Announcing our Hedge School Autumn Spiral - Finding our way home
“I am telling you my story because I want to give you the feel for transformation. Original Instructions are basically the guidebook for how to be human on this Mother Earth, the principles for being here. Sometimes that’s very hard to navigate in this modern world. I feel like this is the place for indigenous people and indigenous culture today. To keep bringing forward what we still hold from that guidebook about how to be on this Mother Earth...”
Dear Friends
As we travel through the Autumn Season here in the Northern Hemisphere we are delighted to announce our Hedge School Autumn Series, Finding our way Home which runs from September 18 - October 09
Hedge School is a virtual homeschool rooted in Ireland that invites people around the world on a collective learning experience to find our shared humanity and resource our possibility as global citizens. Back in the 1700’s, Irish education was outlawed and the process of learning took to the land. Hedge Schools gathered wherever people could find shelter; along hedgerows, fields, mountains, by rivers and under the stars. Out at these wild edges, our culture was kept alive...
We decided to launch a Hedge School movement for our times in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown and the crucible moment it offers to our shared humanity. As restrictions in social and physical connection were enforced we radically revived the Irish Hedge School movement as a place of shelter and belonging for people around the world.
Hedge School taps into a universal human need for authentic connection and belonging – an Irish drumbeat with a global resonance. Our mission is to gather people to reflect on the important questions facing us today as ancestors-in-training.
Our Hedge School curriculum aligns with the touch points of the Celtic Calendar and Wheel of the Year. Every Hedge School spiral offers an enriching learning experience and a range of transformational tools, techniques to resource participants for the times we are living in. Our next series/ spiral responds to the Autumn Equinox, the time when the day and night are of equal length.
We will be relating to our Earth home through different lenses including cultural identity, indigenous wisdom and trauma restoration. We will explore this theme from Irish and global perspectives as one of the burning issues on our world stage right now.
Spiral 3 starts in Ireland with Manchán Magan {Writer and Documentary-maker} who has just published a new book ‘Thirty Two Words for Field: Lost Words of the Irish Landscape,’ and Ceara Conway {Performer, visual artist and singer}. We then travel to New Mexico to meet Woman Stands Shining, Patricia McCabe {mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker} of the Diné (Navajo) Nation with extraordinary links to Ireland. Our final destination is Scotland to meet Alastair McIntosh {acclaimed writer, pioneer of land reform and professor at University of Edinburgh and Glasgow}. He has been described by BBC TV as “one of the world’s leading environmental campaigners” and will be joined by Luke Concannon {Singer/ Songwriter}whose latest album The Burning is dedicated to “the power of active hope, in a burning world”.
Investment
We believe that Hedge School should be available to people from all walks of life especially in our current circumstances so we have created a range of sliding scale payment options including full and partial scholarships for people who needs support. Sliding scales are a tool of economic justice.
We ask that people who have the means to pay at the top of the scale do so, supporting others, for whom cost may be a barrier, to have the opportunity to participate in Hedge School.
Registration fees range from €250 to Full Scholarship.
We look forward to blazing trails with you.
until soon
Kathy xo
