I'm not worried about AI replacing us. I’m worried about us forgetting what makes us irreplaceable. 

And it's damn easy to forget as the whole world sprints to master AI. As you get whiplash from headlines telling you “How to 10x your creativity with AI!” but also “Watch out! It'll rot your brain.” As you get caught in a dizzying dance between awe and anxiety.

But here's where we're burying the lede: AI isn’t just a technological revolution- it’s a mirror. It’s asking questions we’ve avoided for decades:

What does it actually mean to be fully human in an age of machines? And what if intelligence has always been more than logic — a blend of intuition, evolution, and imagination?

This Wild Intelligence Immersion is a seven-day antidote to that overwhelm. It's a living classroom to remember what we’ve always known: the poetry of language, the wisdom of the body, the intelligence of the living world.

This isn’t a digital detox or a self-help retreat. It’s a re-education where rhyme precedes reason. With Samanea nature reserve as our setting, it's a place to slow down enough to sense, to write, to move, and to ask better questions about the technologies shaping us — and the ones we want to shape next.

It’s for the bridge-builders — those willing to stay in the grey,
to ask sky-wide questions, and to lead from the soil of imagination instead of pedestals of fear.

You’ll leave not just restored, but recalibrated: ready to help guide the future of AI, work and leadership toward something more human, more alive, and unmistakably yours.

So, what do you say we grow wildly intelligent?

- Lauren Ducrey, poet, keynote speaker on AI & humanity, and more importantly your facilitator and co-inspiror

What you'll explore

Poetic Intelligence

Language is how humans have made meaning for millennia. It's now the basis of Large Language Models.

Through guided writing, storytelling, and reflection, Lauren will help you rediscover words as instruments of perception — tools for sensing, connecting, and creating new futures.

Here, poetry isn’t ornamental; it’s a technology of truth.

Somatic Intelligence

Intuition isn’t a nice idea: it’s an embodied form of wisdom.

Each day includes time for the body to process what the mind learns — through deep rest, yoga, and guided hikes through the nature reserve. These practices build awareness of how stress, creativity, and intuition live in the body, and how grounding can unlock communication and decision-making.

Nature's Intelligence

Led by Karen — a biologist, career conservationist, and steward of Samanea sanctuary — this exploration takes us outdoors — into the forests, rivers, and rhythms of Costa Rica.
Through observation, ecological practice, and dialogue, you’ll learn from nature’s systems: how they adapt, regenerate, and collaborate — lessons we can bring back to our technologies and teams.

Collective Intelligence

Insight grows through interaction.

We’ll practice active listening, sense-making, and group dialogue to explore how new ideas emerge in community — when curiosity replaces certainty and difference becomes a resource.

By the end of the week, you’ll have not only words and ideas but practices you can carry back into your work, leadership, and life.

Your guides

What happens when you put a biologist, an AI designer and two poets in a room? You get Lauren and Karen. They met at the confluence of logic and wonder, and are meeting up with a third guide on this immersion: Samanea Nature Sanctuary.

Lauren Ducrey

An award-winning poet, keynote speaker, and former AI strategist at Google, Lauren works at the intersection of technology and tenderness. Her practice — which she calls Poetic Intelligence — helps leaders and organizations reconnect emotion, creativity, and meaning in an age ruled by metrics. She has guided global teams at companies like Google, PepsiCo, and AXA to use language as a bridge between logic and humanity.
At Wild Intelligence, her brainchild, she invites participants to explore how our words shape worlds — and how re-enchanting language can re-enchant leadership itself.

Karen Gordon

A biologist, naturalist, and poet of place, Karen holds a B.S. in Biology and an M.A. in Educational Leadership—credentials that support her three-decade journey as a field biologist, restoration ecologist, and educator.

She’s worked in settings from Costa Rica’s cloud forests to coastal fjords, reviving living systems. As founder of the 40-acre Samanea Nature Sanctuary, Karen weaves ecological restoration and attentive inquiry into every experience.

At Wild Intelligence, Karen anchors us back into our human-earth relationship, helping us remember that nature is not just a subject—it’s a teacher.

Samanea Nature Sanctuary

Our third teacher isn’t human. Samanea, the land that holds this immersion, is a sanctuary nested in Monteverde, alive with the hum of birds, the pulse of roots, and the light-woven lace of jungle canopies. 

Here, learning happens through place as much as through people. The rhythms of Samanea — its quiet, its rustle, its breath — are woven into every practice, inviting us to remember what intelligence feels like when it’s embodied, connected, and alive.

Join the immersion

Dates: May 22 – 29, 2026
Location: Samanea Nature Sanctuary, Monteverde, Costa Rica

🏡 Participants spend 7 nights in a beautiful eco-lodge right by Samanea surrounded by forest and open sky. All sessions will all take place on Samanea land itself.

🥗 All meals are lovingly prepared by the host family with locally sourced ingredients that support nearby farmers — an experience of nourishment that reflects the values of reciprocity at the heart of Samanea.

🤝 A portion of every registration directly funds local ecological and community initiatives in Monteverde.

🌱 Your investment:

• Shared room — $3,200

• Private room — $3,500

This includes

• One yoga class with a local teacher

• One movement / dance session with a local facilitator

• A cacao ceremony led by Karen, drawing on her work in cacao preservation in Peru

• One 60-minute massage for each participant. Yes, you read that right.

• Guided sessions in poetic, somatic, natural, and collective intelligence

• A beautifully designed book of curated poems, essays, and reflection prompts created for this immersion — your field guide and keepsake

• 3 daily meals prepared with locally sourced ingredients

• One post-immersion group call with Lauren to translate reflection into real-world practice — ensuring the learning doesn’t stay in the forest, but moves into your work and leadership.

Not included:

• Airfare (fly into San José — SJO — or Liberia — LIR)

• Round-trip shuttle from either airport to Samanea available for purchase