodied relationship with land and life, but to guide others in doing so with wonder, depth, and skilful attunement.
Through an experiential, practice-based curriculum, participants are trained to guide ecotherapy immersions that support nervous system regulation, inner relationship work, a felt sense of ecological belonging, and ceremonial depth. The training weaves psyche (mind), soma (body), and soil (earth) into a coherent guiding approach — one that honours trauma-informed pacing, relational presence, and the living intelligence of place.
At its heart, this program trains guides in the art of embodied listening.
Listening to the body.
Listening to the land.
And listening for what is ready to emerge in the living field between the two. This capacity to listen — deeply and in relationship — forms the foundation of somatic ecotherapy as a professional practice.
Meet Your Guide, Rob Engels
Learning, Rewilded
Somatic Ecotherapy is not your typical classroom. It opens a doorway into the teaching of wild spaces, where the body is a living field, and relationship with the more than human world becomes a treasury of knowing.
As part of your journey, this program invites you to slow down, awaken the senses, and remember how to be in dialogue with the land. Through immersive field practices, nature-based ceremony, and the steady, relational container of your learning cohort, you’ll open into ancestral ways of sensing, being and connecting that foster a re-enchantment with the animate world, and the pulse of mystery that permeates all of life.
This is a highly experiential training, where the emphasis is on taking what you learn out onto the land — alone and with others — where it is lived, breathed and embodied.
As both a personal and professional training, this approach supports you to:
cultivate embodied presence and nervous system awareness in yourself and those you guide
listen for and work skillfully with the felt sense, inner parts, and relational dynamics in outdoor settings
design and guide somatic ecotherapy experiences with clear structure, pacing, and intention
track individual and group field while remaining attuned to land, place, and more-than-human presence
hold ceremonial space on the land in a way that supports participants to slow down and come to ground
integrate psychological safety, ecological reverence, and professional responsibility in guiding contexts
The Somatic Ecotherapy training follows the Five Terrains Framework — a bespoke, poetic and developmental map that supports somatic regulation, imaginal healing, and deep ecological belonging.
Over five months, participants move through these terrains in a deliberate arc, from the art of arrival and orientation, through embodied sensing and inner relationship work, and into more explicit dialogue with place and mystery.
Each terrain offers a distinct quality of attention and tools of practice:
A Living Framework
1. Trailhead
The beginning of our journey. Here, we cross thresholds through ceremony, intention-setting, and sacred orientation. This terrain invites you to slow down, open to mystery, and begin listening with the whole body.
2. Meadow
The terrain of gentle arrival. Through sensory grounding and body-based presence, we soothe the nervous system and learn to attune to the subtle language of the senses. This is where breath deepens and the resonance of the field of life returns.
3. Forest
The inner wilderness. In sacred partnership with the land, we meet our inner parts—those hidden, wounded, or orphaned ones that roam the silent avenues of the body. Through myth, imagination, and embodied listening, we enter sacred space to tend and to call them home.
4. Mountain
The place of belonging and ecological identity. This terrain opens a Focusing-led practice called Earth-Based Listening and an invitation to remember – through the body – our place within the web of life. Here, the normative sense of who we are softens, and we awaken into a more connected, reverent, and wildly relational way of being.
5. Cave & Sky
A composite of two terrains which glimpse into the endless reaches of the encompassing Mystery. Though lightly touched in this training, Cave and Sky gesture toward deeper transpersonal ground: imaginal soul-work, sacred unknowing, and the liminal space where divine facets of Being are palpably embodied.
Together, these terrains offer a living map for embodied healing, deep listening, and sacred reconnection. Each terrain illuminates a successive obstacle on the path to wholeness, while offering somatic and nature-based tools to tend the divide and support your return to deeper integration with self, land, and life.
Watch the Intro Talk
Curious to feel more into the journey?
In this recorded session with Metavision Institute, Rob shares the vision behind the Somatic Ecotherapy training and outlines what you can expect. Note, this video also references a separate training pathway — the Echidna personal renewal program — which is no longer available.
Learning here is experiential, relational, and lived. You are not trained through information alone, but through practice, reflection, feedback, and repeated contact with the land — allowing you to find your own uniquely embodied guiding voice.
Somatic Ecotherapy Professional Certification
This professional certification pathway is designed for those who feel called to guide others in nature-based, somatic, and ceremonial contexts.
The training sits at the edge of deep cultural repair, supporting guides to work with the healing of body and psyche in living partnership with the more-than-human world. In a time of ecological and psychological unravelling, it cultivates grounded spaces where felt experiences of kinship, belonging, and embodied presence can genuinely take root.
Upon completion of all training and practice requirements, participants receive certification as a Somatic Ecotherapy Guide, recognising their readiness to offer nature-based somatic work in ways that are grounded, and deeply attuned.
Graduates of the program leave with the capacity to:
step onto the land as a guide with a clear inner orientation, able to sense how the environment is offering support
invite slowness and a sense of ground, helping participants transition into spaces that foster connection
open ceremonial containers that create a sense of depth and safety in those they guide
weave somatic awareness, relationship with the land, and ceremony into ecotherapy offerings that feel coherent
meet complexity, uncertainty, and not-knowing with steadiness and a sense of inner ground
trust their own inner knowing as part of the field, allowing guidance to arise as a dialogue with the body and the land
“I have never come across a training that felt so aligned to my being. From beginning to end - Rob’s approach and way of teaching is gentle, yet precise. Well considered, poetic, and incredibly supportive. Because of the container being so nourishing - I believe the entire cohort was able to feel a level of safety to really drop into the work on a deep level.”
— Chez, TASWhat’s Included
Sixteen spacious, live sessions held in a small-group container, where learning unfolds through a careful weaving of theory, slow attunement, embodied practice, and shared inquiry. Each class builds capacity gradually, allowing presence, confidence, and guiding skill to deepen over time.
16 Live, Online Classes
Three complete somatic ecotherapy walks, guided by Rob, offering the chance to experience the full arc of the work from the inside. These walks allow you to feel how somatic practice, relationship with place, and ceremonial pacing come together before you begin guiding others yourself.
3 Guided Ecotherapy Walks
A curated set of companion texts and practical, field-ready invitations that support the guide’s journey from learning into lived practice. These comprehensive materials offer reflective context, guiding language, and on-the-land invitations that form the backbone of the guide’s toolkit.
The Guide’s Fieldbook
As part of their certification, students will guide and write up four practice ecotherapy walks with friends and family. These walks help you find your own guiding style in the field, translating the theory into embodied space holding.
4 Supported Practice Walks
Dedicated spaces for students to debrief and receive feedback on their practice walks in a supportive group container. These sessions support clarity, confidence, and slow discernment as a guide.
4 Live Supervision Sessions
A small, steady cohort offers a relational learning field where practice is shared, questions are explored, and insight deepens through collective presence. Learning often unfolds as a dialogue across the group — supported by peer connection, shared reflection, and the gradual trust that grows over time.
Supportive Learning Community
Upon completion of all training and practice requirements, you’ll receive certification as a Somatic Ecotherapy Guide — recognising your readiness to offer nature-based, somatic work with depth, skill and attuned awareness.
Professional Certification
For those who feel called, an optional wilderness retreat offers a spacious opportunity to gather on the land and integrate the training through ceremony, council, Earth-Based Listening, and deep rest at the end of the program. This off-grid immersion allows the work to settle beyond concept, anchoring learning in lived relationship with the land. The retreat is optional and incurs a separate fee.
Optional Wilderness Retreat
Over the five months, you’ll gather a set of embodied practices that gradually become part of how you live and relate. Over time, the work supports nervous system regulation, compassionate relationship with inner parts, and a felt dialogue with place — resources you carry into daily life as much as into professional guiding.
Tools for Life
Explore the Curriculum
For those who want a deeper sense of the journey, you’re welcome to explore a curriculum overview.
To access the document, please enter your details in the form. You’ll then be taken to a page where you can download a PDF of the curriculum.
What Past Students Are Saying
“I was introduced to Joanna Maceys' and John Seeds' work about 25 years ago and resonated with it deeply. I'd also received training in my work as a professional counsellor on the many benefits of time spent in nature, and on supporting young people in outgrowing eco anxiety. I held a longing to enter more deeply into the work of ecotherapy but hadn't found a course that went beyond the practical. Wild Reverence answered that longing and more.
This course met my love for nature and expanded it into a deep and personal, direct relationship - almost unspeakably precious. Professional growth occured, both through personal transformation, and the wonderful support of the training - and the exceptional bonus of completing the course with a toolkit of profoundly healing invitations.”
— Jen, NSW“I highly recommend the Ravens training…. The training slowed me down! It allowed a deeper understanding and relationship with the land and provided frameworks and context for what I already felt intuitively and somatically when in nature. I was already facilitating groups on the land; the training provided frameworks to deepen this work and build my confidence as a facilitator.
The five-month journey was rich, deep and informative. The content and practicals were delivered and held with incredible integrity and heart. I found the journey to be deeply personal as well as providing a rich offering to my professional work.”
— Kirsty, SA“The ravens training is masterfully put together. There is so much depth and richness to these teachings. A beautifully held container to learn some really valuable tools and skills in this field.
I'm amazed at how connected and held I felt throughout the training. I've gathered insight and confidence to share this work with reverence. My biggest transformation is that I feel ready to step into the light and share in this way, whereas previous to the training, I lacked the confidence.”
— Chez, TASInvestment
This training offers more than a professional qualification — it marks a shift in how guides listen, relate, and orient to life and land. The capacities cultivated here — embodied regulation, relational presence, and ecological belonging — often continue to unfold well beyond the formal training.
The Somatic Ecotherapy Guide Training is offered in partnership with Metavision Institute, who manage enrolment, payments, and student administration.
The training itself is designed, written, and taught by Rob Engels of Ancient Ground
Training Fees
Full Price: $5,520
Early Bird Price: $4,968
Metavision Alumni Price: $4,692
