eco-admin, Author at Ecotherapy East

Coming Home

Knowing our Belonging to the Earth

Saturday 11 May 2024
11am-4:30pm
Church Farm Meadow
Private Nature Reserve
Bramfield, Suffolk

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.” – Mary Oliver

You are invited to pause and gather in creative community, to take your place as part of the meadow and sink into its ecosystems. We can soften, let go, and delight in the wonders of the season. We will meet nature within and without, in the hope of knowing ourselves and the natural world more deeply.

On this day of outdoor mindfulness and ecotherapy practice we will explore and embody our strand in the web, invoking receptivity, reciprocity, and reverence. The practices encourage us to allow all of our senses to ease into the natural world, filling us up with the aliveness and beauty of spring. Our intimate connection with nature changes us and opens our curiosity to what needs attention within us.

The day will include:

Meditation and reflection

Embodiment and Mindful walking

Sensory and imaginal practices

Creativity to digest our experiences

Sharing in a supportive community

No previous experience necessary, just a willingness to sit quietly.

All are welcome.

Facilities: We will be on the nature reserve therefore facilities are very simple to minimise impact on the wildlife. We have a large yurt in case of showers but we will spend most of the time outdoors. There is a compost loo and water.

Contribution to Ecotherapy East: £60, £50, £40- choose what you can afford. If this is too high for you and you would like to join us, please get in touch.

Spaces limited to allow for a small, connected group.

Tea and coffee and biscuits provided.

To book, click here to email: ecotherapyeast@gmail.com

Travel: We encourage car sharing, use of public transport or bicycles.

Parking: Parking is available at Bramfield Village Hall for a small charge of £3 per vehicle.

We have 4 spaces by the meadow for people with limited mobility.

Buses: The workshop is timed to work around when buses arrive and leave Halesworth. The Charcoal Line 40, 41, X41 runs from Norwich to Halesworth once an hour, and Bus 521 goes from Halesworth to Bramfield. All Suffolk buses timetables can be found here: https://www.suffolkonboard.com/ways-to-travel/bus/bus-timetables/

Address and directions will be provided after booking.

Facilitators:

Robert Black is an integrative counsellor, supervisor, ecotherapist and expressive arts therapist, working in private practice. He worked at Norfolk Mind as a trainer of Mental Health First Aid, Mindfulness, Self-Compassion and Active Hope courses for over a decade and has been running workshops in the natural world since 2016.

Sebastiana Black is an Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist, ecotherapist and Mindful Self-Compassion teacher. She practises Buddhism, which helps her work with climate distress. She is a co-founder and director of Ecotherapy East, which actively contributes towards ecosystem regeneration and building a community around the meadow that they steward. She is passionate about deepening our sensitivity to our inner world, Earth wisdom and the larger ecosystems in which we belong. She enjoys writing songs and poetry inspired by the more-than-human world.
Stories from the land

Helen Wells will perform her one woman show Sensitive Indicator – a drama of insect loss. Helen weaves together her life with that of an endangered butterfly the Grizzled Skipper and explores the insect crisis on our warming earth, our collective vulnerability and what we are passing onto future generations.

Travel: We encourage car sharing, use of public transport or bike.

Parking: Parking is available at Bramfield Village Hall for a small charge of £3 per vehicle.

We have 4 spaces by the meadow for people with limited mobility.

Buses: The Charcoal Line 40, 41, X41 runs from Norwich to Halesworth once an hour.

For more information and to book email heavenwells@icloud.com or text 07803608274.
Climate Conversations – Sharing our feelings about the ecological crises

with Ecotherapy East

Saturday 8 June 2024
2-4pm
Co-op Community Space, Halesworth
Free, donations to Ecotherapy East welcome

Feelings like grief, anger, hope, love, despair, fear; the climate and biodiversity crises can evoke so many emotions from day to day, depending on what news we’ve heard, or particular person we’ve talked to. Many of us also imagine others might not be feeling the same as us.

This is a space to share in a supportive environment about how the situation is affecting you, as well as reflect and learn what can support you going forth. When we voice our difficult emotions this can free us up to feel more hopeful and act in small (or bigger) ways. We will be offering some thoughts on what often holds people back, as well as some simple practices that can sustain us. We hope you will find it an inspiring and positive space to connect with others. Led by experienced facilitators from Ecotherapy East, a social enterprise based in Bramfield.

This event is free, but please let us know if you intend to come so we can track numbers. Please email: ecotherapyeast@gmail.com
Write the Land

Saturday 15 June 2024
11am-4:30pm
Church Farm Meadow
Private Nature Reserve
Bramfield, Suffolk

At midsummer, close to the summer solstice and the turning point it represents, join us to mark this time of maximum light and expansiveness. It will be a chance to sink into land and nature connection, slow writing and community. Writing will help us to digest our experiences and distill precious insight.

Joanna Guthrie is a poet, writer and facilitator whose writing focuses on the other-than-human world. Her second poetry collection was published last year.

Rebecca Stonehill is a writer, creative writing teacher and activist. She has published three novels and a memoir and is the founder of Norwich Writers Rebel.

The day will include:
- An Invitation for slow writing to sink into land, nature and other-than-human connection
- Sharing of poetry and verses
- Guided meditation and contemplation
- Labyrinth walking
- Smaller group work
- An invitation to share writing in a small, supportive community
Contribution: £45, £35, £30 – choose what you can afford. Please consider paying the highest amount to support our work and those who can only afford the lower price. If this is too high for you and you would like to join us, please get in touch.

Enquiries and to book, click here to email: norwichwritersrebel@proton.me

Spaces are limited. Book early.

No previous writing experience is necessary.

Facilities: We will be on the nature reserve therefore facilities are very simple to minimise impact on the wildlife. We have a large yurt in case of showers but we will spend most of the time outdoors. There is a compost loo and water.

Travel: We encourage car sharing, use of public transport or bicycles.

Parking: Parking is available at Bramfield Village Hall for a small charge of £3 per vehicle. We have 4 spaces by the meadow for people with limited mobility.

Refreshments: Tea and biscuits provided. Please bring your own packed lunch.

Buses: The Charcoal Line 40, 41, X41 runs from Norwich to Halesworth once an hour. We can offer a lift from there. The workshop is timed to work around when buses arrive and leave Halesworth.

Address and directions will be provided after booking.

We look forward to welcoming you to the meadow.
Listening to the Earth

Movement and Ecotherapy Workshop

Saturday 6 July 2024
11am-5:00pm
Church Farm Meadow
Private Nature Reserve
Bramfield, Suffolk

Sink into the gifts the Earth offers you each moment. Tune into the ecosystems inside and around you with your whole body and all your senses. When we let the natural world come to us, we can really include it into our experience. We can rest in what is right here, enter into a creative conversation and notice how it changes us. No longer separate, belonging to the meadow, meeting the pond, the grasses and the trees and being met by them.

Drawing on practices from ecotherapy, dance movement psychotherapy, voice movement therapy, community dance, and mindfulness, Katy Dunne (Norfolk Arts award winner, 2023) and Sebastiana Black will create a nourishing day to support you in deepening your connection to your whole self, the natural world, and each other.

The day will include:
- Movement exercises to deeply connect with ourselves, and those we meet on the land
- Meditation practices to slow down and sense the inner and outer world
- Voice, imagination and movement to nourish ourselves and give back to nature
- Creativity to enhance and digest our experiences
- Time for you to slow down and rest in nature
No previous movement and meditation experience is necessary, just willingness to sit quietly in nature and move according to your ability.

Contribution to Ecotherapy East: £60, £50, £40- choose what you can afford. Please consider paying the highest amount to support our work and those who can only afford the lower price. If this is too high for you and you would like to join us, please get in touch.

Spaces limited to allow for a small, connected group.

Tea and coffee and biscuits provided.

To book, click here to email: ecotherapyeast@gmail.com

Travel: We encourage car sharing, use of public transport or bicycles.

Parking: Parking is available at Bramfield Village Hall for a small charge of £3 per vehicle.

We have 4 spaces by the meadow for people with limited mobility.

Buses: The workshop is timed to work around when buses arrive and leave Halesworth. The Charcoal Line 40, 41, X41 runs from Norwich to Halesworth once an hour, and Bus 521 goes from Halesworth to Bramfield. All Suffolk buses timetables can be found here: https://www.suffolkonboard.com/ways-to-travel/bus/bus-timetables/

Address and directions will be provided after booking.
Workshop
“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”
~Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Community Days on Foxtail Meadow

Wheel of the year & land-tending

Would you like to come and enjoy time in the natural world – with nature and for nature on Foxtail Meadow, private nature reserve in Bramfield, Suffolk?

Join a friendly group of people bringing connection with nature into their lives.

Dates in 2025 (Saturdays): 21 June, 2 August, 20 September, 1 November, 20 December (dates may change)

10:00am-11:30am Wheel of the year connection
11:30am-3:00pm Land-tending and meadow regeneration

Come for as long as you wish

We meet 8 times a year around the seasons to celebrate and bring awareness to our inner and the more-than-human world – walking the labyrinth, short meditations, quiet time in nature to deepen connection.

There are opportunities for practical tasks needed to take care of this regenerating land: making space for wildflowers, creating insect friendly habitats, scything, raking, looking after the new trees and the pond, planting trees.

Community days on the land are a great opportunity to:
- Nourish your relationship to the seasons and find your place in the web of life
- Meet the community
- Tend the land, give back to nature
- Tend yourself
Everyone is welcome! Children under 16 are welcome if accompanied and supervised by an adult. If you are not able to help in a practical way, you are welcome to pop by and enjoy being on the meadow, rest and regenerate. You are welcome to join us for lunch or quietly walk the labyrinth.

To join us and for directions please email: ecotherapyeast@gmail.com

We have a WhatsApp group which you are welcome to join for updates about community days and other announcements.

Travel To The Meadow

We encourage people to travel to our site in Bramfield using public transport, as much as possible.

(Parking is limited, so please get in touch if coming by car. There is an extra charge for parking when coming workshops.)

Trains: The East Coast Line goes from Lowestoft to Ipswich, and stops 3 miles either side of Bramfield, in Halesworth and Darsham. Bus 521 will take you to Bramfield from both Halesworth and Darsham on Saturdays.

Buses: The Charcoal Line 40, 41, X41 runs from Norwich to Halesworth once an hour, and Bus 521 goes from Halesworth to Bramfield.

All Suffolk bus timetables can be found here: https://www.suffolkonboard.com/ways-to-travel/bus/bus-timetables/
Land Tending

Join us at land-tending and community days
First Saturday of the month
Next date: 4 November 2023
11am-3pm,
Come for as long as you can

Church Farm Meadow, Bramfield, Suffolk

This is a great opportunity to meet the community on the meadow, actively give back to nature, restoring natural habitats and equilibrium on the Earth, and is also a fantastic way to respond to eco-anxiety. We move from a sense of paralysis or anger to purposeful action.

Some of the activities include: tree and wildflower-tending, tree planting, scything, raking the grass, wood cutting, taking care of a pond, enjoying lunch, tea and cake together, labyrith walking, enjoying spotting species on the land.

Everyone is welcome!

To join us please email: ecotherapyeast@gmail.com

tending the Earth, tending ourselves

Coming Home

Knowing our Belonging to the Earth

Stories from the land

Climate Conversations – Sharing our feelings about the ecological crises

Write the Land

Listening to the Earth

Movement and Ecotherapy Workshop

“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.” ~Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Community Days on Foxtail Meadow

Land Tending

“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”
~Robin Wall Kimmerer.