Edges with depth
A weekend of experiential learning
I’ve had an extraordinary experience: a group residential weekend of experiential learning.
And I’ve been reflecting on the themes and the standout messages.
The Edge – and nature
The contextual theme was ‘edge’, especially given that the group is dedicated to learning on the edge – learning that stretches, challenges, is in foreign territory of various kinds, and is likely to be confronting and uncomfortable. And concretely, the weekend took place on the coast, right on the edge between sea and land.
Staying in a very quiet rural location, I was struck throughout by the proximity of nature. Indeed, in some ways we were embedded in nature, living and working in old buildings constructed of granite and timber, with fields grazed by cows as our neighbours.
Bookends of experience
The weekend was bookended by nature: a cacao ceremony as the opening session, led by David and Julie Rose, as we gathered in a circle around a variety of objects taken from nature – flowers, feathers, seed husks, fragments of wood – and, accompanied by music, we were facilitated to connect with ourselves, with each other in this community, and with our intentions for the weekend, as well as sampling ceremonial-grade cacao. It offered me, at least, a step towards a profound connection with both the simplicity and the magic of what nature can offer us.
Suspending judgment
And equally, and simultaneously, I was challenged by the deeply unfamiliar nature of the ceremony, which called on a capacity to suspend judgment made by reference only to my habitual criteria for assessing the world around me, and to broaden out into an embrace of, and engagement with, what felt strange, trusting myself to go with the moment.
A journey into the unknown
At the other end of the weekend was a walk onto the nearby beach and rockpools to forage for edible seaweed, with wild food specialist and foraging guide Rachel Lambert. This too was a journey into the unknown, of a completely different kind: a journey into rockpools to look closely at – and taste – seaweeds we saw in a new profusion, once we started to look: within the first two or three minutes we found ten different seaweeds, most of them edible, covering a wide variety of shapes and sizes – from seaweeds that looked like grass to seaweeds that looked like ribbons, and seaweeds that looked like bubbles on a stem.
Reciprocity
This introduction to an aspect of nature I had never experienced (and which I loved!) was one of my most striking reflections. Another, which has engaged me every day since that foraging trip, was Rachel’s emphasis on reciprocity: we take from the sea, so what are we going to give back to the sea? How are we going to balance receiving from the sea and giving to the sea? One answer that came up for me was ‘care and caring’ for an element that gives so generously to the human race.
As I’ve continued to broaden my reflections on where else reciprocity might be appropriate in our troubled world, it seems to me that we could do a lot more to offer care and caring back to it.
Connection and trust
But it wasn’t the subject matter of the structured learning alone that weekend that was extraordinary: it was the experience of it in the company of eight trusted colleagues who have together, over the past four years, been through a range of stretching and challenging experiences, which have taken us to our edges. All these experiences were ones that we chose as a group, precisely because they were likely to take us to our edges. In the process, and exponentially, we have built deep connection and trust between us. And for me the impact and exquisiteness of our experiences on this weekend are intimately bound up with my relationship with the group.
Of course, the learning was as much about myself as about the subject matter: a deep experience of space and opportunity to enquire into what was really going on – for me, for others, for the world around us.
Photo by Lisa Forkner on Unsplash
