Integration Center Curriculum

A core function of Integration Centers is to provide a healing container for the personal development of Associate and Colleague Members.

Associates are provided with general groundwork in many different fields; and Colleagues build out on that groundwork, working toward a level of health appropriate to taking on the responsibilities of Partner-level membership.

Associate Member Curriculum

Associate Members are individuals who pay to stay at an Integration Center for one, two, or three weeks.

The subject matter is relatively the same each week, since it is mostly oriented around process and understanding, as opposed to imparting specific information.

The aim of the curriculum is to orient participants to behaviors and ideas that are innate to “natural” or early modern humans at the end of the last ice age and prior to the neolithic revolution, when food production became adversely efficient.

By orienting to that model, participants can start to differentiate those natural patterns from the socially-learned or trauma-informed patterns that are detrimental to their own health as well as to the health of society and nature.

Key aspects of the curriculum are:

• No dogma. Programs aim to challenge misconceptions and to provide space for personal development. Some programs may suggest opinions about what appears to be natural and healthy, but they do not attempt to impart “truth” nor to explain what is “right.”
• Natural rhythms. Participation in the full food cycle is the core of the curriculum.
• Work is play is exercise. No distinction will be made between these three concepts. Most parts of the curriculum, including cooking and cleaning, are approached with a sense of playfulness.
• Healing the full person. A successful curriculum must work in the realms of mind, body, heart, and spirit together.
• Continual coaching. One or more Partner or Colleague members will continually be present with attendees, as a coach.
• This is a beginning. Attending a retreat starts a journey of healing.

Given the deep illnesses in individuals, society, and the environment, one-to-three weeks of intensive program-participation cannot bring someone to anything like optimal health. However it does give them a huge boost on their personal healing journey, while providing a container in which they can continue that journey as an ongoing Associate Member. If they decide to move in to the village, they will be able to benefit from the full advantages of that container while working through the Colleague curriculum.

Following are the categories of programs offered each week in retreats.

Food Cycle

This food cycle introduction is the core of the Associate Member Curriculum.

The most natural way to live for a human being is to work with a tribe to acquire and eat food together. This is what all homo sapiens have always done, except for some groups of humans in the past 5-10 thousand years who developed a sense of greed, and ended up violently conquering the entire world.

What seems to have been an essential element disconnecting those violent groups of humans from nature is that some of them stopped participating in producing their own food. And so all participants of retreats, just like all residents of the village, will be expected to participate daily in growing, harvesting, preparing and eating food together. 

Participants will engage in all of the following activities, most of which may be considered “work,” as is done in a farm-retreat. Note that paying more money will not ever entitle any participant to contribute less work.

• Observing, assessing, and nurturing the land and surrounding biome. This will involve:
  • permaculture-informed observation.
  • study of the site’s permaculture design to understand the major flows and interdependencies.
  • concerted study of the water flow on the site.
  • work on the overall site to maintain or further the site’s permaculture design.
  • work on the built environs to keep structures maintained and to keep their effects in balance with the environs.
  • work on the farm equipment, to keep it functional and durable.
• Nurturing crops from seed to harvest. This will vary depending on season and crop cycles. Participants will be given an overview of the full cycles for all the foods grown on the site, and will participate in the elements of those cycles that are relevant that week. Activities may range from planting and replanting, tending and intervening as required, harvesting/foraging, and processing/canning.
• Nurturing animals (e.g. chickens) in balance with the biome. This can include permaculture-informed observation, tending/intervening as needed, feeding and watering as needed, collecting eggs, maintaining structures and equipment.
• Processing, blending, and cooking. This will include pre-prep processing (husking corn, shelling nuts, etc.) as well as group food preparation and cooking.
• Eating together. The norm will be to limit the conversation to:
  • the food.
  • the food sources (the gardens, fruit trees, chickens, etc.).
  • one’s selves and each other.
  • the community and issues directly affecting the community.
• Cleaning after eating / maintaining cooking equipment. As a vital and integral part of food preparation, participants will be responsible for maintaining the kitchen, dining area, and cooking equipment to its optimal cleanliness and functionality. (While not directly a part of the food cycle, this cleaning responsibility will be extended out throughout the Center spaces, as there will be no dedicated cleaning crew.)
• Composting. Sorting and storing compostables will be an integral part of food preparation. Periodically, participants will also take compost to the compost pile (or other destination as per the site design); and tend the compost pile as necessary. This may include food diverted to animals such as chickens, but even such animals usually do not eliminate the need for a compost pile of some kind.
• Toilet composting. As a necessary part of connecting to one’s one food process, each participant should be responsible for ensuring that their solid waste gets to the place where it will be processed. In places where sewage must by law be connected to a public septic, participants will at least be instructed on the basics of composting toilets, and about how public systems waste fertilizing potential and introduce contamination.
• Compost spreading. Participants will be taught about the site’s compost spreading regimen, and will participate in it when seasonally appropriate. Regular compost will be brought back to the site’s food system as closely as possible. Human waste compost will be kept further away, while still being as close to the food process as is sensibly possible. Constraints on that closeness will be a well-considered health-conscious design, local and regional health codes, and local norms. Regardless of what makes sense, the site’s practices should not stray too far from local norms in order to avoid freaking out participants and/or outside critics.

Instruction

Depending on the subject matter, instruction will take place through a blend of classroom-like instruction, moderated activities with an instructive purpose, and on-the-spot instruction while engaged in other activities.

Topics of instruction should include:

• Permaculture. While there is no room in the format for anything like a permaculture certificate program, participants can still be instructed in principles of permaculture, permaculture lifestyle, and nature sensitivity training. Additionally, a permaculture perspective will be brought to all of the Food Cycle work, above.
• Gardening. As part of the Food Cycle work, participants will get on-the-spot instruction on gardening. This instruction may be expanded out to teach participants techniques for growing food on their own premises when they return home.
• Nutrition. Providing perspective on processed foods and food additives, and comparing the body’s reaction to those foods as opposed to the foods grown on-site.
• Cooking. Many modern humans have very few cooking skills. As part of the group cooking activities above, participants will be given on-demand instruction in cooking techniques.
• Preserving. Even when not the proper season for the activity, participants will still be given some instruction on preserving food for off-season use.
• Body Connection and Movement. A blend of activities and instruction in more natural body practices.

Coaching

The MAPS Integration Workbook provides a good framework for the psychological integration intended here, regardless of whether or not the participant has had a recent psychedelic experience.

Participants will be involved in:

• Integration groups. Group therapy circles, referred to by the psychedelic community as “integration circles”.
• One-on-one coaching. One or two well-qualified Integration Coaches will hang out with retreat participants throughout the day, providing on-the-spot coaching. This on-the-spot coaching is a vital and highly valuable part of the curriculum.

Activities

Participants will be offered several different types of activities throughout the week.

• Meditation. Guided group meditations lead by an experienced guide, with the meditations primarily focusing on connecting with body and with spirit.
• Ceremonies. Whether or not an Integration Center offers trauma-healing ceremonies will depend on what stage the Center is in in its development, what is allowed by local and regional law, and what the Center has the capability to run effectively. No kind of healing ceremony is necessary for the curriculum to be complete. They are to be considered an experimental part of the business plan that can be explored as appropriate. In no case should a Center ever pursue activities that are not clearly allowed by local and national law, as such pursuits could besmirch the reputations of all Integration Centers.
• Outings. If appropriate and if time permits, participants may be offered field trips to nearby farms and/or attractions. The farm visits would be to gain deeper insight into elements of the food cycle, while visits to a nearby attraction would be primarily for entertainment. Note that such entertainment should align with the Center’s values, and thus not involve intensive consumption of resources.
• Group entertainment. Participants will be offered fun group activities such as movies, pool parties, etc.
• Group play. Unstructured group time in the all-ages playground and the natural swimming pool (or anywhere else).

Colleague Member Curriculum

The “curriculum” for colleagues is a framework presenting the kinds of activities asked of them, but much of the instruction/activities are things they would engage in with practitioners from outside of the Center.

Colleague membership is an opportunity to pursue those activities while being held in the nurturing container of the Center.

Colleague members will be expected to spend at least a year of dedicated practice in each of at least four modalities, one for each quadrant of their soul. Modalities can vary depending on local cultural norms as well as the availability and affordability of each. Preferably, they will be pursuing all those modalities simultaneously.

An example program in a relatively economically-advantaged area might be something like:

• Body: a Rolfing 10-series, a couple sessions with an osteopathic manipulator, several acupuncture sessions, and ongoing Integration Center activities in body connection. (In places where most of these modalities may be expensive or unavailable; a rigorous yoga practice can take place of some of it.)
• Mind: regular cognitive therapy (such as CBT), as well as instruction at the Center investigating modern myths about human lifestyle.
• Heart: regular IFS therapy combined with brainspotting as appropriate. Where legal, one or two MDMA-assisted sessions with a psychologist.
• Spirit: living in flow with nature at an Integration Center, a regular meditation practice, and (if possible and legal) one or more Ayahuasca or mushroom ceremonies with a seasoned and humble facilitator.

Pursuing all of these modalities may involve significant expense to the individual; and early Centers should experiment with partially or largely funding those pursuits, depending on cashflow and budgetary constraints.

The intention of the Colleague Membership is to provide people a means to work through the limitations and injuries imposed from their past in order to be healthy enough to assume the responsibilities of Partner membership. This membership level also is meant to give those individuals a way to work their way out of the work-debt cycle they are likely stuck in and to non-financially contribute to the community while benefitting from the services it provides.

Note that while people are doing deep self-work like above, they may face physical and psychological challenges to effectively contributing to the task work of the village. Partners will need to handle these cases with sensitivity: allowing Colleagues the space to go through their process, while not coddling them nor enabling them to stay in stasis.

Return to: Integration Center Business Plan
Further reading: What is Healing?