WHY WILDERNESS EXPEDITIONS?
Xavier Expeditions is driven by our compassion for the future health of our planet, by issues concerning the human-earth relation, and by questions concerning the human’s role in transitioning from the Cenozoic Era into an Ecozoic Era.
Video using words written by Thomas Berry on the human-Earth relationship for an Ecozoic Era.
We are dedicated to innovative immersion-learning methods that facilitate each student's firsthand discovery of the broader community that brought us into be and, even now, sustains us in every expression of human quality of life, including:
Our physical nourishment and bodily healing,
Our intellectual perceptions and creative imagination,
Our emotional and aesthetic sensitivities, and
Even our sense of the divine.
Campbell's Ferry, River of No Return Wilderness
“The time for us has come to radically change how we view the reality of human-earth relations. For instance, we are culturally conditioned to see water mostly in the utilitarian sense. We focus on water rights and use, on water as resource and property, and so we deal in matters of water ownership. We even come to think that when we purchase bottled water, we some how come to own that water. Meanwhile, the entire earth community and the long story of ecological fluorescence and, in particular, of human emergence reveal a dramatically different reality: we cannot own water; water has and always will own us. ”
OUR HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
Xavier Expeditions sees every student as a future earth elder, every student as a wellspring of vision, justice and wisdom.
Within each student is the potential passion, heroism, and creative imagination needed to lead us into a truly sustainable world where, for example, our great grandchildren will one day drink from rivers and lakes with confidence.
“If we want to be healthy, we need to drink good water...If Europeans had lived the Indian way when they came over here, we’d still be drinking out of the rivers and lakes today.”
OUR HERITAGE
Xavier Expeditions aligns itself with Xavier University's mission to educate each student intellectually, morally, and spiritually.
We create learning opportunities through rigorous academic and professional programs integrated with co-curricular engagement.
In an inclusive environment of open and free inquiry, we prepare students for a world that is increasingly diverse, complex and interdependent.
Driven by our commitment to the common good and to the education of the whole person, the Xavier community challenges and supports students as they cultivate lives of reflection, compassion and informed action, which are rooted in Gifts of Our Ignatian Heritage.
