Alan Heeks My recent trip to Scotland included a stay at Allanton Peace Sanctuary: Allanton is a beautiful retreat centre with spacious grounds in a rural location near Dumfries, easily reached from Central Scotland, Northern England and elsewhere. Allanton Sanctuary is the European Sanctuary of the World Peace Prayer Society. The Society was founded in 1955 by … Read more
Learning from extremes: hospices: In my exploration of resilience, I’ve become interested in what we can learn where this quality is tested to an extreme. Death is a pretty severe test of resilience,…
Now 2015 to July/August 2016 A year-long Training Group for people facilitating, or wanting to facilitate, transformative processes and connections with nature in service to life on earth. With Kirsti Norris, Jenny Mackewn and Chris Johnstone FDA 201516_Information pack www.facilitationforlifeonearth.org
The idea that progress is always linear, forward and upward, has long been questionable. In recent years, many economic observers have declared that even stable living standards should be seen as an achievement. Recently, I found myself pondering different models of how progress can be recognised: we urgently need these as the conventional linear ones … Read more
Colin Tudge thinks big, positive and practical. His main expertise is in food and farming: he helped start the Campaign for Real Farming, whose annual conference is now bigger than the NFU’s. His ideas for positive change could be a blueprint for many other sectors too. I heard Colin speak recently at a session hosted … Read more
The recent weeks have seen a fascinating shift in both the UK Government policy and public opinion about the refugee crisis (or migrant flood, as some have called it). If you doubt the role of emotion in these matters, look at the effect the pictures of one drowned boy have had. For months, the media … Read more
I am writing this at the start of September 2015: what a delicious set of upsets we’ve already had in the first few weeks of this Premiership season. The bookies had Chelsea as favourites to win the league again, yet they have made one of the worst starts ever for defending league champions. And as … Read more
As we approach September, you may be going back to a regular job, or not. Either scenario may leave you happy or blue. August seems a good time to reflect on how work fits into your life.
I observe people talking a lot about work, but in a very selective way. They talk about what they’re doing, maybe moan about the boss, but rarely say what work really means to them. I believe that’s because work is so important, so personal, so bound up with their sense of self, that it’s too sensitive to talk about.
In the 1990s I led many weekend workshops on the theme Find Your Gift in Work: these groups gave a safe place and structures to explore how work and life can fit
As I continue to ponder the keys to resilience, I’ve concluded that this act of choice is a vital step – and it fits with the principles of mindfulness. Yes, there are some people who are temperamentally cheerful and adaptable, but I see many more who get stressed time and again by everyday life, as … Read more
The idea that progress is always linear, forward and upward, has long been questionable. In recent years, many economic observers have declared that even stable living standards should be seen as an achievement. Recently, I found myself pondering different models of how progress can be recognised: we urgently need these as the conventional linear ones … Read more