Now enrolling:
cultivate:
8-week Purpose Accelerator and Body-based Men’s Group
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An 8-week online men’s group and practice container devoted to upleveling your relationship to embodiment, purpose and personal leadership.
Limited to 16 men.
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3-hour Mini-Workshops:
Oct 11, 1-4pm MST
Nov 8, 1-4pm MST90-Minute Council + Practice calls:
Oct 18, 25, Nov 1, 15, 29, Dec 6
1-2:30pm MST -
$650
($500 early-bird if payment made before September 15)
Meet your facilitators
Ezekiel Fugate (co-founder)
Ezekiel (he/him) is fiercely committed to creating culture that honors the sacred dimension of the universe, supports the full flowering and liberation of all people, and celebrates joy, beauty, and laughter along the way.
Ezekiel was born and raised on the lands of the Tsalaguwetiyi (Eastern Band Cherokee) and S’atsoyaha (Yuchi) in what is now called Hiltons, Virginia, where the mountains, rivers, streams, and other-than-humans quite literally saved his life.
In his late 20s, while following a call to regenerate healthy culture, Ezekiel co-founded and directed Springhouse Community School, an intergenerational, soulcentric learning community that includes a day school for students in grades 7-12. At Springhouse, he taught courses on cosmology, sexuality, physics, yoga, deep nature connection, and math and mentored teens and young adults. He also co-created The Well, a soulcentric personal development program based on the work of Bill Plotkin.
Since leaving Springhouse in good hands, Ezekiel has been working on his PhD in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where his research focuses on experience and evolutionary cosmology and where he has taught alongside Brian Thomas Swimme and Kerry Brady.
Ezekiel has been teaching and practicing yoga for over 15 years after completing his RYT-200 with Rolf Gates. He holds a permaculture design certificate from the Shenandoah Permaculture Institute, an undergraduate degree in environmental engineering from the University of Virginia, and a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Yale University, where his research focused on socio-ecological metabolism and industrial ecology.
Ezekiel lives with the love of his life and their two daughters on a small permaculture homestead and native plant sanctuary on Tutelo land in the Appalachian Mountains of Floyd County, Virginia.
Pieter Van Winkle (co-founder)
Pieter (he/them) is a body-based soul guide, executive coach, movement facilitator, men’s group leader, boys rites of passage mentor and wild clay potter.
Pieter is fascinated by the stages of development humans progress through, in particular the Soul-centric Map of Human Development envisioned by Bill Plotkin. He also takes note of the ways language and technology help or hinder human ability to make sense of our reality, our bodies, and the spaces we inhabit.
He takes a good deal of inspiration from the work of philosopher-phenomenologists like Maurice Merleau-Ponty and David Abram. Song writers play a big role too. Fred Eaglesmith and Dave Rawlings come to mind. Writers like Wendell Berry, David Whyte, Bill Stafford, Paul Kingsnorth and David Ignatow make him brew a pot of puerh.
Pieter pays homage and offers gratitude to his primary teachers, including Martín Prechtel, Roger Strachan, Bill Plotkin, Adam Barley, Andrew Marcus, Melissa Michaels, and many others. The Enneagram is also a big part of Pieter’s medicine bundle.
Pieter and his co-founder Forrest Gillies spearhead the North Fork Mentoring Project, a fledgling adventure and skills-based rite of passage program for boys and emerging teens.
Pieter is a private pilot and is certified in single-engine aircraft.
Pieter lives with partner Emma, son Wendell (3), Gia the dog, 5 chickens and 2 cows on their homestead farm in Western Colorado, USA.
Pieter’s story and relevant trainings is available here.
You will receive:
Two 3-hour mini-workshops with live instruction, practice and group coaching
Six 90-minute practice calls with live men’s group facilitation, featuring the Practice of Council
Guidance to support you in aligning - immediately and going forward - with what has energy, vitality and deep meaning for you
Recorded exercises + meditations for offline practice - yours to keep in perpetuity
A brotherhood of men committed to upleveling their lives
Guys who will listen, who have your back - relationships with men that will become a lifeline
24/7 access to an online community for accountability, to ask questions, share wins, and ask for support - or just to stay connected
Proven tools for turning around moments of doubt and inner criticism
A framework for stepping boldly into a life of potency, authentic belonging and meaningful service - a life you can be proud of
Facilitation that goes beyond conventional men’s groups: the instructors share 40+ years of experience in embodiment, men’s work + soul/land-based practice
This course could be for you if:
You know you would benefit from the kind of support and accountability that comes from a committed group of men
You’ve been longing for more brotherhood in your life, but either don’t have time to join a men’s group or can’t find one near you
If you’re being honest with yourself, you recognize optimal results come from being a part of a group accountability experience
You feel you’ve plateaued in at least one area of your life - i.e. intimacy or career - and you can sense life wants more from you
You’re busy. And, you sense that in this next chapter, life is asking you to be both busier - and paradoxically - more spacious
You’ve experienced limited value from talk therapy and sense you would benefit from embodiment practice, especially in a safe container of other men who have your back
This scares you a little bit - and excites you - if you’re being honest
Life feels like status quo - you want a way to declare a major shift
You are a father - or want to be one - and you know you need support from men (as all fathers do, but not all can admit)
Now is the time to act towards the upleveling you’ve been talking/dreaming about
Register now, spaces are limited
Dates for these 2024 Offerings to be announced
court ~ Winter 2024 (Online)
8-week Intimacy Practice Cohort and Body-based Men’s Group
steward ~ Spring 2024 (Online + Live Retreat)
8-week Land Steward Cohort and Body-based Men’s Group
3-day live retreat (location TBD)
serve ~ Summer 2024 (Online + Live Retreat + Vision fast)
8-week Visionary Leadership Mastermind and Body-based Men’s Group
7-day live retreat including vision fast (location tbd)
FAQs
When will dates + costs be announced for the 2024 programs?
We will announce dates, prices and logistics (including locations and dates for the live weekends in Virginia and Colorado) in November, 2023.
Can I enroll for the full year long? How much does it cost?
Love the commitment! Not yet. We don’t have costs figured out for the live weekends, so we cannot accept registration yet. However, participants in cultivate who wish to continue for the full year will receive a pro-rated discount to reflect a bundle-price.
Where will the live weekends for steward and serve be held?
Floyd County, Virginia, USA
Delta County, Colorado, USA
Q: Why a body-based men’s group? Why is that important?
I know, speaking for myself, I am a really good hider. I can use my intellect, my speaking, my not speaking (withholding) to weave a little web of safety around myself that lets other people not see the parts of me I would really rather they not see. For example, I often feel unworthy in the company of certain types of people. I don’t want them to notice that! If they did, they might realize how ugly I am to feel unworthy in their presence, and judge me- thereby PROVING my fear. Oh god! I do whatever I can to hide that.
The trouble is, just admitting this to myself - even to others - doesn’t seem to go far enough to make a dent. I think it has something to do with the verbal part not penetrating deep enough into my being, but also the frequency with which I do so. Gathering consistently with men - both to bring up shadow material, to notice it and admit it, and then to embody it - that’s a way to make lasting change. It flips 3 switches in our psyche that changes core beliefs:
1. Men are unsafe
2. I am alone and on my own
3. My vulnerabilities must be hidden
As men, our code is to ignore and hide our defects and to dim our brilliance. A body-based men’s group asks us to do the opposite, with the result being profound belief-level change.
Q: How does this accelerate purpose?
Again, I’ll use myself as an example (why not?). I don’t think of purpose so much as a single, overarching mission statement, but as a capacity to stay in right relationship with my highest self. Said another way, purpose is a practice. I am on purpose when I am in my body, when I am the least constrained by my own fear, patterns of addiction and limitation and beliefs that keep me small.
I have found men’s work, in the body, to be a profound accelerant for getting back into alignment with what has the most potency for me. It often has to do with my work in the world, my relationship and family, and my creative path. When I’m supported by men at a core level, all of those things go up. They go up because iron sharpens iron.
When I gather in a group with men I respect, who have my back, I am upgraded like in a video game. My life force goes up. My family can feel it. Try it- you’ll see.
Q: How are the calls structured?
The calls are intended to be divided into two main sections, embodiment practice and group council. This means an opportunity to practice what you’ve learned and discovered in the mini-workshops, for homework, and in your tracking partner calls, and share in council how that is going for you. You’ll receive feedback and coaching to support you where needed.
Q: How are the mini-workshops structured?
These mini-workshops are intended to be micro-accelerators around practices that will support your stepping more boldly into your life, infusing every important venture you touch with a sense of purpose, intention and clarity. These will be a touch more instruction-heavy, but still contain a lot of chance to share, practice and ask questions.
We can think of these workshops as dojo time, where we stretch and strengthen our muscles - even learn to use new ones - and then practice what we’ve learned over the following weeks.
Q: What if I can’t attend all of the calls? I might have to miss 1-3 of them.
The instruction and practices will all be recorded, so that you can practice along at home. As long as you can find time to check in with your tracking partner and complete the practices, you should be fine to miss a few!
You can call it a manifesto, a rant or a screed.
It speaks our heart.
A letter from us to the world, revealing more about our partnership, our process and our passion - and Why we decided to start this initiative.
