Buddhafield

Have a look at last year’s programme while we’re still in the planning stages.

People and Permaculture, a talk by Permaculture teacher, Looby Macnamara, on her new book. Looby is interested in pursuing how peoplecare can lead to greater and more effective planet repair. Over the last 2 years she has been writing a book exploring peoplecare and permaculture in depth. Also offering talks on, The Design Web — A New Permaculture Design Framework for People Based Designs and Zone 00 Caring and Designing for Ourselves. More info
Reading the Landscape with Patrick Whitefield, one of the leading permaculture teachers in Europe. He combines a deep knowledge of the subject with an inspiring and professional teaching style.
Healing Ourselves and the Planet with Heart Centred Awareness, experiential workshops with Melissa Cathy Whitefield, group facilitator teaching the people-centred and community aspects of Permaculture Design Courses.
Introduction to Permaculture and Wild Food and Plant Walk with Klaudia Van Gool, Permaculture teacher, worked as an Environmental Business Services Adviser for Groundwork for eleven years with a degree in Environmental Science and a work placement at Spinnaker Ltd, implementing their Environmental Management System.
Natural Beekeeping with Jessie Watson Brown.
Living on the Earth with Steward Community Woodland. Steward Community Woodland dwellers share a variety of skills and experience acquired over the last 11 years of living on the land together. They are very passionate about sharing their knowledge and skills to help empower and inspire others!Workshops will include:

• Healing Hedgerow learn to identify, harvest and preserve your own medicine chest from Mother Nature. Through guided walks, balm and tincture making sessions.
• Fire by Friction learn the principles behind the practice. Crafting of bow and hand drill sets, tree identification, natural tinders and fire lay out.
• Shelter building exploring different ways to create emergency survival shelters from minimal natural and manmade materials.
• Nature Connections — Finding Yourself in Nature with Ollie Hornbeam. Learn how to move through the natural landscape in a way that enables you to blend into the environment around you and have closer encounters with wild animals.

Talk on Living in Community and the History of Tinker’s Bubble, a low-impact community in Somerset with a strict principal of not using fossil fuels.
The Seed says Plant me Soon: Children’s Permaculture with Charlotte Dean. An interactive workshop exploring the pleasures and pitfalls of delivering mindful outdoor learning with children based on permaculture ethics, principles and design tools.
Landmatters Community are a low impact off grid, Permaculture community in Devon. They will show a film on the story of Landmatters, plus a powerpoint, “What’s Happening These days?” with an update of both community and Permaculture life.
Orchard Design and Management, Forest Garden design and Introduction to Permaculture Design, all with Tim Potter, BSc Countryside management and interpretive design with an emphasis on sustainability. Tim has worked at the Earth Centre teaching permaculture and sustainability.
Managing livestock on your Smallholding and Designing a Permaculture Smallholding with Jenny Schmidt. Jen is a vet with experience in both small and large animals and runs an 11 acre smallholding using permaculture principles with livestock, orchards, forest garden and woodland.
Wild Law UK and the Rights of Nature: How Can the Law be Used to Protect the Planet and its Inhabitants. Wild Law UK is part of a global movement calling for a re-orientation of human-centred laws and policies to Earth-centred governance systems, so that they support, rather than undermine, the long term health and integrity of the Earth.

This year’s programme is still in development, but find out more about last year’s to whet your appetitie!

Screening and discussion of their new film Crisis of Civilisation with Lucca Benney.
Solar Workshop and Discussion with Solar Energy Alliance Ltd. The future is bright; the future is solar! Workshop and Discussion. Practical system set up. Discussion on how a system is designed and installed.
Practical Solutions Around the World with Nicola Peel. Practical Solutions and What Can You Do? Are you ever wondering how you can make a positive difference in the world?
Art and Social Action with Adriana. Latin American singer-songwriter, performer and activist. She’s been involved in environmental causes in UK for the last 6 years and is part of the grassroots climate movement. A workshop to explore our possibilities to inspire our work in social action with art.
Creating World Peace with Daniel Harris. Facilitating peace workshops since 2004. Song writer, artist, geek, business entrepreneur, human process observer, bridge builder and world peace evangelist.
Understand the Financial Crisis, The Cuts, and What We Can Do About It with Maddy Evans. Campaigner for Jubilee Debt Campaign, part of a global movement demanding freedom from unjust debt and a new financial system that puts people first.
Gaia Theory with Dr Stephan Harding, using examples from Gaia and complexity theories, from archetypal psychology and from deep ecology, will sketch the outlines of a new holistic approach in science which values qualities as much a quantities, and which cultivates intuition as much as rational thought. Dr Stephan Harding is co-ordinator of the Master of Science Degree in Holistic Science at Schumacher College in Devon, a world-renowned centre of excellence for holistic ecological education. He has taught with some of the leading thinkers and writers in the green movement, including Fritjof Capra, Vandana Shiva, Arne Naess and James Lovelock, with whom he has collaborated over several years. One talk in Workshop Space 3, on Saturday. See Info Point boards for time.
Developing Skills for Building and Maintaining Sustainable Communities with Facilitator and Life Coach Kathryn Tulip.. This practical workshop will explore some of the tools and skills such as good communication, active listening, and participatory decision making that can help us to build and maintain both the effectiveness and well-being of our communities.
Exploring Cooperative Living and Working with Kathryn Tulip of Seeds for Change and Radical Routes. Cooperatives are based on overarching values of honesty, openness, equality, social responsibility and caring for others. They are ideal structures for expressing our shared core values and for taking control of our housing, work, education and finances. Find out about the practical, legal and financial issues involved in setting up housing and workers cooperatives.
Trident Ploughshares are a network campaigning for the disarmament of the UK Trident nuclear weapons system in a non-violent, open, peaceful and fully accountable manner. Trident Ploughshares was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the alternative Nobel Prize, in 2001. In January 2012 a founder member of Trident Ploughshares, Angie Zelter, was nominated for the Nobel Prize for her work on the campaign. They will offer 2 talks at the festival sharing their experiences as activists, information about Trident as a weapon of mass destruction, and producer of highly toxic waste, with some interactive activities suggesting alternative uses for the estimated £100 billion cost. They also hope to offer information about other anti-nuclear protests, such as the new site at Hinckley.
The Bhutan Nun Foundation, Women of Buddha. Mémé Watanabe will offer a slideshow and talk about the project work in Bhutan, along with a recorded talk showing stunning photographs of the nuns by photographer Marie Thesbjerg.

While we’re planning next year’s, chceck out a summary of last year’s programme.

Morning Meditation 8.00am daily
Daily Vinyasa Flow Yoga with Alison Mann 9.00am daily
Gifts of the Ancestors Workshop with Evelyn Brodie Please bring 3 small stones for this workshop. Do you feel out of place in your family? Do you have 'unfinished business' with family members who have died? Do you feel constrained or bound by family history? In this workshop you pick three of your ancestors that you would like to work with. You use three stones to represent them and you 'place' them around you in the energy field. You then step into each of their lives, one by one, to find out what they still need to say to you, and what gifts they have for you. You may then want to reorganise their positions in the field relative to you and each other, until the lineage is as it needs to be. To conclude the workshop we will release your ancestors in a fire ceremony, honouring them and what the geneological lineage has given to you.
Soul Retrieval workshop Evelyn Brodie Please bring 5 small stones for this workshop. When something traumatic happens in our lives we often cut off/shut off a part of our soul in order to survive. At the same time we make a contract with life that will keep us safe. However, this splintering of the soul leaves us incomplete. Soul Retrieval aims to collect a part of the soul we have left behind along the journey (perhaps earlier in this lifetime, or perhaps in a past life). We undertake a mythical journey to seek the original wound, the contract we made at that time and the part we left behind. We re-write that contract and negotiate with the lost soul part what it needs from us to be safe to re-enter our lives and help us towards completeness. We decide whether that is something that we can indeed give it at this time and whether we want it back in our lives. We visit the chamber of gifts and receive a gift and we ask for a power animal that will help us in our lives. We conclude by discussing the work we need to do to help to re-integrate these energetic changes and gifts into the physical world we live in from day to day.
Self Compassion – A Radical Act of Love with Colette. What if the question is not: "Why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be?” But "Why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?” (Oriah Mountaindreamer). Learning to like and respect the person you really are is the basis for a happy, creative life. But for different reasons many of us struggle to like ourselves. Many of us just don’t know how to like ourselves. Through compassion work we can begin the process of re-learning how to appreciate ourselves and our lives just as they are along with the good bits and the difficult bits. Through compassion work we can uncover and make available energy and resources which will support our creative emergence and healing. This workshop is particularly useful for those of us who would like to build up a sense of self-confidence and self-regard. The workshop will include group work and meditative practices. More information about Mindfulness
Words from the womb: Finding poetry in the body with Ellen de Vries.
Native American Ritual meets Tonglen with Lorna Reay. This uplifting ritual involves body, voice and mind. It is based on a Cherokee ritual,l which greets the four directions, using a combination of singing and movement. Metta is sent to all beings around the world, and their pain is drawn into Mother Earth. In the process, revitalising qualities are drawn from each direction to balance our own being. This unique practice is very powerful and can be used daily as an excellent springboard for a positive, connected state of mind.
Dance of the Dakini: Earth as Witness with Laura Shewan. Surrender your body and awaken the fierceness of the free heart through embodied transformation.Touching the Earth we call up to evoke the essence of the Buddhist feminine - Tara and Vajrayogini. Exploring our embodied nature and archetypal connection to the Earth as soul we begin to embrace our bodies, liberate our minds and awaken our hearts to our authentic nature. See Info Point Boards for other workshop.
Creating Grace Women’s Workshops with Art Therapist Tessa Howell. Women's workshops of creativity, circle and ceremony. Sweet soul sisters gathering together to use art therapy techniques and simple ceremony to drop in deeper to ourselves and find freedom. Tess is an artist, art therapist, shrine maker, costumier, ceremonialist. She leads workshops using art therapy techniques for transformation and inspiration, and is a Women’s Group facilitator, gathering together in circles to share our hearts. Tess is a ritual leader, creating rites of passage events in sacred spaces and placing herself in service to all that is sacred, spirited and holy. One other workshop in Workshop Space 2.
A Fireside Celebration (with tea and cake) of Women who have influenced your Spiritual Development – Please bring your tales.
Parents/Carers with Children Meditation offers a chance for parents to meditate while children play. (tbc)