The Speech Of Earth
The Speech of Earth gathering may call to you if:
You wish to explore your relationships with the wider than human world and what the intimacy of these relationships mean for our collective health and wellbeing, in these times of great change, challenge and opportunity.
You feel a longing to live more soulfully in tune with the natural rhythms and cycles of your body and our vaster body – Earth.
You have an interest in Earth-based spiritualities or spiritual ecology.
You are a therapist, trainee or practitioner curious about working outside in our broader nature, exploring ecotherapy, wellbeing and embodied presence, for yourself, or in your work with others.
You are open to a more inclusive and expansive view and experience of bonding and attachment, that includes our Original Mother, Earth.
“When we are born into this universe, we are born into our first ecosystem, our mother’s womb. When we are born into this world, our umbilical connection is transferred from our birth mother to the Earth mother”. Sherri Mitchell.
PLEASE NOTE APPLICATIONS FOR THIS RETREAT WILL CLOSE ON THE 25th MARCH 2025. IF YOU WISH TO APPLY YOU MUST DO SO BEFORE THIS DATE.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
We are all indigenous to Earth. At times we can feel separate from, at a distance from our pulsing creaturely bodies and the life of our senses, our vaster body- Earth and the sacred.
During this reflective and practical gathering we will open to the sensorium of autumn with the Moor and our kinship with all beings. Noticing how we too are being encountered, just as we encounter this animate Earth that breathes, senses and witnesses our human presence. With Autumn and Moor as our teachers we reflect on life’s cycles and their expression through, and as our human presence.
Together we will create simple ceremony, explore embodied movement, meditation, deeper ways of listening, slow down to body-pace and open to the mystery of the seen and unseen worlds.
During our explorations both on the Moor and inside the seminar room we will inquire into how being in this way may itself be a portal to; your inner wisdom and guidance, an archetype encounter, your relationship with soul, a deeper release, healing our sense of separation. Then reflecting on how what has been shown to us, what we have tasted, can be embodied in daily life and work, and become a way of being in service to what gives meaning and purpose to our lives, and to regenerative thriving life for a world in balance and wholeness.
The practices and explorations during the Speech of Earth happen both outside with the Moor – sky, rock, water, bone, branch, hoof, mycelium and inside the training room.
To attend this gathering you need to be able to stay for the whole gathering, have a reasonable level of fitness, walk on uneven, wet, slippery earth and participate in practices in a range of unpredictable weather conditions.
Below are some reflections from people who have previously participated in The Speech of Earth;
I felt able to explore my relationship to the Speech of Earth in a unique and personal way. I left with a deeper and more sacred connection to Earth and cherish the rituals shown to me to preserve this kinship.
This gathering was an opportunity to reconnect with a visceral sense of contacting my wild creaturely instinctual self as a ‘part of’, rather than an ‘observer of’ the more than human environment.
I was shown my elemental, sensing self more clearly and re-experienced what happens when I am in contact with this – a reconnecting to ancestral wisdom, to source.
The most useful part was hearing everyone’s practise, and how they would implement parts of the course into their work. Also being silent on the moor and the guidance beforehand, then bringing all this together.
I loved the group experience, the groundedness I felt whilst there, the connection to self, others and other than human. It was strange for me to enjoy being in a group so much. Amongst many other things, it reset my expectations around group learning and how I can be a part of it.
Grief was a theme, it ebbed and flowed over the weekend. When feeling this, I felt a message to tune into love when I sat quietly by a tree. This made sense and shifted something within me. The grief became less scary and more entwined with beauty and curiosity.
I really feel now how the capacity to love and receive love is everything - witnessing and honouring our shared body that is the Earth.
My experience was deeply transformative. Since the Speech of Earth I am living in a more purposeful, grounded way which is enabling me to open up intuitively and spiritually.
I am working with how earth witnesses me in everything, it is not a one-way process.
What was most helpful was the way that all the practices seemed to flow into each another. The embodied movement, our animal bodies moving and then taking our bodies to explore the moor. The reminders to acknowledge thresholds and observe the changes as we moved from one place to another. The moor; water, gorse, grass, trees, reminding me that my presence was involved with and affected by everything around me.
A really rich weekend of connection and experimentation.
This gathering is offered by Ally Stott who, many moons ago whilst training as a Core Process psychotherapist on Dartmoor experienced herself being listened to, encountered by and held by the Moor. In this moment was a realisation that everything she was in relationship with; rocks, water, soil, hawthorn, sky, hoof, all entangled life, was alive with its own voice and soulful intelligence, aware of our presence and communicating. This moment has creatively shaped her life and work over the last 18 years constellating in a Wholearth Approach to all that she offers. Ally is passionate about healing our perceived sense of separation from Earth - our vaster body. She runs a year-long soul inspired course for women guided by the Celtic Wheel of the Year, called Woven. www.allystott.co.uk
More information on dates and how to apply below.
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The Speech Of Earth - Spring (April 2025)
DATES: Friday 25th April - Sunday 27th April 2025
TIMINGS: Arrival and registration - Friday 25 April 2025, 5.00-6.00pm. Ending - Sunday 27th April, 2.00pm
VENUE: Karuna Dartmoor, TQ13 7TR
TUTOR: Ally Stott, assisted by Rachel Wood
COSTS: £420 (with a deposit of £220 - deposit payable within seven days of acceptance onto the retreat)
The cost includes 3 meals a day and is fully residential.