MSI in a Nutshell:
by Randy Richards, Founder

Even the board of directors had a difficult time, at first, understanding what my vision of Mountain Spirit Institute. It's been the same from the start.

My vision grew from putting miles on the trail with Outward Bound, wondering how I could improve on OB founder Kurt Hahn's groundbreaking ideas on experiential education.

I wanted to bring more heart and spirit to wilderness experiential educational. Oh, it happens all right, with OB courses, but not's not mentioned anywhere in the literature, or made a focall point. It seems to happen haphazardly, depending on the makeup of the student group, and staff pairings.

A natural outgrowth of bringing heart into the wilderness seemed to address broader spiritual and ethical issues that effect our world. That of course led to a hybrid organization, where we also run "frontcountry" workshops, and even lecture/author series. It's all an outgrowth of spiritual experiential education.

 

Here are a couple of visuals:

The Hybrid Model: A continuum:

I-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I
Experiential Wilderness Education jf doifu doifu doOIOIO Holistic Learning Center
Or...

Experiential Education<------------------------------------------------------>Spirituality

Our Mission:

We run mountaineering and backcountry ski programs, we sponsor music from Peru. We will run a wilderness Inner Work program. We have been on the Lakota Rosebud Reservation, and run a film series. A Shaman give a two year study program in the US.

All these programs have this in common: Experiential education with applied spiritual component.

On the continuim, sometimes there are equal elements of both spiritual developoment and outdoor or foreign culture immersion in one program, such a s backcountry meditation, trekking in Peru or Wilderness Yoga. At other times, the focus may be study in a weekend workshop. Either way there is consistency with what we do through our mission.

I have often noticed that there are many who profess spirituality but fail to walk the talk. A good example might be this: A group from the US travels to South America to study shamanism. While there, they fail to pick up their campsite, or fail to communicate deeply about group dynamics. Sun Bear once said, "If it doesn't grow corn, I don't want to hear about it." This is what makes MSI a hybrid organization. We put the model in place to really go deep in whatever we do.

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