About us
Regenerating the land and ourselves
Our goals:
- To promote well-being, personal growth, and healing through nature-based activities and ecotherapy work.
- To increase awareness of the natural world and deepen our relationship with it using walks, talks and active learning.
- To cultivate a sense of reciprocity, respect and reverence towards the more-than-human world, recognizing our interconnectedness with nature and its sentience.
- To help regenerate natural ecosystems and biodiversity employing practical tasks on and with the land.
- To encourage that our behaviour, work, leisure, culture and society respect and honour this human-nature relationship.
Robert and Sebastiana Black cofounded Ecotherapy East in 2021 a year after Robert inherited a 12-acre Church Farm meadow in Bramfield, Suffolk, from his ancestors who used to farm the land. Their intention has been to not only regenerate the land, but also deepen everyone’s relationship to it; renewing a sense of participation and belonging to the ecosystems. Joanna Macy’s Active Hope work has been particularly inspiring, which invites us to reconsider our place in the web of life. They brought together a team of directors and set up a Community Interest Company in order to develop and broaden their work, seeing the potential for something very special to evolve.
Since then, Ecotherapy East have expanded to run IFS in Nature, Pilgrimage of Soul and mindfulness in nature workshops and retreats both on Foxtail Meadow in Bramfield, and more widely in places such as Norwich, North Norfolk and East Suffolk.
Hundreds of native trees and hedgerow saplings have been planted, and the land transformed into a biodiverse meadow. A large pond has been nurtured and is now home to an array of water reliant species. A labyrinth has been created to provide a mindful space for contemplative movement, reflecting the cyclical patterns of Life. Modern farming methods have, where possible, been replaced with more traditional ones, including scything the long summer grass. People who attend events obviously soon develop a real affinity with the place, and by implication with their role in the natural world.
From April to October there is a spacious yurt on Foxtail meadow which holds wide ranging events to suit everyone and a place where people are welcomed to come and share in, and experience, the beneficial effects of being in Nature and to be alongside like-minded and compassionate people. Ecotherapy East continues to offer opportunities both for refuge and for challenge, depending on people’s individual needs and where they are in their lives. The workshops and events are generally facilitated by members of the team.
Do have a look at our Events page to see if anything calls out to you. The Community Days are a welcoming space with an opportunity to participate in a Wheel of The Year ritual and land-tending. It is a good place to start if you’re feeling unsure of which events are for you, and will give you a chance to come and meet some of us. If you have any questions or are simply curious, do please use the contact page to get in touch and we’ll do our best to help you.
Whether working with the land or developing workshops, we are informed by and integrate ways of working like:
- ecotherapy
- mindfulness and Buddhist psychology
- self-compassion
- internal family systems therapy
- expressive arts
- poetry
- depth psychology
- deep ecology
- eco-spirituality
- process oriented psychology
- Jungian dream work