February 2016 Newsletter

Happy New Year to all our Buddhafield friends!

Though it’s cold outside, it’s time to start thinking about warm times and friendship, so here is a little update on our exciting plans for the coming year!

SacredRing

Buddhafield Festival – Tickets now available
We are very excited to let you know that booking is now open for this year’s Buddhafield Festival! The Festival runs from Wednesday 13th to Sunday 17th July, near Taunton, Somerset. The theme for this year’s festival is Courageous Compassion.
Early Bird Tickets have now sold out, but it’s a great time to get in early and bag your festival ticket – at £140 for the whole five-day festival, it’s a steal.

february2016.01

Festival Workshop Applications – Now Open
We want to let everyone know that applications to offer a workshop, a talk or an independent space at the Buddhafield Festival are open from the 18th January to 28th February 2016.

If you have ever thought that you wanted to share your skills in a workshop, give a talk on your experiences or create a unique space at the festival, here is your chance to offer it. If you know someone who you think would be a great workshop leader, let them know too. Just go to the website for more information or click on Workshop Leaders and tell us all about what you want to do.

We are really looking forward to hearing from you and co-creating another wonderful festival together in 2016.

If you are interested in applying to offer treatments or a therapy, please note that applications for the Healing Garden open on 1 April 2016.

Dome

Volunteering at Buddhafield Festival and Buddhafield Retreats
Buddhafield is supported by a wonderful team of volunteers, whose generosity and warm-heartedness breathes life into all our events. We are looking for volunteers for our Retreats programme and for our Festival.

Volunteering is a wonderful and rewarding way to experience Buddhafield Festival, and we would love to hear from you if you are considering volunteering. We will be looking to put together a set of effective teams, working in a spirit of friendship to put in place everything necessary to make the Buddhafield Festival happen. This will include volunteers for the Festival Cafe, as well as all other practical parts of the festival. Please look at our Festival Volunteers page for further information.

Buddhafield also runs a full programme of retreats through the year, which are an opportunity to take a break from everyday routines and to experience oneself anew in the stillness and beauty of nature. On our retreats we look for inspiration in the Buddha’s teaching and in the natural world, while living simply and kindly in a supportive communal environment, and volunteers are a key part of this. If you would like to volunteer at a retreat please go to our Retreat Support page.

Wishing you many blessings for a wonderful 2016!

The Buddhafield Team

May 2015 Newsletter

Buddhafield Festival 2015 15-19 July

This year Buddhafield will be basing its programme around the theme of “Awakened Awareness”. Programme details are starting to emerge; check out the highlights below and book tickets on the Buddhafield website!

The Dharma Parlour


Without the Buddha and his teachings there would not be a Buddhafield Festival, and there certainly would not be a Dharma Parlour. But what exactly did the Buddha have to say and how do his teachings apply to us, in our time, with its highly demanding conditions? The Dharma Parlour aims to offer answers in the context of a lively, varied and abundant programme of talks and events by experienced teachers from the Triratna Buddhist Order and other traditions. Hightlights from this year’s programme will include:

  • Kamalashila, What on Earth is Awareness?
  • Chris Cullen, Chocolate, Pandas and Electric Shocks: the Mindfulness in Schools Project.
  • Caroline Brazier, Whose World Are You In? The mindfulness practice of awakening to others.
  • Billy Frugal, Awakening Awareness In Community.
  • Kids Mindfulness with Daisy.
  • Kamalanandi, Parenting as Dharma Practice.
  • Amaragita, The Power of Enquiry.
  • Study with Dhivan.
  • The Work that Reconnects.
  • Jayaraja, Mindfulness, Sex and Drugs.
  • Vimalasara, 8 Steps to Recovery.
  • Dharmashalin, Awareness is Revolutionary.
  • Upayavira, Meditation for Parents.
  • Yashobodhi, Maitridevi, Bhutan Nuns, Eco-Dharma, Kara Moses, Huw Wyn, Amida Trust, fireside Dharma storytelling.

Workshops

We are proud of our rich programme of workshops, available for nearly 12 hours every day in at least 5 venues. Access to all workshops is included as part of a ticket price and there’s a workshop to interest everyone! You could try:

Ecstatic dance and Living Love workshops with Jewels Wingfield. Talks from Mac Macartney, founder of Embercombe, on indigenous wisdom. Soulful Singing with Mahasukha. Danceitation from Jayagita. Comedy via The Edinburgh Fringe: “Kindness” from Sam Brady. Earthdances, pan-African dance with Denise Rowe. Sweat lodge. Biodanza. Tai chi and qi gong. Silent Disco 5rhythms in the woods. Archery. How To Talk to Kids. Conscious Speed Dating. Laughter workshops. Shamanic journeying. Queer Tea Party. Beat boxing. Barefoot running. Wild writing. 5Rhythms. Hugging workshops. Adult games. Hula hooping. Naked Rhythms dancing.

Land and Permaculture Area

In this year’s Land and Permaculture Area we will have fantastic permaculture teachers, gardeners, smallholders, and community dwellers sharing a host of skills for living off-grid, low impact and in tune with the seasons. We’ll have foraging, fire lighting, bird language interpretation and natural beekeeping, to name but a few. Plus a wide range of green crafts showing you how to carve wood, metal, stone, glass, and weave willow, fleece, and flax.

Green Earth Awakening Camp 2015: Transfrom, Sustain, Thrive

Thursday 21st — Monday 25th May 2015, booking: www.buddhafield.com/gea

In just 10 weeks Buddhafield will bring you its third Green Earth Awakening Camp on the Blackdown Hills. The crew are preparing to welcome the volunteers that will help build and nurture this unique platform for creativity, community and insight.

Site Crew Needed

This is a community building exercise, not just work, work, work. We will spend nine days setting up, but you’ll be able to enjoy the event while it’s on. More information on the GEA volunteering page, or just drop us an email.

The Programme

What is it? A five day camp exploring how Buddhism can help us along the path towards community and sustainability. With green crafts, engaged dharma, social change, forest school, healing area and a daily timetable of workshops, talks, meditation, yoga, qi gong, dance and music. An intimate gathering to deepen into ourselves and a wider awareness. Tools for the mind, skills for our future.

What’s it about? Faced as we are by the threat of climate change, dwindling resources and violent conflict, it is important that we take to heart the need to transform ourselves and engage with the significant problems of the world, not from a reaction to them, but from a higher perspective of insight and love.

The theme for this year: Transform, Sustain, Thrive. By awakening our awareness we can engage in the world with a deepened presence and can begin to mindfully sustain ourselves in our daily lives, in community and in the wider world. By feeling the benefit of sustaining all life, we can become empowered to thrive.

“Fantastic — small, intimate, with rich variety of workshops both creative and informative.”
“So much on offer from fantastic, knowledgeable people.”
“Felt so safe to bring my daughters here and allow them free range.”
“The meditation area (on top of the hill) is the best site I have experienced at any festival /camp. Profound stillness.”

Here is a little taster of some of the delights to come …

Jamie Catto | www.jamiecatto.com

“We’re on a mission to make self-reflection hip for just a moment, just long enough to save us. If we can all collectively acknowledge our insanity, shrug and roll our eyes at each other at how nuts it is being a human, let alone having to pretend every day that we’re normal, the amount of energy we’ll inherit that has been wasted on the mask will be enough to creatively solve any global crisis.”

Jamie Catto, creator, producer/director of the multi-award winning global 1 Giant Leap films and albums and founder member of Faithless is now leading uniquely transformative workshops and one-on-one sessions. Drawing from the richly diverse wisdom, techniques and processes he has encountered during his ground-breaking filming, recording, philosophy voyages across all 5 continents, he is weaving these creative techniques and exercises to spark both Professional and Personal breakthroughs.

“Jamie Catto is a human icebreaker with a prow of determination and a motor of love, slicing through the frozen seas around us.” Tom Robbins

Heike Schroeder from The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research | www.tyndall.ac.uk

Dr Heike Schroeder is a Senior Lecturer and Course Director of the University of East Anglia’s MSc in Climate Change and International Development in the School of International Development. Heike teaches widely in the areas of climate change politics, globalisation and the environment, sustainability, environment and business, cities and climate change, natural resources and the environment, and forests, and co-leads a research theme of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Heike’s research examines how national boundaries can be bridged to solve trans-national or global environmental problems, and how local, national, and international decisions differ in their abilities to solve environmental problems.

Mark Leonard from The Mindfulness Exchange | mindfulness-exchange.com

Before working with the Oxford Mindfulness Centre (OMC), Mark’s career explored means to manage natural resources sustainably. Around ten years ago he came to the conclusion that wisdom from Buddhist tradition would provide the means for achieving sustainable development if it could be applied in contemporary society. Through his involvement with the OMC, he has been able to realise his vision, applying the scientific understanding of mindfulness developed in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), to mindfulness training in the workplace with The Mindfulness Exchange.

Denise Rowe with Earthdances | www.earthdances.co.uk

Earth Dances arises from a fertile meeting ground between traditional and neo-traditional pan-African dance and non-stylised and environmental movement, drawing also on threads from Shiatsu, Aikido and Shamanic traditions.

These dance and movement forms share an implicit commonality: They are dances in connection with the cosmos, they are the awakening of the whole being in relation with environment and the awakening of the body-in-movement’s wisdom, a wisdom that arises when being is awake to itself.

Groundspring Network and Landworkers Alliance | landworkersalliance.org.uk

Calling all starter farmers, urban veg growers, beginner beekeeping collectives, CSAs, emerging dairyers, meat producers, educator….

We are a collective of entrant farmers, growers, woodsmen, beekeepers, cheese makers, mushroom pickers, and more. We are a burgeoning community spread across the UK, finding a bigger voice and new energy in coming together. We come from many different “camps”; organic/biodynamic/permaculture/forest gardening, some of us don’t subscribe to any particular camp, we are above all non-denominational. We are young and old in years. We work in both urban and rural landscapes. As individuals starting out in sustainable agriculture we are not isolated and alone, hopeless and surrounded by endless fields of industrial agriculture. We are already acting to build a resilient food system for our future. We are braced and booted and seek to be united.

And here are just some of the other workshops on offer…

  • The Work That Reconnects
  • Permaculture Principles and Design
  • The Permaculture Association
  • Growing Self Love
  • Compassionate Communication
  • Co-ops and Community
  • Eco-Feminism
  • Eco-Psychology
  • Embodied Presence Contact Improvisation
  • Nature Writing
  • Building an Eco House
  • Focusing
  • Introduction to Buddhism
  • Harmony Singing
  • Storytelling
  • Rhythms and Body Percussion
  • Yoga
  • Qi Gong
  • Foraging
  • Peg Loom Weaving
  • Spoon Carving
  • Felt Making
  • Blacksmithing
  • Basket Weaving
  • Willow Dome Construction
  • Drop Spindle

Keep checking our Facebook page for more updates.

Help Wanted!

If you want a new challenge, an experience of right livelihood and community, or if you have wanted to be part of the Buddhafield team, get in touch now.

We need people throughout the spring and summer to be part of the team that makes Buddhafield happen — building the spaces, creating the community, running the events and cooking the food. If you have any experience that’s great; if not we can train you in first aid, cooking, building structures and more at our Team Retreat April 24th to 29th 2015.

For more information email volunteer@buddhafield.com

Welcome to the 2015 Buddhafield Programme!

Fanfare and Flourish … Let the Ceremony Begin!

Buddhafield Festival: Awakened Awareness

Wednesday 15 — Sunday 19 July 2015, Blackdown Hills, Somerset

The Buddhafield Festival is back! Faced as we are by the threat of climate change, dwindling resources and violent conflict, it is important that we take to heart the need to transform ourselves and engage with the significant problems of the world, not from a reaction to them, but from a higher perspective of insight and love.

Save £17 per adult by buying one of the limited-availability Earlybird Tickets, now on sale through the Buddhafield website.

Green Earth Awakening: Transform, Sustain, Thrive

Thursday 21 — Monday 25 May 2015, Blackdown Hills, Somerset

Connect with the land, learn vital skills and explore pathways towards a sustainable future. Featuring a range of green crafts, social change and ecology workshops. There will be meditation and Dharma talks, giving us the spiritual context to empower us to change. Plus dance, yoga and live music giving us the movement and play to connect as community and engage together. Tickets now on sale.

Buddhafield Retreat Programme

1 — 8 May, Ashdown Forest Retreat: Spinning Yarns, Telling Stories in the Forest

5 — 12 June, Women’s Retreat: Eyes of Love

15 — 21 June, Men’s Retreat: Lightning from the Earth

1 — 6 August, Family Friendly Village Retreat 1: Mind Reactive, Mind Creative

8 — 15 August, Family Friendly Village Retreat 2: Mind Reactive, Mind Creative

25 — 30 August, Big Summer Retreat: Awareness is Revolutionary

7 September — 3 October, Total Immersion Retreat: Meditating with the Trees

So there it all is! You can see the complete retreat programme on the website. Alternatively, you can book using the forms in the printed programme which will be winging it’s way to you (if you are on our mailing list) or to a Triratna Buddhist Centre near you in the next few weeks.

See you in a field!

GEA 2014 Workshops Update 2: Daily Timetable

Wednesday 16 – Sunday 20 July 2014: booking is still open. You can contact us about the GEA.

Daily Timetable

  • 6.30—8am, Kundalini yoga, Workshop Space 1.
  • 7.15—8am, Meditation, Meditation Space.
  • 8.15—9am, Meditation, Meditation Space .
  • Beginners Meditation, Dharma Dome.
  • 8—9.30am, Hatha Yoga, Workshop Space 1.
  • 9—10am, Qi Gong, Workshop Space 2.
  • 7—11am, breakfast in Buddhafield Café.
  • 10—5pm, workshops (check info boards for what’s on).
  • 11.15—12.45, talk, Dharma Dome.
  • 12—3pm, lunch in Buddhafield Cafe.
  • 3.45—5.15, talk, Dharma Dome.
  • 5.30—6.15, Meditation, Meditation Space.
  • Yoga, Workshop Space 2.
  • 5—9pm, dinner in Buddhafield Café.
  • 7.30pm Ritual .
  • Evening: live music; dance; cinema in the Buddhafield Café.

Additions to the programme

Communicating Across the Species Boundary with Jo Goldsmid. An exploration of self and other in the more-than-human world using body, speech and mind. Also known as earthwhispering or a little nature tête à tête.

ScrapMonkey Recycled copper jewellery, scrap copper bangles and recycled notebooks out of reclaimed lino.

Permaculture, Nature Connection and Foraging with Klaudia Van Gool.

Permaculture Workshops with Aranya; Patterns in Permaculture Design with Aranya. Nature abounds with beautiful patterns, but why do we see the same forms repeating over and over again? Discover how we can use these patterns to most effectively perform specific functions, such as conserving energy or distributing resources. This workshop will show you a new way to see the world. Permaculture Design: Step by Step; Permaculture offers so many great possibilities, but with so much choice where do you start? Determined to figure this out for himself, Aranya ended up writing a book to make sense of this. In this workshop he shares the key things he has learned along the way to help you create great designs for yourself. Real Wealth and Wiser Money; the current money system may be the reason why our beautiful Earth is being so dangerously exploited, but exchange is not only natural but essential to a strong community. Come along to discover how we can do this so much better & how you may have more to offer your community than you realise.

Mindful Living — Meditation on the Move. Binley Farm and Wake Up Uk are sister communities practicing mindful living; a residential retreat centre and a community of young engaged mindfulness practitioners. Join us in exploring and experiencing how mindfulness can be practiced off the cushion and into society, relationships, and everyday tasks. See also Wake Up London.

Barefoot Running with Matthew Adams. Exercises to get in touch with and listen more deeply to how our bodies want to move and run when we take shoes away; how our bodies are naturally designed to move and run.

Embodied Feminine Way. What is your authentic feminine expression and your gifts to this world? Landing in your womb, finding your truth as woman. Performance-the Gift of You; working with presence and expression in spontaneous, personal sharing of your self. Exploring giving and receiving of attention, play, coming forward with your unique gifts. Agata Krajewska is a Bodymind Therapist and group facilitator, working with the Deep Feminine and Personal Expression. She brings new perspectives and an invitation to self-compassion. See Soul in the workplace.

Hindustani Singing A beginners’ workshop in Hindustani (North Indian) classical singing.

Barefoot Books celebrate art and story that opens the hearts and minds of children from all walks of life, inspiring them to read deeper, search further, and explore their own creative gifts. Amelia, Barefoot Books Ambassador from Devon, will be sharing some of these wonderful books.

Contact Improvisation Alistair Edmunds has been dancing CI for over 6 years, with a diverse range of movement backgrounds, Martial arts, Climbing, Yoga, Tango, Qi gong. Interests in BMC (body mind centring). CI is an improvised dance form involving connection to a least one other person and improvisation around that point of contact, It is an open ended exploration into movement and space, where each individual is invited to find their own way and follow their own curiosity. See Bristol Contact Improvisation.

GEA 2014 Workshops Update 1: Land Skills & Green Crafts

Oak Clan Forge

photoTake a journey back to the iron-age and learn the ancient arts of metal work with blacksmith, Simon Summers. Hand craft your own tools and pendants, and use the technique of “repoussé” to create Celtic copper bangles and sacred offerings. With a charcoal fired clay forge, powered by leather bellows, Oak Clan Forge invites adults and children to sit by the fire and explore their hidden potential to create ancient treasures.

Milly Peds

Repairing, recycling, adjustments and all things bicycle. Hands on workshops to show how to adjust/repair gears including hub gears, brakes and most other parts of the bicycle, info given on disability cycle issues, electric bikes, safe cycling, recycle of parts for re-use and checking for faults.

downloadMilly Peds came into creation seven years ago, developing on from my many years of mechanical experience. Among my offerings I deliver repair courses, cycle training, working with disadvantaged youth and setting up and running events. I have 20 years experience in the entertainment, environmental and educational sectors.

Milly Peds will offer an info point with literature on most aspects of cycling, such as what type of bike to buy for what use, female specific issues, building crazy bikes, employment, and much more, also a small selection of recycled folding bikes, normal ones, and even vintage for sale.

Milly Peds promote and encourage cycling for all abilities. “We aim to take as much from the waste stream to put back to good use, so saving on our carbon footprint, and enable others to be aware of the opportunities to recycle a very large number of bicycles thrown away every year.”

www.millypeds.co.uk

Wild Stoves


Burning Wood Efficiently: Principles of Rocket and Woodgas Stoves.
Come and learn about the holy trinity of wood combustion: “time, turbulence and temperature”! We’ll be lighting up various rocket and woodgas stoves and discussing the simple, but ingenious principles used to harness more heat from wood (or even generate electricity!). The workshop will also touch on DIY methods and materials.

A “stove anorak”, Jonathan Rouse works as a scientific advisor on efficient stoves across the developing world. Wild Stoves was founded by Jonathan Rouse in 2010. After a decade spent working with wood energy in developing countries, he thought it was about time his friends here in the UK got access to some of the fabulous devices on offer. Jonathan continues to work as an advisor to organisations ranging from the UN to small charities in Africa and Asia. The Wild Stoves Foundation was established in 2011 to raise money for select projects.

www.wildstoves.co.uk

The Travelling Tuffeteer, Joanna Vosper

Create your own tuffet. Eco-friendly and lightweight to enjoy for the festie and beyond!

The “tuffet” — a wonderfully comfortable seat pad made entirely of woven wool. After in-depth research I discovered the secret of this wonderful experience of “bottom heaven”. It seems selfish to not share this comfort with friends and other like-minded people and so begins the creation of The Travelling Tuffeteer and the slogan “Bottom Heaven since 2011”. The tuffet is organic, water resistant due to the natural lanolin and is deliciously sheepy!

thetravellingtuffeteer.blogspot.com

Windy Smithy

Blacksmithing and copper bowl making with the Windy Smithy. Owned and operated by Jon Snow, who has been working with metal since 1996, the Windy Smithy operates on a semi-mobile basis from the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Originally inspired by the desire to make quality hand tools for developing communities, he went on to study Blacksmithing and Metalwork at Hereford College. The first incarnation of the Windy Smithy was a forge made from a gas bottle, powered by a wind generator.

“I provide all that I can for a wide range of craftsmen, who have been having difficulty in finding the hand tool for the job, and I am happy to research a particular tool and to produce it, using either the traditional techniques, or modern methods, saving time and effort. I have travelled extensively in Scandinavia, learning relevant skills with a wide variety of toolsmiths, with many thanks to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for inspiration and support.”

www.windysmithy.co.uk

Wayne’s Woods

wayne 2Spoon Carving, shave-horsing and pole lathing. Wayne’s workshops are popular at festivals across the country and include “I love the way that giving someone the chance to experience something that is closer to where I believe we need to be can have a massive influence on a person and help them to see life in a more sympathetic, realistic way. Skills such as shave-horsing, pole-lathing, weaving and carving help a person connect to something more primeval within them and also allow time for reflection within oneself. Spoon carving is amongst these empowering activities and needs to be promoted in as many ways as possible….”
www.wayneswoods.co.uk

Living Willow Lincoln


Earth Loom Weaving and Willow Dome Construction.
Earth loom weaving is a peaceful and creative way to connect with each other. By weaving a beautiful outdoor tapestry we are symbolising the interwoven nature of community and the world around us.

Living Willow Lincoln builds willow structures, mainly in schools and run workshops in willow weaving, green woodworking, woodland skills for children, and art based projects with the earth loom.

Our earth loom is a large, outdoor wooden structure, strung and ready for us to weave on. We gather natural materials from our surroundings and combine them with recycled materials that when woven together create a beautiful tapestry. We are passionate about weaving as a powerful and ancient art that symbolises the intention of weaving together the fabric of community in a peaceful and creative way that deepens our connection to nature.

www.livingwillowlincoln.co.uk

Make a Cob Rocket Stove

Practical session of cob work — learn how to make a cob mix and construct a rocket stove for cooking with at Peasants Lunch Box Cafe.

Woolly Umbrella

Spinning, Felt Making, Natural Dyeing, Weaving and general sheep based products.

Willow Plant Holders and Basketry


Kim Creswell creates willow sculptures, hedgerow crafts & willow weaving courses. Generally made from Dorset hedgerow materials and willow cut herself, sometimes combined with willow grown on the nearby Somerset Levels. You will find that all workshops are natural crafts which do not rely on the use of fossil fuels and are appropriate to the area in which they are held.

www.kimcreswell.co.uk

Interview: Rosie Lancaster

Rosie Lancaster is Green Earth Awakening Workshops Co-ordinator. Interview by Satyadarshin

 This is our second GEA; what have you changed this year?
I think last year worked quite well having spaces in the programme where people could be together outside of the workshops. But I’d like to see more of that: last year it was still quite tight; lunch was a narrow window in relation to time slots for the programme. I want more crafts, more independent spaces, more transferable skills; someone should be able learn something at the GEA, go home and do it. That feels like more of a life changing experience: they have that wow! moment, where they walk away and feel that they’ve accomplished something. People could feel that they’re going on a journey through the event, rather than “Oh! I’ve got a slot now; lets get to the blacksmith!” I’m aiming to pull it all together with a bit more of an emphasis on the theme. The Dharma talks are what will underpin it, really good speakers that embrace the theme.

rosieTractor

Rosie, GEA Workshops Co-ordinator

What do you see the difference between the Buddhafield Festival’s Permaculture Area, and the GEA?
I’m actually trying to make a connection more obvious. At the Buddhafield Festival we have the Dharma Parlour over there and Permaculture over here. In my view they should be in the same space. So trying to to get that link in, that it’s not about doing your green crafts, then trying to get your meditation in. The two are so fundamentally linked, that the only way change can happen in the future is that people recognise that we are so fundamentally linked.

We’ve talked about linking the theme to this year’s Triratna International Retreat: The Bodhisattva’s Reply; I suppose we’re training our Bodhisattvas aren’t we?
Yes, yes I think so. Individual input into the world, so to speak, in relation to other individuals. It links in with the prophecy of the Shambhala Warrior: “The Shambhala workers go into the corridors of power armed with the only tools that the barbarians don’t understand, and for which there is no defence. The tools of the Shambhala workers are compassion for all, and knowledge of the connectedness of all things. Both are necessary.” The Bodhisattva vow came up quite a lot last year and just hit the spot for me: this is about all of us standing up and facing the world for each other, that it’s all our responsibility. One person can make a difference; believe in that. It’s not a question of feeling a horror of what’s going on in the world and needing to do something about it, of feeling responsible and therefore we “should”. It’s to do with the sense of deep ecology, that we’re so interconnected that there’s no way of standing outside from it, we are part of it. You’re breathing, so you have to do something. And that was the root of it for me, the notion of deep ecology , of it being so obviously Dharmic.

Horrified anxiety isn’t the fuel for the future, then?
No. A love and a compassion, and a will, and a “wow! I’m part of this!”. Protests, activism and the need for social change, can really emphasise the devastation … but the connection, that’s got to be the compassion of moving forward. So that’s why the Dharma Parlour and Permaculture Areas are moving forward together. In the Buddhafield Festival Permaculture Area, we’ve got Green Crafts and we’ve got Social Change, so in a sense the GEA is an extension of that, but a lot more in depth.

The GEA is increasing the sense of intimacy?
Yes, at the Buddhafield Festival people do become ships passing in the night; you’ve got your timetable, you jot your workshops down on the back of your hand, you’re running to the next thing. Whereas with a structured timetable, you’re eating together, you have a chance to network and I think that’s really important; like-minded people, people who feel the way you do, get into groups together and that brings a sense of community. You’re doing it together. You go to one workshop and feel really moved, go to the next one and it might be the same group of people. And I think in that sense you’re not alone. I think that can be quite powerful. So I’m hoping that that’s different from a Permaculture Area at the Festival.

Engage, Explore, Play: Green Earth Awakening 2014!

Engage Now, Change the Future: 16 — 20 July 2014

Think there’s no Buddhafield Festival this year??

Well yes, the usual event isn’t happening… but there is a wonderful small festival/gathering happening at the usual Festival time (Wednesday 16 — Sunday 20 July). Quieter and more spacious, the first GEA last May had a wonderful heart-opening atmosphere and sense of community:

“The GEA was a shining highlight of my year. The connections between people, the openness and learning that occurred there were, for me, a perfect balance of significant engagement and enjoyment and laughter.”

“Extremely educational, cosy and most intimate event on the field I ever took part at. Food for the soul.”

“Lovely being back in that gorgeous field again, so many memories of festivals held there.  I didn’t think I would enjoy making a tuffet so much; loved going on a foraging walk as well as just hanging out and playing in the sunshine.”

Can you Help with Publicising the GEA?


If you feel an affinity for Buddhafield, if you have the time, and if know of a noticeboead near you that is lacking a striking image, please consider decorating it with our 2014 GEA poster! There are two versions:

We’re also looking for Secret Agents to help with flyering. If you’re willing to receive a pack of about 50 A5 flyers and arrange for them to appear in a venue near you, please email Lulu.

GEA programme information and booking on the main website.