One on One Nature Based
Guiding into Wholeness

"Jaime is reliable, motivated, honest, humble, and inspired."

~ Bill Plotkin, PhD, founder, Animas Valley Institute, author of Soulcraft

A Guide to Wholeness

This is a process to living a peaceful, wild and connect life. It is about building the supports for an unconditional sense of belonging to the living earth . The pace of the modern world can be maddening. I have spent most of my adult life apprentice to wholeness, to rites of passage processes, to learning how to remember to live and love in community.

I am evolving a way of supporting each other that is integrated, courageous, and collaborative. A lot of people are struggling with phases of depression, anxiety, a felt sense of not belonging, feeling too busy, stressed and not connected to their life force, their innate sense of wonder and creativity. I am offering the fruit of a simple life, connected to nature with self awareness as the foundation for claiming both a felt sense of belonging and kind, wild, aliveness.

At the heart of work is the task of maturing the ego—to shift from an ego-centric way of being to an eco-centric way of seeing, knowing, and acting. We do this work not just for ourselves, but for our families, our communities, and for all life and the generations yet to come.

A nature based path to wholeness means bringing together all of our capacities—the spiritual and the practical, the unseen and often ignored depths. I am interested to help people integrate three key areas:

1. Connection to Spirit

This is the capacity to access presence, non-dual awareness, the pattern that connects all things. Regardless of language, what matters is the embodied sense of belonging to life. We want to know what that feels like and have it be familiar so that when we get lost we can stop and reconnect with our inner compass.

This is our natural state that grounds us in something greater than ourselves, beyond belief systems or ideology.

2. The Everyday Self

While spiritual insight is essential, it’s of little use if we can’t relate to others, solve problems, or live well in community. This capacity includes the skill sets of :

Learning to be confident
Learning to use emotions as guides to show us our needs
To become reacquainted with our capcity for intuition and imagination
The ability to listen deeply, resolve conflict, and act with empathy
Being comfortable both alone and with others
Knowing how to participate in council, dialogue, and shared leadership

These are the foundational skills of a mature, capable adult—skills needed now more than ever.

3. Create a curiosity about the Underworld

Much of modern life keeps us living in a narrow band of experience. But there is more—layers we often ignore or avoid. This third capacity involves listening to our dreams, learning about our human shadow, the stuff we cound not handle as children that gets put in exile and has a uncomfortable habit of popping out when we want to love and be loved. I am talking about how myths and mythopoetry can change your life, lead you to encounters with archtypal forces that are powerful and at times helpful.

It is in this underworld territory that we begin to uncover our unique, nature-based gift—the soul essence that longs to be expressed in the world. This is the path to True Adulthood, Eldership, and ultimately, a life worth living.

This integration of spirit, self, and soul is not abstract. It is practical, grounded, and urgently needed in our time. Through this work, we begin to reclaim what it means to be fully human—capable of living with purpose, integrity, and in service to something greater than ourselves.

A Nature-Based Method to Wholeness

We are living in powerful times. Perhaps you agree that the world is calling for more mature, well-functioning adults, nature-connected children, and creative, imaginative communities?

This one-on-one guiding process is a way for you to come to know more of yourself. Perhaps you already sense the potency and creativity that live in the relationship between light and dark, strength and wounding.

Entelechy is a term used by Jean Houston to describe the hidden wholeness within us. It refers to the blueprint of our full potential—our doorway to the unique gift and place we hold in the world. And yet, for many of us growing up in this modern, progress-driven culture, the maps and pathways to becoming whole have been lost. We live in times where genuine guides and elders are increasingly rare.

Growing up in this modern world, we often develop powerful unconscious survival personalities. These patterns may have helped us get through childhood—but as adults, they can block the deeper flows of creativity, trust, and love.

These protective parts, once vital, can now inhibit our capacity to feel, connect, and fully express ourselves.

Our culture tends to overvalue cognition and intellect, often at the expense of imagination, instinct, feeling, and sensing. We envision a world where each life stage is honoured, where connection to nature and the cosmos remains intact—a living source of refuge, wisdom, and renewal.

We are helping people become self-empowered authors of a new story—a story that is nature-based, emotionally integrated, inclusive of light and shadow, future generations, and ancestors alike.

What Makes This Approach Different?

This is not a path of trying to fix what’s broken. Dysfunction is not the focus.

Instead, using Bill Plotkin’s model of wholeness, we ask:

What qualities or capacities are missing from this person’s embodiment of wholeness?
What can be done to cultivate those missing qualities?
What gifts or unique ways of being are trying to speak through the difficulty?

Where some approaches try to lift a person out of their struggle and return them to “normal,” this method invites us to move closer—to enter into relationship with the discomfort. Here, symptoms are not seen as problems to eliminate, but as messages from the psyche, trying to awaken latent parts of the self.

The Wisdom of Myth

Another key element of this work is leaning into the potency and deep wisdom of myth. We live in a time that could be described as "living on the surface." We are conditioned to expect quick solutions. As Martin Shaw puts it, myths “trade width for depth.” When used with care, myths reveal the patterns and processes of the unfolding psyche. They are as reliable today as they have been for centuries. In earth-based cultures, they have always served as guides and maps for coming into right relationship with life.

Guided by Jaime Howell

Jaime helps individuals become aware of the developmental tasks linked to each life stage. Through ritual and ceremony, he supports people to mark significant thresholds and harness the power of deep imagery, symbols, and dreams.

Our nature carries the blueprint of our wholeness. It is never too late to learn, and the human body-mind is a deep, vast storehouse of untapped potential.

TESTIMONIAL

"ReWilding, apprentice to the Soul was not just a container for exploration, it was a remembering.A remembering of what it means to be human, to be held, to be undone. It was a space held by skilled faciliatators, where one was invited to play with the ideas of psyche, human development, archetypes, poetry, story, dance, lodge, and Soul. Jaime wove together a space and place for deep exploration.

It was, at times, confronting, as all the best and necessary journeys are. So much aroha for the Vision of Jamie and his team toward more whole humans, community, and world.

-Ben Clark, Outward Bound Instructor May 2025

Who is Walking Beside You?

Jaime’s journey is one of resilience, deep listening, and a lifelong commitment to personal
transformation. Born in 1973 into a bewildered and often challenging family environment,
Jaime grew up in the midst of industrial growth, consumerism, and societal pressures to
conform. Like many, he carries both gratitude for what was given and wounds from what was
missing. As a teenager, he felt lost—confused by his changing body and the powerful forces
of nature rising within him. His father, carrying unspoken wounds of his own, struggled to
express love and manage anger. Their home was a mix of love, arguments, and
misunderstanding—a reflection of so many families navigating their own unspoken histories.
Yet, something inside Jaime kept him moving forward. He found solace in nature—climbing,
walking, and seeking refuge in wild places. It was in the mountains, surrounded by the
wisdom of the land, that a seed of healing began to grow.

A Lifelong Learner and Guide
Jaime graduated with a degree in Social Work and moved to Aotearoa (New Zealand), where
he trained with Dr. Gillian Tasker to teach Holistic Health and Outdoor Education. His
passion for authentic growth led him to the New Zealand Rites of Passage Foundation, where
he has volunteered for over 20 years. Through this work, Jaime has witnessed the power of
life transitions—rites of passage not just for teenagers but for people of all ages. As he says,
“Rites of passage don’t create the journey—they mark it. Mystery is what carries us forward,
and to meet that mystery, we must do the inner work.”

A Path of Inner Work
Jaime’s own inner work took him through years of Vipassana meditation, and later, deep
study with Tarchin Hearn at the Wangapeka Retreat Centre. He became the Resident
Practitioner at a monastery for three years, completing over a year of guided retreats and
seven months of solitary retreat. These experiences were far from easy—they demanded
honesty, courage, and the willingness to face his wounds. They also revealed to him a path
toward wholeness.
Along the way, Jaime earned a Master’s Degree in Education, focusing on transformative
learning practices. He spent six years training in Open Floor movement, learning how to truly
inhabit his body after years of living “top-heavy” in his mind. He discovered the importance
of embodiment, playfulness, and joy—elements that now flow through the retreats and
programs he leads.

Teaching, Guiding, Creating
Since 2010, Jaime has been leading retreats and long-term learning programs, combining
movement, ritual, creativity, and deep psychological work. He co-founded the School of
Immeasurable Wisdom and Compassion and Bodhi Seeds, offering residential retreats in both
Aotearoa and Brazil—some lasting up to three months. He has also collaborated extensively
with teachers like Geordie Jahner, diving into the creative arts as a path of meaning-making
and empowerment.

In 2018, Jaime’s journey led him to the work of Bill Plotkin and the Animas Valley Institute.
What began as curiosity became a deep exploration of nature-based soul work. Jaime now
hosts Animas Valley retreats in New Zealand and continues to study and train in these
profound, earth-centered practices.

Nature as Teacher
Jaime believes that true personal growth is not just about meditation or self-
improvement—it’s about finding our wildness, reconnecting with the earth, and remembering
how to live as mature, authentic humans in right relationship with all life. Nature, he says,
knows how to grow us into who we are meant to be—if we pause long enough to listen.

The Work He Offers
Jaime is passionate about working with both young people and adults who are asking life’s
big questions:

How do I live well?

How can I contribute meaningfully to this time of great change?

How do I move beyond survival strategies to live a life of wholeness and purpose?

His work is about maturing the ego, cultivating self-knowledge, and finding ways to serve
life itself. The journey of growth never truly ends—but there comes a time when our
experience and inner work allow us to give back. Jaime is here to walk alongside you on that
path.

One on One Nature Based Guiding into Wholeness