Men’s YearLong Quest Program
26 February - 22 October 2026
What does it mean to trust this life? To belong to this great mysterious tapestry? What does it mean to live with Vision?
The world is in crisis, and so too are its people. This program is borne of a vision to serve the earth community by bringing men together over four seasons of year with the shared intention to deepen their relationship to themselves, and the living animate earth, in a community of other men.
This immersive program is the first of its kind in Australia. Using the modalities of circle time, myth, physical practice, deep nature connection and natural movement, hands on earth skills, ceremony, community and extended solitude in nature, this program is designed to fundamentally shift one’s experience of being a man alive to the beauty and tragedy of being alive in these times, as well as alive to the gifts they hold to participate in The Great Turning.
To live one’s vision is to live one’s deepest authenticity. It’s the hallmark of true adulthood. Our lives are meant to be a giveaway to the earth community. And yet too often, we are mired by self doubt and clouded by inertia or overwhelm.
But we can’t do it alone. We need hearts open to the world. We need a community of open-hearted peers beside us. We need to be embodied in our relationship to the Wild Other. And we need ceremony.
If you’ve felt called to connect more deeply with your passions, to nature, and be supported by a like-minded community of men, then this course is for you.
Program Design
Since earliest times, people have received profound insight about themselves and their world by means of a vision fast – a multi-day solo fast within nature, seeking personal truth, emotional release and spiritual knowledge. At the heart of this program is the ceremony of Vision Quest - a 10 day program, which includes four days and four nights immersed in nature in a solo ceremony.
This is the opportunity to mark a significant transition or time in your life. To perform a rite-of-passage. To be witnessed, seen. To be known.
Experience has told us that the better prepared the initiate is for this ceremony, the more potent it will be. So the months leading up to the Vision Quest we will spend in preparation during monthly meetings where we will engage in both deep nature connection practices, as well as heart sharings, contemplation and reflection in Circle time with other men.
As part of the preparation, we will share a weekend retreat, building and enacting a Sweat Lodge, a ceremony designed for purification, release and connection to the greater whole.
The regularity of gatherings will help us form a community of trust and openness, in order to witness each other through this year of transformation and deepening. This human community witnessing is vital for a healthy rite-of-passage. So too, is an abiding relationship to the natural world. Our practices will also direct the gaze outward, to connection and relationship with the more-than-human-world through practices like sense opening, sit spots, tracking, fire-by-friction, foraging, carving. These practices help to embed us in this undeniable place of belonging in this great and mysterious life.
This program focuses not only on the deep expression of self through time in circle, but also on the importance and necessity of physical activation. Physical and emotional wellness are interlinked. This is an opportunity to activate heartspace and awaken your physical potential. To learn the ancient and essential gift of fire by friction for instance, and the responsibility of what it means to tend the fire.
At the conclusion of the program, your journey will not be over. You will have created, through shared experience a community of brothers to share, ongoingly, the complexity, the joy, and the mystery of this life. You will have a circle of brothers to support your integration, and who can offer a healthy sense of accountability to your vision.
Thursday Evening Sessions
Each of the 6 evening sessions will be a mix of an experiential hands-on embodied practice, as well as deep sharing around a particular theme such as:
Myth as a doorway to understanding self and other
Anger, grief and gratitude
Cultivating the fire of passion
Exploration of ‘healthy masculinity’
Purpose/Vision
Beyond the ‘Hero’: ancient archetypes of the masculine.
Nature-Based Practices likely covered will be:
Fire-by-friction
Core routines of Deep Nature Connection
Expanding Sensory Awareness
Carving and Handcrafting
Sweatlodge and Sweatlodge build
Natural movement and awareness
The program will be limited to 12 participants.
Retreat
The retreat will be facilitated by Dan Skye and Miraz and will be themed around the Grief and Gratitude. The retreat will also centre on the building and enactment of a Sweat Lodge as well as going deeper into earth skills and community building.
Vision Quest
Will be an 11 day program divided into the phases of Preparation, Enactment and Integration. It will be facilitated by Dan Skye and Mitch Stent.
Time Commitment
6 x 3 hour experiential circles on Thursday nights (times a little variable according to season)
1 x weekend retreat (Fri 4pm - Sun 3pm)
1 x Vision Quest (10 day program)
Dates/Locations
February 26th 4pm - 8pm. Warrandyte.
March 26th 5pm - 8pm. Warrandyte.
April 30 5pm - 8pm. Warrandyte.
May Retreat (30th-31st) Strathbogie Ranges.
June 25th: 5pm - 8pm. Warrandyte.
July Break
August 13th. 5pm - 8pm Warrandyte
September Vision Quest: 4th - 13th. Strathbogie Ranges
October Final Celebration: 22nd. 5pm - 8pm. Warrandyte.
This course is for you if:
You have been yearning to drop into your purpose, take hold of your life, look into the eyes of your greater potential and say yes to a life of belonging, of deep hearted presence, of trust.
You struggle to trust this world, this life.
You want to connect with the natural world more, but need the tools to help you achieve this.
You're ready to take an active role in making the world a better place at these times of great change.
You're looking for others who share your passion and can help inspire you in return.
The wilderness is whispering to you
Facilitator and Founder
Dan Skye
Dan is a carpenter and father of three living in Warrandyte. Dan’s introduction to earth based ceremony was at age 16, and since then ceremony, sweat lodge and Vision Quest has been a powerfully consistent thread and guiding principle in his life, both as participant and more recently as a trained Vision Quest guide.
Since he was a child, Dan has nurtured a deep love and curiosity for the wild world. Conversations with the “wild other” are part of his everyday vernacular, and tracking a way of life.
Dan is currently apprenticing to the arts of storytelling, song, deep authentic relating, wandering, and the mythic in wild landscapes. You will often find him tending his garden, catching stories from friends, baking bread, running the trails of his mountain home, and spending sweet time with his children, and partner Claire.
Guest Facilitators:
Miraz Indira
Miraz Indira’s path traverses the jagged terrain of the civilised / separated / alienated mind,
towards a remembrance of our ‘interbeing’ with life. He has facilitated group work for a number
of years, in the form of healing retreats in Peru and Experiential Deep Ecology immersions and
workshops in Australia.
A former lawyer, Miraz has also trained in counselling, breathwork (the re-birthing / Clarity school), and Buddhist meditation (Theravada, Mahayana, Tibetan & Bon Dzogchen lineages).
He also lived in the Peruvian Amazon where he spent 4 years in full-time apprenticeship to Shipibo curanderos of the Mahua-Lopez lineage studying plant medicine.
Since 2017, he has been lit up by the movement of The Work That Reconnects / Experiential Deep Ecology (originated by Joanna Macy). Miraz has been mentored by John Seed, and has co-led retreats with John and Skye Cielita Flor over the years.
Beyond this, Miraz has learnt a lot from sitting in circles with other ordinary men like him.
In these times of great unravelling, Miraz feels the imperative to remember and renew Earth-
centric, soul-centric, life-centric ways of being.
To this end, his work focuses on the communal practices of:
– praising the miracle of life and everything we have been given
– grieving our losses, both personal and collective / transpersonal
– remembering our more ancient identity as carbon-based expressions of the primordial fireball and, more recently, Gaia (the sentient body of earth)
– growing community and, in particular, communities of men with hearts awake.
Mitch Stent
Mitch is a rites of passage guide, corporate wellbeing facilitator and soul-centric development apprentice. Less formally, he’s a backyard bicycle mechanic, a bit of a poet, and a mainstay on any dance floor. With nearly 10 years of transformational group facilitation and program design across both the not-for-profit and corporate sectors, Mitch has made the irreversible crossing into the wilds of soul-centric development and vision quest ceremony guiding. He feels most fully ‘here’ while being in service to the brave ones turning towards themselves through these pathways. Mitch is devoted to weaving soulful maturation into modern culture so that we might collectively remember how to become good ancestors. He has a deep faith both in the inherent goodness and singular gifts seeded within each person, as well as the mysterious, often heartbreaking, and ultimately life-giving ways in which Mystery seems to orchestrate our lives to draw them out of us.
Investment:
$4000 early bird (paid in full before September 30)
$4500 regular
** One scholarship position of $2500 is available. Please email Dan@naturesapprentice.com.au with a max one page letter if you seek this.
For More Information
Email Dan Skye on Dan@naturesapprentice.com.au or call 0425 116 629
Cancellation Policy
We understand that all kinds of things come up that thwart the best of plans. If you do need to withdraw from the program, please give us as much notice as possible to give us the best chance of finding someone else, and so we (and you) don’t end up out of pocket.
A) If you cancel more than 60 days before program start (before December 26th), your deposit ($300) is not refundable, but you have the option to transfer it to a future program for a fee of $50. If you have already paid the full amount, it will be refunded, minus the deposit.
B) If you cancel between 7 and 60 days before program start:
* we can fill your place, we will similarly refund the program fee minus the deposit, and give you the option to transfer your deposit to a future program for $50.
* we can’t fill your place, we will not refund the program fee or the deposit, and you won’t have the option to transfer to a future course, except in exceptional circumstances. If you have not already paid in full you will be required to pay.
C) If you cancel fewer than 7 days before program start, we will not endeavour to fill your place and will not be able to refund any of the amount.