LEAPYEAR is the longest, most challenging and most personal program that LEAPNOW offers. It provides a full palette of physical, mental, social, spiritual and cultural challenges. It would be very hard to complete the program without becoming a well-rounded and mature individual. At the end of a LEAPYEAR most students have the emotional literacy of people who are a decade older.

LEAPYEAR provides a strong and gentle container in which you can remember and embrace your life purpose, and challenges you to answer the call you are hearing, so that you can do what you came here to do. The investment of time, money and energy in your remaining three years of college make a lot more sense if you have a clear sense of your life purpose and if you have take time to explore your interests.

A full year of college credit is available to those who enroll in LEAPYEAR. Students are enrolled as full-time B.A. students at Antioch University Seattle and earn 36 quarter units of credit during the year. As full-time college students, LEAPYEAR participants qualify for Federal and State Financial Aid. Three primary goals of LEAPYEAR program studies are:

1. The breaking of the educational "trance." After 12 years of sitting in classrooms and having people talk at you, learning disconnected material that changes every hour, students learn that their input isn't important, and that education is something that is done to us by "experts" and outer authorities. In a traditional classroom, the student's focus shifts to jumping through hoops, and trying to please outer authority figures. The experiential nature of a LEAPYEAR demands that a student reconnect with a desire to learn that comes organically from within, and engage actively with their own learning and evolution. Both study abroad semesters are structured in such a way that a major block of travel and exploration is bracketed by two residential retreats - creating a learning structure of Preparation, Experience, Reflection. Throughout each semester students have a great deal of choice about what they study while living and traveling abroad. LEAPYEAR asserts the primacy of the individual as their own ultimate authority.
2. Development of a strong sense of autonomy. A sense that you can go anywhere in the world and live and learn in a capable, independent way - that you have wings on your back and can live a "winged life."
3. Development of a strong sense of self. A deep and multi-dimensional sense of one's own being, independent of external circumstance, that includes the mind, the body, the flow of emotion, the energetic body, and the spirit.

START OF THE LEAPYEAR PROGRAM - RETREAT WEEKS (8 weeks)
It all begins at LEAPNOW's Northern California campus. These weeks are the backbone of the program - and the foundation for all further worldwide exploration.

FIRST SEMESTER IN INDIA or SOUTH AMERICA (10 Weeks)
Each participant chooses between group travel in India or South America. In South America group members study Spanish, do environmental and construction work, and study sustainable living in Argentina, Bolivia & Peru. India participants do service work, study yoga, learn meditation, trek in the Himalayas, and learn Hindi or the Tibetan language.

RITE OF PASSAGE CEREMONY
The retreat weeks after the mid-year break culminate in a dramatic rite of passage into adulthood. One or both parents join the participants for two days to consciously let their son or daughter go into adulthood, while giving them their blessings.

SOLO INTERNATIONAL INTERNSHIP (12 Weeks)
Following the rite of passage, participants travel on their own to study abroad, do an internship, apprenticeship, or volunteer work in a country of their choice.

LAST WEEKS OF THE PROGRAM and GRADUATION
The final two weeks of the program are devoted to making transitions effectively, exploring the job market, re-entry to the larger world, endings, and program closure.

Deeper Waters Education is an antidote to education that is guided by someone else's values, that is disconnected from real life, or that leaves out imagination, mystery, our body, or some other equally vital aspect of our wholeness.

We bring this inner work and personal context together with an amazing and unparalleled database of over 6,000 individual internships in 126 countries- offering the possibility of traveling to one of 126 countries throughout the world to do three months of social service work, teaching, work with animals, work with children, protecting the environment, learning about traditional and alternative medicine, acting politically, immersing oneself in a new language or culture, working with the elderly and the dying, learning midwifery, grappling with women's issues, and much, much more.

Retreat #1: Held in northern California. 7 days long. 12 - 20 participants.

• Wholeness Inventory: Looking deeply at our strengths and challenges, we begin an in-depth assessment of what we need to step fully into an evolving, forward-moving life - filled with vitality, integrity & a generative embodiment of mature adulthood.
• Completion & Integrity: Identification of the unconscious commitments that sabotage our conscious intentions. Learn to align thought, feeling and action. Bring the past into a state of completion, freeing our focus to act in the world with clarity and integrity.
• Conscious Living practices
• Embodiment: Learn to live in the present moment with the body as a reliable vehicle and resource.
• Internship: Choosing a long internship from a database of over 6,000 options. Dream big and act globally.
• The Golden Thread: The constant hum of our soul has been all but obscured as we live out of relationship with the natural worlds. The through-line of Deeper Waters is all about slowing down, asking deep questions, listening for the response, then following the thread of our rooted soul's song.

Optional Internship or Return Home: Two months +.

Students either return home or do an optional short internship. During this time, they engage with a curriculum of inner practice designed to sensitize the self to listen, feel, and begin to follow the Golden Thread identified during Retreat #1. This is done through daily practices, readings, work with peer partners, writing, and continued explorations defined by each individual student. The Optional Internship is not an integral part of the program, but is a great and enriching alternative for anyone who is interested. The Optional Internship is limited to a smaller number of opportunities that will take volunteers quickly.

Retreat #2: 4 days long. This retreat is focused on harvesting what has been learned between retreats, identifying your personal barriers to learning and evolution, and preparing one'self for travel/study/adventure during the Major Internship.

Major Internship: This internship is a primary focal point of the Deeper Waters learning journey. It is chosen from over 6,000 options in 126 countries. With our sister organization (the Center for INTERIM Programs) we have amassed this database through travel, research and collection since 1977, and it is the largest of its kind in the world. During the Major Internship, Deeper Waters students live, study and travel in a region of their choice for up to 12 weeks. Internships include the following and much, much more:

• Martial arts study in Brazil, Japan, Taiwan, China and Thailand
• Medical work outside of the United States - in Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Africa, and many other locations.
• Work with children just about anywhere in the world - in schools, orphanages, on the streets, in refugee camps and other settings.
• Alternative and conventional building construction & sustainable living in the U.S. and many other countries
• Work on organic farms throughout the world - Australia, NZ, Africa, Asia, Latin America, the U.S, Europe, and the Caribbean.
• Work with animals in the U.S., Australia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Kenya, South Africa, India, Argentina, Nepal, and other countries. Work with elephants, primates, pumas, birds, sea turtles, penguins, musk oxen, baby baboons, horses and farm animals, Great White Sharks, and more.
• Language immersion and homestays throughout the world.
• Arts & crafts study and apprenticeship in Latin America, India, Africa, Europe, Canada, and Asia.
• Work with scientists - ecology, botany, marine science, forestry, archaeology, and more.
• Work with midwives in Latin America, Indonesia, Africa and elsewhere.
• Political internships in the UK, Australia & Switzerland
• Blacksmithing, jewelry-making, glass blowing, weaving
• Historical restoration
• Work on kibbutzes (kibbutzim) in Israel and in eco-villages & intentional communities throughout the world
• Work with indigenous people in the U.S. and abroad
• Work with women's issues and women's empowerment groups throughout the world
• Spiritual study: yoga retreats, ashrams, meditation, etc.
• Hotel management internships, work in chateaus in France, retreat center internships
• Work on remote Pacific islands
• Work at SCUBA dive centers - Galapagos, the Caribbean, the Gulf of Thailand, and on the Great Barrier Reef.
• Service work with people with disabilities, with the very poor, the dying, with the blind, and with those who are developmentally delayed.

Retreat #3: 5 days long. The final retreat is all about grounding and integration - focused on taking everything you have learned throughout the semester and integrating it into your life. Topics include harvesting everything that is learned during the internship, planning the next phase of your education, re-entry and reverse culture shock, soul-centered living, navigating the world as an adult, and much more.

• Deeper Waters is open to people ages 18 and older. It can be used as a gap year program, a half year of college for who want to gain international experience to balance their academic education, as a career break or way to move through periods of aridity any time in your life.
• College credit is available at a low additional cost through Seattle Central Community College
• The cost for Deeper Waters is $7,900, This includes all tuition, room and board for the three retreats, as well as $1,500 toward the Major Internship expenses. Not included in the program fee is the cost of personal health insurance (required), personal spending money, as well as domestic and international airfare. If you choose an Optional Internship, there is an additional internship placement fee of $300, as well as the direct cost of the optional internship. A decision about the optional internship can be made up until the final day of the first retreat.
• Dates for Spring 2010 Deeper Waters are:
• January 4 - 11, 2010 - Retreat #1 in California at the LEAPNOW campus
• January 12 - March 14 - Optional Internship or return home
• March 15 - 19 - Retreat #2
• March 20 - June 4 - Major Internship
• June 5 - 10 - Retreat #3 at LEAPNOW northern CA campus

• Allow you to engage in the world in a way that is individual to you (you choose your three internships), but contained and supported by competent, caring leaders and a group of like-minded individuals.
• Give you a chance to dive deeply into Latin America, Asia and Africa in a relatively short period of time – with the encouragement to engage deeply with the people and cultures you are immersed in.
• Learn experientially within a context that allows you to reflect on and integrate these extremely diverse experiences into yourself. Each country and internship gives you the opportunity to experience yourself in very different ways – providing an invaluable mirror to you.

The beginning, middle and end of the One Revolution journey incorporates contemplative retreats - two at the LEAPNOW campus north of San Francisco, and one in India. These give participants time to get oriented and learn vital skills (conscious communication, agreements, integrity & transitions), to breathe and realize how much has happened. The first retreat will help you prepare for the journey, and give the group some time to come together before traveling. The second retreat (in India) and the final retreat back in the U.S. give you time to harvest your learning, take time to digest your experiences, and connect your internship experiences to your specific life purpose.

• One Revolution is open to people ages 17 and older. It can be used as the final semester of high school, a gap year program, a half year of college for who want to gain international volunteer experience to balance their academic education, or for those out of college who want to feel the wind in their hair. It’s for anyone who wants to know themselves and the world better, and who wants to have a positive impact on the world.
• College credit is available at a low additional cost through Seattle Central Community College
• One Revolution is designed to be an extended active meditation and inquiry into how you can "be the change that you wish to see in the world." The variety of cultures and social structures in these three very diverse regions of the world will ask you to examine your own life and cultural assumptions, and reflect consciously upon how you might like to live in the world.
• Maximum group size is 12 students. They will travel with two experienced adult leaders who serve participants as a resource and a liaison into the various cultures and internship placements. Leaders will work with the group to maximize safety, learning and personal growth.
• The cost for One Revolution is $12,900, this includes all scheduled program internships and activities, food and accommodation during the program. Not included in the program fee is the cost of personal health insurance (required), personal spending money, as well as domestic and international airfare.
• Dates for One Revolution are:
• January 11-15, 2010 - Retreat #1 in California at the LEAPNOW campus
• January 16 - February 17 - Guatemala: Language Study and Internship
• February 18 - April 12 - North India: Internship (Retreat #2 will be held in India – dates to be determined)
• April 13 - May 16 - Uganda: Internship
• May 17 - 21 - Retreat #3 at LEAPNOW northern CA campus