Past Events – Seeding Our Future

Digging deeper into local food

Online briefing and discussion:Tuesday January 12, 7.00-8.30pm Organised and hosted by Transition Town Bridport and Seeding our Future Our food supply is more fragile than it appears. Some 40% of our food comes from abroad,and depends on good harvests, stable climate and frictionless borders. Covid, ClimateChange and Brexit are make feeding Britain even more precarious. … Read more

Why local food matters for Bridport

Bridport has a reputation as a foodie centre, but how solid is our local food security? Several local organisations believe we need to grow and buy more of our produce locally: you can find out more at their stall on Barrack Street in the December 12 Farmers Market. The main problem from climate change for … Read more

Deepen your Roots

Resilience, Connection and Joy for crazy times Five online workshops: Wednesdays April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 4.30-6 pm, 4.30-6 pm With Alan Heeks and Karim Hadden In stormy times, we all need to deepen our roots and find more resources, more support. This series of online workshops offers ways to cultivate spiritual resilience, make supportive connections, … Read more

Growing through Climate Change: local responses to food security

How we can strengthen the food economy around BridportOnline seminar and discussion: Wednesday 10 June: 7.00-8.30 pmHosted by Transition Town Bridport, Seeding our Future and Bridport Local Food Group We have a big opportunity to make Bridport’s food economy less vulnerable to shocks from pandemics and climate change: the key is for consumers to support … Read more

Future Conversations – Taster session – 16 June 2020

What is the present situation telling us about our future? What are the new possibilities? Are you interested in exploring how we can build better communities and build our resilience? We’re inviting you to an online taster session to preview this 6 week journey Connect and share our hopes as well as our fears and challenges Build your inner … Read more

Future Conversations – Online Programme

Facing Climate Change; Building Resilient Communities Six weekly sessions: 6th October – 17th November • Tuesdays, 4.30 – 6.00 pm In this time of rising uncertainty, we can all see the need to strengthen our communities. Future Conversations is a series of guided conversations to raise resilience for individuals and their communities. This online programme will help … Read more

Deep Adaptation: a spiritual exploration

November 6-8, 2020: A Retreat with Online Sessions With Alan Heeks, Amrita Bhohi and Karim Hadden Deep Adaptation is the term used by Jem Bendell to invite us to face the radical changes climate change will bring within the next decade. This weekend retreat will focus on the spiritual aspects: seeking purpose, healing, mutual care … Read more

Grow your own Happiness

60-90-minute online workshop Cultivate your wellbeing with gardening skills! Available for group bookingsWith Alan Heeks In these stormy times, we need new skills to stay happy. A cultivated ecosystem, like a garden, is a role model for human nature: this workshop shows how gardening methods can help you grow your own happiness and deepen the roots of your resilience. For example: Mulching and pruning to nourish your rootsComposting stress as a source of energyUse gardening skills like observation and creativityFind new ways to adapt to the climate crisisDraw inspiration from Nature to guide you in uncertainty Alan Heeks has over 25 years of experience exploring Natural Happiness with groups. It grows from creating a 130-acre organic farm and education centre at Magdalen Farm in West Dorset, and from gardening with his wife at home. In this online workshop, Alan will describe the Seven Seeds of Natural Happiness, and participants will have a chance to try some of them out. Alan is happy to take bookings for this event from environmental, community and other groups, at a time of their choosing for a moderate fee by negotiation. CONTACT LINK
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NATURAL HAPPINESS: cultivate your resilience with the Gardener’s Way

July 9-11 2021: at Hazel Hill Wood, near Salisbury With Alan Heeks, Jane Sanders and Marcos Frangos How can you stay happy when there’s too much change and uncertainty? This workshop shows you how: to cultivate yourself like a garden, and grow your own wellbeing by learning from natural ecosystems, using Alan’s unique Natural Happiness model. In this workshop we’ll explore these questions, with the natural ecosystem of this magical wood as our guide. Our methods will include: nourishing our roots; composting problems; using co-creative skills to work with nature; growing inspiration; and ecosystem insights about community. Along with workshop sessions, there will be solo times in the wood, plus good food, campfires and songs to nourish us. This will be a residential group at Hazel Hill Wood: if Covid restrictions prevent this, it will be run with a series of online sessions with personal time in between. We will explore how to grow resilience for individuals and communities, especially in response to the climate crisis and the related pandemic. If you are interested in using this model in your professional work with individuals or groups, Alan will be happy to offer you advice and support: the content of this workshop relates to his fourth book, which is planned for publication in late 2021. Alan Heeks has been exploring resilience with people and nature for many years, and has led many groups on this theme, drawing on experience of resilient natural systems from creating an organic farm and setting up Hazel Hill. Jane Sanders has over 25 years’ experience in working with a mindfulness based approach to wellbeing with groups and individuals, and has also incorporated deep ecology, ecopsychology and the wisdom of natural systems into her work in many different settings, including numerous groups at Hazel Hill Wood. Marcos Frangos is widely experienced in group facilitation, coaching, counselling and constellations work. He was General Manager of Hazel Hill Wood for 5 years, and has co- led many groups there with Jane and Alan. Cost including food and accommodation: £220, concessions £180. We will share cooking and other community tasks. To secure a place, we will need a deposit of £40, £30 for concessions: if, nearer the time we have to run this as an event online event, your deposit will cover the cost of this, or you can receive a full refund. Hazel Hill is a magical 70-acre conservation woodland and retreat centre, 7 miles from Salisbury. It has simple, yet beautifully crafted off-grid wooden buildings with lovely indoor and outdoor group spaces, basic accommodation in bedrooms and sleeping lofts (or camping), good hot showers and compost loos. See more at www.hazelhill.org.uk For bookings and enquiries: Please contact Carol Nourse via email on: naturalhappinesscontact@gmail.com
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RESILIENZ (German) and RESILIENCE (English) – where´s the difference?
Guest Blog by Daniel Körner of Wisdom Tree Recently, my attention was drawn to the topic of resilience and how this concept has been taken up differently in the two cultures where I live, the UK and Germany/Austria. Typing ‘resilience’ into google UK, many initial results lead to news from the banking sector, official governmental websites concerned with risks and emergencies on a national or global level, and luckily also some sites concerned with mental health and other personal aspects of resilience. The word itself seems to me, even if not frequently used, to be more understood in English than in German: people have at least an idea of its meaning (I doubt that many people in Austria or Germany would be able to explain the term ‘Resilienz’). Starting the same way, by just typing the word ‘Resilienz’ into German google, I found to my surprise that the word is indeed in use: In academia and business and more with a personal health focus, no mention of banks, water crisis or global challenges. I was even more surprised to find out that in fact the first research institution in Europe dedicated to resilience is in Germany. The German word ‘Resilienz’ (pronounce [ʀeziˈli̯ɛnʦ]) derives from the same latin origin (resilire or resilio– to bounce or spring back) but compared to the English word, it is much less used in day to day language. A synonym that is more widely known and in more common use would be ‘Wiederstandsfähigkeit’, yet this word describes much more the ability to withstand or to resist rather than the ability to bounce back. In this way it describes more the quality of a rock in breakwater, rather than of a solidly rooted tree that bends in a storm. One might say that this subtle semantic difference is not of importance, but I think it points to an unhealthy misconception and direction that the idea of resilience is taken in the German language. Alan pointed out in his last blog on ‘super-resilience’ (you can read the whole blog here) that resilience is often misused and mistaken as endurance, putting up with more and more pressure. The image of the strong ego-driven, successful individual that can cope with more stress, less sleep and can do more things at the same time is an expression of the unhealthy working culture of our time. But more on that later, back to the RESILIENZ… The German Resilience Centre (Deutsches Resilienz Zentrum, DRZ website available in English) in Mainz is an interdisciplinary and integrated centre for the research and promotion of resilience, supported by the Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) and the University Medical Center of the JGU, and funded by the German federal government. The centre tries to combine basic neuroscience, clinical neuroscience and social science to address, as it says on their website, ‘one of the most important public health challenges of modern, knowledge-based societies.’ So there is an acknowledgment of the importance of this topic and of its implications on individual and social life, confirmed by its federal funding, not only for research but to provide a variety of services at their Resilience Health Care Centre as well. Furthermore, workshops, lectures and a list of resilience self-help books are provided and students have the possibility to attend the different formats for free. Wow,… imagine resilience centres connected to hospitals or community spaces. Where people find support and information… Then, I found several ‘resilience centres’, mainly in West Germany but also one each in Austria and Switzerland. Taking a closer look, they turn out to be coaching and consulting groups, focused on personal coaching, supervision, training and consulting for companies. Generally a positive tendency, as it shows a changing ‘Zeitgeist’ and the recognition of the importance of this theme in our working world. What disappointed me a bit though was the way in which resilience is presented and talked about. Almost everywhere it is directly linked with performance and productivity, the language in use fits perfectly into corporate settings, yet feels sterile. The focus seems to be on professional intervention in clinical settings. Considering the fact that the institutions who make use of the terms exist and arose from a corporate context this is not surprising and in itself also not reprehensible, yet it leaves me with some discomfort. Firstly because I think resilience needs to be understood not (only) in an ‘in order to … [be more productive]’ way, but for its own sake. I´m reminded of a famous quote by Howard Thurman, ‘…what the world needs is people who have come alive’ I´m convinced that people who are truly resilient and alive also are more productive, have less absence from work and are more creative and context-responsive in their work. Yet, to put the emphasis on productivity to begin with (and approaching resilience work just as a means) holds the danger of losing this idea of resilience to the corporate world and it being transformed into a fancy but empty concept (as it has happened with the broad philosophical idea of ‘sustainability’ before). The second thing I´ve been missing whilst exploring the different German institutions and offerings is ‘nature experience’. There has been a lot of scientific research in recent years on the health benefits of interacting in and with nature (see e.g. the research of Berman M. G., et al., University of Chicago ) and it is one of the key elements of the resilience work that I´m involved in through my activities at Hazel Hill Wood and through Wisdom Tree. So I was surprised not to find the words ‘nature’, ‘environment’, ‘the outdoors’. I guess this is what I mean by sterile. There seems to be a stronger recognition in the UK of the relation between nature experience and physical/mental health and further physical/mental health and resilience. In the German speaking area there is a lot of talk about mindfulness, acceptance, optimism, focus on the future, creativity or self-responsibility, some of which might implicitly include nature, yet there is certainly no […]
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