A three-day event exploring the interconnections between ecology, spirituality and peacemaking.
With talks, workshops, panel discussions, film screenings, live music, contemplative spaces and community action.
Tiokasin Ghosthorse is a member of the Itazipcola and Mnicoujou Lakota of the Sakowin Oyate, and who draws upon the language, history, culture, philosophy, and traditions of the Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. Tiokasin has a long history of Indigenous activism and advocacy. He spoke as a 15-year-old at the United Nations in Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Tiokasin was a 2016 Nominee for a Nobel Peace Prize from the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy. Tiokasin is the Founder, Host, and Executive Producer of First Voices Radio and a master musician known for performing worldwide in over 50 countries.
We live in a time of turmoil and uncertainty.
This gathering will bring people together from around the world, to share practical tools and deep conversation about how spiritual ecology may offer a way forward.
The lineup includes inspiring keynotes, panels, music, workshops, conversation, and community. You’ll meet farmers, artists, activists, scholars, musicians, poets, peacemakers, community growers, nature connection guides, conservationists, theologians, pilgrims and educators from across the UK and around the world. We hope to see you there!
Spiritual ecology, or deep ecology, is a broad field that embraces academia, culture, faith and science. It springs from the premise that creation is interconnected and sacred.
We live in a time of turmoil and uncertainty. This gathering will bring people together from around the world, to share practical tools and deep conversation about how spiritual ecology may offer a way forward. Whether you’re new to the concept of spiritual ecology or you’ve encountered it before, whether you belong to a faith tradition or are an atheist, there will be something here for you.
Join us on the 6th, 14th and 15th of June for a festival exploring the interconnections between ecology, spirituality and peacemaking. As far as we know, this is the first spiritual ecology festival anywhere in the world - join us!
The lineup includes inspiring keynotes, panels, music, workshops, conversation, and community. You’ll meet farmers, artists, activists, scholars, musicians, poets, peacemakers, community growers, nature connection guides, conservationists, theologians, pilgrims and educators - from across the UK and around the world. We hope to see you there!
For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.
Mary Oliver, Upstream
Why Spiritual Ecology? Why Now?
We are living through a paradigm shift on the world stage. Geopolitical conflict is on the rise, and polarisation is driving our politics into more oppositional factions. Issues of identity politics, national security, economic uncertainty, and cost of living crisis, are increasingly to the fore. Net Zero is becoming a hotly politicised and polarised issue. Tensions in the interfaith world have made cross-faith spaces more fraught, and there is a sense of fatigue and overwhelm about the state of the world. What does spiritual ecology have to offer into this civilisational moment?
We believe it’s important to hold a space for climate-forward conversations that can withstand the pressures and tensions of our increasingly polarised age. Spiritual ecology offers a place where those of diverse faiths and beliefs can meet on common ground. Modes of climate activism come and go. But deep ecology endures, and offers resilience where other forms of activism can burn people out. At the same time, there are important questions to explore together, about how the deep ecology movement can best respond to the rapidly evolving moment.
Beyond theology, identity, politics and belief - there is a felt sense of belonging with nature. The theologians teach about it, and the poets write about it, but really it’s something very simple. It’s the sensitivity to beauty, meaning and belonging that awakens when people turn to nature. This is a universal human experience which connects people across divides. We want to summon people to gather in this shared love of nature, and look at the problems of our world from this starting point.
This festival aims to give pragmatic tools for navigating the challenges of our time; inspiration for how to forge communities that can withstand differences; modes of being and seeing that restore deep kinship with Earth; and much more. Join us!
Recent scientific discoveries about interspecies communication (the mycelial networks that link forest plants), animal cultures (elephants who grieve their kin), and the mind-boggling mysteries of quantum physics (so full of inexplicable intimacies and entanglements) - point to a natural world alive with mystery and depths of intelligence we’ve only begun to explore. Whether you call this mystery God, nature, science or beauty, will depend on the lens that’s most natural to you.
This festival invites people across all faiths and none to gather on the common ground of our belonging to creation, and to face the challenges of our age from this place.
How can spiritual ecology help us design pragmatic solutions that place care for land at the heart?
Where issues of climate and conflict intersect, how can spiritual ecology point a way forward?
What does a faith-led response to climate issues look like in practice?
What can we learn from recent scientific discoveries about interspecies collaboration and communication?
What are the challenges in bringing together urban and rural perspectives on faith, land and identity?
How can spiritual ecology spaces depolarise?
What are the tensions, contradictions, and opportunities in the spiritual ecology world right now?
What does identity mean in contemporary deep ecology spaces, and how does this differ, depending on the national and local context?
Join us on Friday 6th June as we begin our walk towards the festival with an Overnight Planting Pilgrimage, creating a ring of sacred trees around central London. Setting out from St Ethelburga's we'll journey a 12-hour circle of the city, weaving together faith and ecological sites on a magical night walk. We'll be hosted by hidden community gardens and diverse places of worship, planting trees by moonlight and sharing food, song, music, prayer and ceremony. Join us as we come together in prayer to set our intention for the festival.
Living the questions together is an effective way of preparing for an unpredictable future.
Daniel Wahl
Whether you’re new to the concept of spiritual ecology or you’ve encountered it before, whether you belong to a faith tradition or are an atheist, there will be something here for you. Spiritual ecology, or deep ecology, is a broad field that embraces academia, culture, faith and science. It springs from the premise that creation is interconnected and sacred. Recent scientific discoveries about interspecies communication (the mycelial networks that link forest plants), animal cultures (elephants who grieve their kin), and the mind-boggling mysteries of quantum physics (so full of inexplicable intimacies and entanglements) - point to a natural world alive with mystery and depths of intelligence we’ve only begun to explore.
Whether you call this mystery God, nature, science or beauty, will depend on the lens that’s most natural to you. This festival invites people across all faiths and none to gather on the common ground of our belonging to creation, and to face the challenges of our age from this place.
How can spiritual ecology help us design pragmatic solutions that place care for land at the heart?
Where issues of climate and conflict intersect, how can spiritual ecology point a way forward?
What does a faith-led response to climate issues look like in practice?
What can we learn from recent scientific discoveries about interspecies collaboration and communication?
What are the challenges in bringing together urban and rural perspectives on faith, land and identity?
How can spiritual ecology spaces depolarise?
What are the tensions, contradictions, and opportunities in the spiritual ecology world right now?
What does identity mean in contemporary deep ecology spaces, and how does this differ, depending on the national and local context?