The Embodied Ecology retreats provide an opportunity to explore relationship - your relationship to yourself and your own body, your relationship to others and your relationship to earth. We invite you into an exploration of connection, belonging, play, tenderness, vulnerability, curiosity, love, grief and, as the holding element to all of these, presence.
We will soak in the healing goodness and create space for the challenges that come with a return home into our feeling bodies and into relationship with that which we are: nature. We will be drawing from permaculture, ecological principles, biomimicry, biophilia and other nature based practices to tap into the restorative and regulating patterns of the natural world and our own being. We’ll meet the edge of what it truly means to be human in an individual body, yet part of a collective, an ecosystem, and ecology itself. What is it that’s common to us all and where do we find freedom within the natural boundaries of our existence?
Rest & Collapse
For this upcoming winter retreat ‘Rest & Collapse’, we will be exploring the embodied experience of rest as a natural stage in the continuous cycle of life and how it relates to its close relative, the often experienced collapse or break down. We give space to play with this juxtaposition of rest and collapse and discover the edges that keep us in a constant dance between rest and re-emergence, self care and engagement, our inner world and the outer worlds.
What to expect?
After arriving we will have the opportunity to ground and orient ourselves into the space that will hold us and each other for the weekend
Saturday we will establish a container for exploring the topic of rest and collapse which involves coming into our bodies and sensescape and into relation with nature.
On the Sunday we will re-emerge from our nests into engagement and play.
On Monday morning we will prepare for going back to our lives through integration and a closing circle.
This weekend will include workshops, relational practices and a variety of somatic practices such as sound, movement, resourcing, etc.
Joining our retreat you can expect to embark on a journey that involves sharing, enquiring, contemplating, crafting and connecting with other humans and the more-than-human. We endeavour to create space that allows you to bring all of yourself into relationship with what we are exploring.
While trauma-informed, the retreat is not a replacement for therapy and if you see it as that, please talk to us before signing up.
The facilitators
Dre Ferdinand is a social worker, therapist and artist whose practices include the integration of movement, energy, sound, soil, and EMDR; modalities that have informed her ‘MESSE’ approach.
Her practice framework is rooted in healing, social, and restorative justice principles which she integrates in her work. She has been teaching on the Permaculture Design Course with Social Landscapes since 2017 and slowly allowing her practices to merge together, leading to her interest in embodied ecology. Her soft and gentle teachings are centred on helping people navigate their internal landscape, collective care, and processing trauma.
She is offering coaching, MESSE wellness services, facilitating workshops and cultivates spaces for observation, listening and reflection to aid in healing. Her work is centred on helping people navigate their internal landscape, collective care, and processing trauma.
Dre has presented at BASW Social Conference on ‘Navigating Burnout’, she has co-created a psychological survey for workplaces, co-hosted the first POC activist Restorative Resilence Retreat as well as the Healing for Healers retreat. She often hosts sound baths or yoga sessions at festivals such as (We Out Here, Black Farmers Market, Reign x Shine, Radical healing).
You can contact Dre at hello@dreferdinand.com or @idreferdi.
Michel Thill is a permaculture teacher, body-oriented coach and practitioner. He has been teaching permaculture since 2012, facilitating community-led permaculture design projects since 2014 and tutoring on the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design since 2021.
His personal interest in yogic and buddhist practices and presence work have led him to explore mindfulness approaches, movement, ecstatic dance and relational therapies and their links to ecology. He has designed and facilitated workshops based on Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects to bring awareness to the relationship between our inner experience and today’s challenges of climate change and social breakdown.
To him, embodied ecology is a term that brings these different strands together and gives us an opportunity to explore our intrinsic connection to life and our belonging as ecological beings. Michel approaches psychology like a forest garden, with many different parts (plants) that play their role and serve their purpose in our internal ecosystem. Presence work allows us to see the forest, not just the trees, and come in touch with the essence of who we are.
You can contact Michel at michel@sociallandscapes.co.uk or @sociallandscapes.
Venue, Accessibility & Directions
Brimpts Farm is a working farm, campsite, retreat and conference centre nestled in the heart of Dartmoor National Park in South Devon. The venue is in close proximity to the river Dart. The main space is in a beautiful old converted barn and includes a large workshop space, a kitchen, a sofa area and double and twin bedrooms with private bathrooms. On site there is access to an outdoor hot tub and a sauna.
The venue has one wheelchair accessible bedroom with private bathroom and the main space in the barn is also accessible. If you have any other access needs, please do be in touch with us. We will do all we can to accommodate you.
Click here for directions on the Brimpts Farm webpage. The closest train station is Totnes from where it is a 35 minute car journey. We will closer to the time support you to find lift shares from London or taxi and lift shares from Totnes Station.
Pricing & Registration
To register your interest in the retreat, please fill the form below. We will then be in touch within a week to complete registration with you.
The full fee for the retreat is £400. You will most likely share a twin room with another participant. To have a single room, or simply to pay it forward, the rate is £475.
We have a concession available for £325.
The preferred mode of payment is via bank transfer. We will initially require a deposit of £100 which becomes non-refundable by October 31st. The full fee will need to be paid by January 20th 2025, a month before the start of the retreat. You can pay in instalments leading up to January 20th, in which case we recommend 4 regular payments of £100.
