Moave
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The Desert
compass of stillness
Erasmus+ training course
14. - 22. November 2025
Slovenia
The Desert
Compass of stillness
This 7-day Erasmus+ training course invited participants into the desert, not as a physical landscape, but as a living symbol of the inner terrains we all traverse.
The desert, vast and quiet, evokes the personal moments of emptiness, pause, and stillness that often precede transformation. Within its silence lies both challenge and potential: the absence of familiar paths becomes an invitation to rediscover resilience, creativity, and connection.
By weaving symbolic, embodied, and creative approaches together, this training empowered youth workers and facilitators to become skilled companions in life’s transitional spaces.
The desert is not not a place of despair,
but a vital threshold toward renewal.
Source: The Wild Unknown by Kim Krans
Invitation into the Desert
"Where there is clutter, even valuable things lose their value.
Where there is too much, nothing stands out.
The essence of Japanese aesthetics is a concept called 'MA' (pronounced "maah")
the pure, and indeed essential, void between all "things."
The desert serves as a compass of stillness, a symbolic landscape where life’s noise and external expectations fall away. In its vast emptiness, we are invited to pause, slow down, and reorient ourselves. Like a compass pointing inward, the desert guides us to notice what truly matters, to feel our inner rhythms, and to reconnect with our own presence.
This project explores the Desert, a Somatic Compass as a guiding force for navigating life’s storms with compassion rooted in the body. Just like the pendulum movement, which swings between extremes before finding balance, our bodies and emotions continuously shift in response to life’s challenges. By cultivating awareness of these natural rhythms, participants will learn to return to a state of centred resilience.
Dance emerges as a language of renewal, allowing movement to arise from stillness and new stories to be carried forward.
The Psychology of Desert Periods
In psychotherapy, desert periods describe times in life when the familiar has fallen away, but the new has not yet taken shape. They often emerge during transitions such as entering adulthood, changing careers, migration, parenthood, loss, or recovery from burnout. Psychologically, these phases feel empty, stripped down, and uncertain—yet they are also fertile thresholds for transformation.
At first, the desert is experienced as loss. Old roles, relationships, or external structures no longer provide orientation, leaving a person with feelings of grief, confusion, or even panic. This creates a liminal state: a threshold space in which identity is unsettled, and the future is unclear. Such states are uncomfortable because they require us to sit with ambiguity and a lack of control.
However, the apparent emptiness of the desert serves a function. With the noise of everyday life stripped away, the psyche turns inward. Existential questions emerge—Who am I without my roles? What truly matters to me? Though unsettling, this questioning opens the possibility for deeper self-awareness and authenticity.
In the silence of the desert, hidden resources can surface: resilience, creativity, and a more grounded relationship to body and environment. Supported with care, individuals can discover that stillness is not stagnation but the soil of renewal.
Without guidance, desert periods can lead to despair or unhealthy avoidance. With support, they become essential stages of growth, a landscape where the old dissolves, and the new self slowly takes root.
The void is a state where the old has dissolved, but the new has not yet emerged. It can feel like emptiness, disorientation, or deep rest, but it is also a space of potential and transformation.
Methodology:
Somatics - Ecopsychology - Movement
Through the combined lenses of ecopsychology, somatic practices, and movement, this training explores how the “inner desert” can be embodied, felt, and understood.
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Ecosomatic practices guide participants to perceive their own bodies as landscapes, where stillness and emptiness are not voids to be feared but fertile grounds for renewal.
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Ecopsychology frames the desert as a mirror of the psyche, where solitude, sparseness, and silence allow space for clarity and deeper listening.
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Somatic approaches provide tools to navigate states of suspension, teaching how to inhabit the body with presence even when life feels stripped bare.
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Systemic work will allow participants to perceive transitional phases not only as personal experiences but as part of wider relational, cultural, and ecological systems. Using constellation-inspired exercises, hidden dynamics can be externalised, embodied, and re-patterned.
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Imagination and imaginal work will serve as a bridge between inner and outer worlds. Through guided imagery, symbolic exploration, and creative expression, participants will access deeper layers of meaning, transforming emptiness into new narratives and possibilities.
Questions
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What does “emptiness” or “pause” feel like in my body and mind?
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What personal resources (resilience, creativity, intuition) emerge in stillness?
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How do I relate to uncertainty, discomfort, or lack of control?
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What fears or resistance arise in moments of stillness or pause?
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What gives me a sense of grounding or orientation when life feels uncertain?
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What does “renewal” or “emergence” look like for me after a period of pause?
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How can I carry the lessons from this desert into daily life or my work with others?
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What small actions or rituals help me navigate thresholds with awareness and resilience?
The intention of this project was to support ourselves in developing practical, somatic and relational skills for supporting individuals who are going through challenging/ transition moments.
The course welcomed participants from diverse professional and personal backgrounds (youth workers, educators, facilitators, mental health workers, artists, dancers) who are curious about using ecopsychology, somatics, and movement as methods for personal and social growth in the topic of luminal - transition spaces.
It was especially relevant for those working with people experiencing transitions, such as entering adulthood, migration, career shifts, identity changes, or recovery from burnout, and who want to offer meaningful support through embodied, relational, and creative practices.
Participants were invited to:
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Work with the desert metaphor as a container for liminality, identity transitions, and processes of individuation.
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Engage in somatic regulation practices (breathwork, grounding, interoceptive, proprioceptive awareness) to navigate uncertainty and activate resilience.
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Explore movement improvisation as a modality for expression and creativity.
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Apply ecopsychological practices such as mirroring with natural landscapes, elemental awareness, and eco-reflection to externalise and reframe inner states.
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Develop skills in holding transitional spaces: attuning to group dynamics, facilitating embodied reflection, and fostering relational safety.
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Translate experiential learning into practical methods for youth work, education, and community facilitation.
Commitment to Outcomes
As part of the Erasmus+ training, participants were expected not only to engage in the 7-day learning process but also to create and share an outcome afterwards, bringing the methodology into wider practice and visibility. These outcomes could take a form that best suited each participant’s context and skills, for example:
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Designing and facilitating a workshop in their local community or organization.
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Writing and publishing a reflective article, blog post, or report sharing insights from the training.
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Producing a short video or creative piece communicating key learnings.
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Developing other innovative formats (artistic, educational, or digital) to disseminate the experience.
By committing to this follow-up, participants ensured that the training did not remain only a personal journey, but became a resource for their communities and professional practice, strengthening the impact of the project beyond the course itself.
The project brought together 28 participants from Slovenia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Slovakia, and Romania.
Participants were over 18 years old and had a communicative level of English, allowing them to fully engage in the programme.
for who was this training?
This one has been spacious and I still smell its air.
Some experiences seem to happen in a subtly different layer of the perceived reality.
They bend time, root memories in bones, weave soft threads between fingers and trees to catch the softest of the winds.
to look into horizon of nothing approaching
to extend the sense of self
to hear with nose
to touch with air
forget
dissolve
to stay
Time has its own ways.
Maa - Participant
project
results
Sharing the outcomes of this training is essential to ensure that the insights, methods, and experiences developed through the “desert” metaphor extend beyond the group of participants.
By disseminating the symbolic, embodied, and creative approaches explored during the course, youth workers and facilitators are able to inspire others to better support individuals in transitional and uncertain life phases. It also strengthened the impact of the project by encouraging reflection, dialogue, and exchange across different contexts. Ultimately, sharing these outcomes helped transform personal learning journeys into collective resources for resilience, creativity, and meaningful change in youth work.
Dissemination
The experience offered a deep, embodied exploration of stillness, presence, and inner awareness, which, through dissemination, can now reach wider youth work contexts. By sharing the desert as a somatic compass—rooted in the principle of “MA” and the value of emptiness—participants can inspire others to create space for pause, simplicity, and deeper connection with self.
Through this process, body-based, reflective, and movement-oriented practices are introduced into new environments, offering youth workers concrete ways to support young people in navigating challenges with greater awareness and resilience. Approaches such as mindful movement and dance become tools for expression, regulation, and renewal.
In this way, dissemination becomes more than sharing results; it becomes a continuation of the learning journey, transforming personal experiences into collective resources and contributing to more present, compassionate, and grounded youth work practices.
Booklet
This booklet is a reflection on the Erasmus+ training course exploring the metaphor of the “Desert” as a space of transition, uncertainty, and transformation. It brings together the core ideas of the project, participants’ testimonials, the structure and flow of the week, and a closing reflection on the experience. It also highlights why working with themes of liminality and embodied awareness is important in youth work, and introduces the facilitators who held the process.
A collection of ways we spread the experience from the Desert back home
This collection is a gathering of traces, reflections, and living practices that emerged from the “Invitation into the Desert” training. It brings together the many ways participants carried the experience back into their communities, translating moments of stillness, movement, and inner listening into meaningful actions within their own contexts.
The desert, as we encountered it, was not only a metaphor but a felt experience, a space of pause, emptiness, and presence. Within that space, something essential had room to surface. This booklet reflects how that essence continued to move beyond the training itself, taking shape through workshops, conversations, creative expressions, and subtle shifts in how participants accompany young people in their processes.
As part of the Erasmus+ journey, each participant committed to sharing an outcome, an act of dissemination that extends learning into the wider field of youth work. These outcomes are not only results, but embodied translations of the methodology: ways of creating space, inviting awareness, and supporting resilience through connection to body, senses, and inner rhythm.
What you will find here is not a fixed method, but a collection of lived responses. Each contribution carries the imprint of a unique environment, culture, and group of young people, while remaining rooted in the same core: the wisdom of slowing down, of listening भीतर, and of allowing something new to emerge from stillness.
May this collection serve as inspiration, as a resource, and as a reminder that even the quietest experiences can ripple outward—nurturing more presence, care, and depth in youth work and beyond.
In between
composed and recorded
by Deborah Tyllack
Autumn leaves are falling
gently to the ground.
Soon the wind is changing
all that was is gone.
Will you walk beside me
close but still apart.
Wander into darkness
with my soaring heart.
Uuuuhhh, Uuhhhh.
Uuuuhhh, uuhhhh.
2
Covered under silence
dreaming of the light.
Ancient trees are sleeping
resting in the white.
Dancing with the creature
hiding in your eyes.
Asking for their guidance
finding all my lies.
Uuuuhhh, Uuhhhh.
Uuuuhhh, uuhhhh.
3
When our path is ending
right before the dawn.
Something new unfolding
wisdom all along.
Will we stay together
in between the dark.
Lighting up the desert
touching from a far.
Uuuuhhh, Uuhhhh.
Uuuuhhh, uuuuuuhhhhhhh.
Album - photos from Nayeli Špela and Magdalena Takáčová
The Desert team
Magdaléna is a dance movement therapist working in a private practice. Body, movement, touch and sound are the main entrance points to the realm of the soul. She is amazed by the capability of the human being to overcome even almost unbearable situations and therefore her aim is to empower her clients and guide them on their journey to their own resources and resilience.
Main inspirations on her journey come from movement, nature, contact improvisation, deep listening and shamanism.
"The desert is for me a place where we all come at a certain point in our lives. First it may seem very dry, with no life, no orientation, no support. But as much as it is dry, hot and illusional that much it is full of life, fresh breeze at night and full of hidden water reservoirs. When we find ourselves in the desert it may feel like a chaos, loss, breaking down everything of what we were certain about. It can burn us down or it can give us an opportunity to transform and grow. Having a guide during the times of desert may be crucial so we invite you to feel, sense and embody the quality of giving support and being supported so you can, from your own embodied experience, support others on their journey through the desert."
Živa is an anthropologist, manual therapist and researcher of somatic practices and contact improvisation.
Her field of activity focuses primarily on developing and maintaining sensitivity and awareness towards oneself, fellow human beings and the environment, finding organic, creative and non-violent ways for the coexistence of differences and their mutual enrichment, which enables continuous transformation and personal growth.
She uses work with the body, touch and awareness of space as the basic tools of her practices.
"I am drawn to the spaces of pause—those thresholds of emptiness where time suspends and possibility opens in many directions. In these moments, we stand at the edge of choice, invited to listen inwardly while attuning to the quiet currents around us. Emptiness becomes not a void but a fertile ground, where inner voices and outer forces converge, whispering the shape of what might come. My work inhabits these intervals of suspension, where certainty dissolves and clarity emerges not through control but through trust and attunement. It is an exploration of emptiness as presence, of stillness as possibility—an invitation to dwell in not-knowing, to honour the pause, and to let the next step arise gently, like a horizon out of silence."
Nayeli is a psychologist working privately as a therapist with a Gestalt experiential psychotherapy approach. She has been a trainer in the field of non-formal education for more than 15 years. In the somatic and dance field, she is deeply inspired by contact improvisation, which has shaped her exploration of movement and its somatic approach beyond the dance studio. Having been actively engaged in the practice since 2017, she continues to investigate how this form expands her view on life.
"As a therapist and psychologist, I see liminal spaces as a winter of our lives. Scary and lonely if not supported by our own resources, but also by the nurturing environment. I believe we can learn how to welcome those winters and see the potential of their presence.
When nothing is moving, there is still something in motion.
When we do not know the direction, we can seek the possibility to enlarge our presence on now and learn to regulate our inner storms. When you do not know where to go next, try to see what is really here and welcome it as a companion instead of an intruder.
If someone can stay in stillness with you, well, this is just a gift to be embraced.
