Walking to Bethlehem: 3rd of 7 Sundays in Spring... by Fern Smith

They say on a Vision Quest that you get the weather you need. You might wish for warm, balmy dry days and you get thunder, lightning and endless rain. For ‘Women Walking’, the third of the ‘7 Sundays in Spring’ gatherings, I was keeping my fingers crossed for a dry day. I am a person who likes structure and certainty. Like many artists I love the dreaming and visioning process (perhaps the most) and then comes the more precise work of ‘making it happen’. For me, this part seems to involve a lot of admin, time in front of the computer-screen, shaping the invites and even more time sending them out via email, making lists, doing my own ‘risk assessments’ (though I don’t normally call it that) and doing as much as I can to prepare for every scenario and eventuality. ‘The art of hosting’ which is a practise that sometimes looks effortless is something which I’m endlessly fascinated by and still learning. It is the product of many hours preparation.

Photo: David Perkins

These ‘7 Sundays in Spring’ represented my fourth and final ‘residency’ as part of my Arts Council of Wales ‘Creative Wales’, journey. Each Sunday involves a specific invitation to ‘all the women I’ve ever met’ to join me in a particular activity. We’ve had ‘Women Making’ in Swansea, ‘Women in the Woods’ in Dinefwr and this Sunday - 4^th March 2018 - it was ‘Women Walking’. Not just women walking anywhere, but a specifically chosen route that has significance in terms of making pilgrimage. All the Sundays have a particular intention, which given the location and the activity feels right. The intention for ‘Women Walking’ was: 

"Contemplate the importance of walking and making pilgrimage (as well as doing it!); reflect on our connection to spirituality, deep nature and the mystery of life and to consider and share what supports us during these chaotic and unpredictable times."

Photo: Pippa Bondy

I called this 3rd Sunday, 'Walking to Salem' - the  plan was to walk to ‘Capel Salem’ from Harlech. Specifically, from Theatr Ardudwy along the Wales Coastal Path to the beautiful pilgrim’s church at Llandanwg and then onwards to Pentre Gwynfryn’s chapel which is the site of the painting of the iconic Welsh painting: ‘Salem’, by Sidney Curnow Vosper. The painting was acquired by a wealthy industrialist and used to promote the Lever brothers popular brand of ‘Sunlight’ soap bars. Seven soap tokens could be exchanged for a reproduction of the painting. According to Wikipedia: “this ensured the painting became widely and uniquely popular amongst the working-class communities of Britain, especially in Wales.” It was after all a depiction of Welsh piety, even though the main subject of the painting, Sian Owen, is accused of having a devil up (or on) her sleeve. This is a fascinating place and story and the walk was originally suggested to me by Pauline Williams, board member of Theatr Ardudwy, who has been working tirelessly to negotiate the theatre to stay open in the hope of it in future becoming a thriving community hub. Theatr Ardudwy is possibly one of the most beautiful theatres in Wales in the most impressive of locations, sitting atop and over-looking the majestic sweep of Cardigan Bay with views across to the Llyn Peninsula on one side and the Snowdon range on the other.

Photo: Pippa Bondy

 

As part of my meticulous advanced planning my partner Phil, our dogs Betty and Jaffa and I carried out a recce of the walk in late January. The weather was beautiful. Clear blue skies, sun all day long and far-reaching views.  We spent time (dogs too) in the little Pilgrim’s church, taking advantage of being the only visitors by reading aloud the scary passages from ‘Revelations’ as well as some poetry by Mary Oliver from the pulpit. We then walked over the saltmarshes, inland, through snowdrop woods, via the pretty lanes and Cycle Route Number 8 (the great Lon Las North/South Wales long-distance route) through Pentre Gwynfryn to Capel Salem, final destination of our pilgrimage. We first spent time sitting outside the locked doors of the wrong church, before serendipitously running into Catrin Jones, the elderly custodian of Capel Salem (and keeper of Sian Owen’s famous shawl), who tells us that the chapel we want is another ten minutes up the road – but that’s another story… Capel Salem is really worth a visit. A reproduction of the painting is on the wall. The original clock, coat-hooks and wooden ‘sheep-pen’ chapel-pews are still there. The chapel is always open, clearly loved, well-maintained, regularly visited and still used for services. It felt welcoming and warm and not just because of the electric pull-string heaters. We spent time there, soaking up the atmosphere - Phil speaking aloud a few poems he’d learnt by heart.  I  cast a few weeks forward in my mind to Sunday 4^th March, imagining and savouring the final words, poems and reflections we ‘Walking Women’ would share at the end of our planned pilgrimage.

Photo: Pippa Bondy

As the day in question approached, less and less women are able to join. There had been 13 women for ‘Women Making’, 16 women for ‘Women in the Woods’. It looked like we were going to be 7 for ‘Women Walking’. The ‘7 Sundays in Spring’ project is less about scale than about creating a ritual activity over time. Many women are involving themselves in the project in different ways, by sending words from a distance, reading the blogs as well as actually coming on the 7 Sundays. The eventual plan is to write a book about the 7 Sundays project as part of my wider ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ enquiry. So, we were going to be small in number but we had all committed to walk. We had booked Bed & Breakfasts in Harlech, made travel arrangements, bought train tickets. The plan was to converge on the steps of the theatre. Originally, we were going to meet in the café of Theatr Ardudwy but since its untimely, recent closure our plan changed to meet on the steps and take it from there.

On Sunday 25^th February for ‘Women in the Woods’ we were commenting about the gentle weather and some of us enjoying snoozes under the trees of Dinefwr Park.

And then the weather came in…

The ‘Beast from the East’ arrived hot on the heels of ‘Women in the Woods’ and stayed for a week. It brought with it gale force winds, sub-zero temperatures with even lower wind-chill factors, sleet, snow, ice, frozen-pipes, burst-pipes, roof-high snow-drifts, cancelled trains and a milk, bread and fresh veg run on our local Co-op. Over a week later, food and fuel were still being helicoptered in to parts of Cumbria. 

And with the weather came uncertainty, unpredictability and insecurity. A trinity of most uncomfortable but most powerful life-teachers. On Wednesday evening, I began wondering if I was going to be able to make the journey over the high roads of mid Wales to get to Harlech. I had three options: carry on regardless; cancel; or re-think. There was little time to change plans though I didn’t want to cancel. Some of our group who had bought train tickets in advance and others who really wanted to do the planned walk told me they were still committed to coming. On Thursday, I got an email from Pauline, my ‘woman on the ground’ in Harlech. It said:

"Severe & dangerous winds today. No public transport. Criccieth High St shut due to danger of falling tiles. No electricity in the Harlech/Llanbedr area due to fallen trees (esp in Llanbedr). Until trees are cleared electricity board can’t restore power. Slates flying off roofs in Llandanwg. Part of the roof off at Ysgol Ardudwy. 

My family live in Harlech & are in touch with the community so are aware of the situation first hand. Risk assessment for walking = severe! 

Even my walking friend (an avid all-weather walker) is staying put today - and questions the viability & safety of the planned Sunday walk."

If I’d ever needed convincing, I was now convinced. And, of course I was disappointed… “My beautiful walk…” There followed two of the most uncomfortable days I’ve had for a long time. Sitting in uncertainty, doubt, failure even. The feeling of discomfort was bodily. Brene Brown, the American researcher onVulnerability, talks about the “warm wash of shame.” I’ve experienced this many times and it’s a brilliant and accurate description. This wasn’t a warm wash but I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, prickly, tender, bruised even. This was the bodily feeling of ‘not-knowing’, feeling responsible for things going wrong, feeling a failure (I know it sounds crazy) and as though I’d let people down. These 7 women had chosen to walk with me. They had spent time planning their journey as well as money buying advance travel tickets and deposits on B & B’s. I couldn’t do anything about it. The country was in meltdown AND I still somehow felt responsible! Sitting in the midst of uncertainty, discomfort and difficulty is something which I find near impossible. What if I cancelled and then the weather changes and we could actually have done it anyway?  There was no knowing. I had to make a decision without all the information. I didn’t have the whole picture. I had no way of casting forward into the future and knowing what was going to happen in the next few days.

I spent all day Thursday on the phone to my original walkers, explaining that Sunday might look a little different than we’d all envisaged. “Women Walking can still happen. We can walk with the same shared intention but we can walk from where we already are – even if that is just from our front door to the great wall of snow at the end of our garden….” I could hear disappointment in the voices of some, relief in others. The up-side of this new ‘self-organised, emergent’ plan, was that many others might be able to join us. I re-worded the invitation and on Friday and Saturday sent it out to a number of the women who’d taken an interest in the project from the outset, with an invitation for those women to pass it on to others. 

"Join me in a self-organised piece of walking art, a ceremony, a prayer... Walk at day-break, sun-down, one mile, as long as you can manage, walk with a poem, a song, a dedication, mark a threshold.. Or any, or all of these..."

 

And so, something else happened - entirely different from my best laid plans.

Instead of making a pilgrimage to Salem – which of course derives its name from Jerusalem - as the result of a week which was clearly teaching me to ‘let go of outcome’ and surrender to ‘what is’… I decided to turn things on their head and walk to Bethlehem. From a place associated with death and crucifixion, instead, to one of birth and new possibilities. I’d always wanted to go to Bethlehem – the mid Wales one. It was only a twelve-mile round walk from Dinefwr Park. “There’s nothing there” - my partner Phil warned me. The post-office closed down a few years ago, previously the site of chaotic activity once a year when throngs would descend on the village to get their Christmas cards stamped. (You can now get them stamped at the village hall – but that’s another story).

Photo: Fern Smith

And so, at dawn - 7am on Sunday 4^th March 2018 - I departed from my home in readiness for a 7-hour walk. The water gushing from the taps for the first time in four pipe-frozen days, as if in celebration of my pilgrimage. I walked alone. I walked with many. I walked with a Rilke poem

I live my life in widening circles

That reach out across the world

I may not complete this last one

But I will give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years

And I still don’t know;

Am I a falcon, a storm or a great song.

On this the 3^rd of my ‘7 Sundays in Spring’, I got the weather I did not want. But I think I got the weather I needed. Instead of 7 of us walking, we numbered 44 women and 1 man in total. As a result of a few invitations going out, within 24 hours, there was an immediate response to the call. Women were walking, connecting to one another across time and space with a personal reflection and a collective intention. Women were walking all over the country, solo and together in rural and urban surroundings - in the rain, the sun and the snow. Women were walking everywhere...

In the run-up to International Women’s Day 2018, I remember my original invitation to ‘All The Women I’ve ever Met’ to join me in this project:

"Yes, this is about sisterhood. Yes, this is about “hashtag me too.” Yes, this is about identifying as women witnessing the beauty and the sorrow of this time. It’s also about honouring the fragile nature of life at a time where things and people appear to be falling apart on a daily basis."

Photo: Phil Ralph

These words are dedicated, with gratitude and joy to all the Women Walking:

Andy walked in Bath 
Amalia walked in Cambridgeshire
Anna who walked in Swansea

Anne who walked in Cardigan

Annzella who walked in Gower

Avi who walked in the Dyfi Valley

Carol who walked in Hereford

Chris who walked in Swansea

Christine who walked in Herefordshire

Clare and Charlotte who walked in Hastings
Donna who walked in Swansea

Di who walked in Northumberland

Eleanor who walked in Leamington

Emily who walked in the Swansea Valley
Fern who walked in Carmarthenshire

Frances who walked in Yorkshire
Gilly who walked in Cardiff
Holli who walked in Gower

Janne and Sarah who walked in Pershore
Jasmine who walked in Ceredigion

Jay and Judy who walked in the Swansea Valley

Jenny M who walked in Bath

Jenny W who walked in mid Wales

Jess who walked in Ceredigion

Jessica and 2 friends who walked in Malmesbury

Jo who walked in Pembrokeshire
Judith who walked in Harrow-on-the-Hill

Louisa who walked in Eastbourne

Lucy C who walked in London

Lucy N and Anna who walked in Wells

Meg who walked in London

Micki who walked in Gower

Lucy who walked in London
Nicky who walked in Northumberland

Pauline, Anne and Maria who walked along the Menai Estuary
Trish who walked in Devon
Wendy who walked in London

…And to Patrick who walked in Whaley Bridge.

A few days later, the snow has disappeared. The big thaw has begun. Everything looks as if it is emerging from a mighty shock. I find myself reflecting on the events of this time. In one way, it was a complete failure - my planned walk did not happen. In every other way, it was perfect – the only and the best thing that could have happened. Earth Pilgrim and peace activist, Satish Kumar, who I’ve been lucky enough to walk and spend time with, talks about the difference between being a tourist and being a pilgrim: “A tourist expects whilst a pilgrim accepts.” Perhaps the journey of my walk was to move from the first to the second. It’s not the particular route or the destination that counts – the teaching is in the way one walks. Especially if the way is uncertain or unclear, improvisation is what is needed. When will I learn that plans are made so they can be surrendered? Yes, the plan is important – but I have a richer experience as soon as I let go of control, and truly understand that I never really had it in the first place.

Photo: Fern Smith

7 Sundays in Spring continues until 1st April 2018. Contact me if you would like to participate. 

Fern is Recipient of a 2017 Creative Wales arts Award.
For more information go to www.emergence-uk.org

It’s about time… by Phil Ralph

This year, in September, my partner Fern and I will be teaching a week-long residential course at the Centre for Alternative Technology. Entitled ‘Practicing the Art of Living’, the course will lead up to 12 participants through a cycle of change and transformation, exploring how they might live, work and create differently in this rapidly changing time.

Simply the mere act of writing that paragraph has given me the shivers… of anticipation, of delight, of shock and, above all, of fear. My mind and my ego are now bouncing around inside my head like two competing pinballs, utterly terrified at the prospect of what I am proposing to do. Rising above the cacophony of these two clacking balls is a repeating refrain. A single question, repeated over and over and over and over again –

Who do I think I am?

I never expected to be doing this. To be clear, I never even imagined I would be doing this. I have spent my life assuring myself and anyone who will listen to me that “I’m not a teacher, could never be a teacher, don’t know enough to teach anyone, am superstitious about the whole notion of teaching and what kind of an egotist would I need to be to presume that I had any knowledge that would be valuable enough to others for me to teach it?”

And yet here I am. The course runs from Monday 24th to Saturday 29th September at CAT near Machynlleth in mid-Wales. Bookings are now open.

So, the questions I find myself asking are: why now? And what has changed?

And the answers are: It’s about time. And – everything.

Fern and I have now been together as partners for twenty years. In that time, my life has changed beyond all recognition. When we met in 1998, I was living in London and I was an actor. Today, we are living in the wilds of Wales (well, Llandeilo…) and I am a writer, performer, producer, facilitator and – yes – teacher. How the hell did that happen?

The full answer to that question would undoubtedly exhaust your generous attention span (thank you for reading this, by the way…) so let me give you a brief, two-word precis:

Breakdown. Breakthrough.

There you go. That’s 20 years of change in a nutshell. Simples…

Yeah, you guessed it -  it wasn’t really that easy. I mean, it was that pattern but… it didn’t happen just the once. Nor twice. Nor three times. It happened again. And again. And again. And again. And that was just in the last two minutes.

My (extremely belaboured) point is that change is not easy, it is not painless, and it isn’t simply a one-time thing. It is a seemingly endless process of challenge, loss, grief, depression, disassociation, denial, bargaining and ultimately acceptance that goes on throughout life, day in, day out. It’s a process of reimagining who and what I can be in this lifetime – and then doing it again, and again, and…

Wherever you look in the world, you can find aphorisms and sayings that encourage us to accept that life IS change. And that’s easy to accept when it’s just words. But living it – truly going through the process of having your dreams and expectations churned and chopped and discarded and rejected time and time again – is so much harder to do. In fact, it’s a lifetime’s practice… it’s an art…

One of the key things that enabled me to follow the path of change I have been living through in the past 20 years – apart from sharing my life with the most joyously questing human being it has ever been my privilege to know – has been a gradually burgeoning spiritual practice.

(****** SPIRITUALITY KLAXON ******** HE’S JUST MENTIONED THE ‘S’ WORD!!! EVERYBODY HEAD FOR THE EXITS!!!! WOOP!!! WOOP!!!!)

As you can tell, I’m something of a recovering cynic – as well as being a recovering actor and addict – and my take on spirituality from the cradle was pretty much encapsulated with a sneery shrug and some combination of the words – what, load, a, of, and knackers. But I discovered to my eternal gratitude that cynicism and a closed mind will only get you so far in life and in my case, it got me just as far as a nervous breakdown, physical illness and severe depression. Opening myself up to the notion that there might be “more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” has brought me endless riches – as well as endless challenges and opportunities to learn and grow.

One of the first things I did that began to open my mind was go on a silent meditation retreat at Gaia House in Devon. When I say I went “on a silent meditation retreat” what that actually looked like in practice was booking a place to go on a retreat FOR THREE YEARS RUNNING AND BOTTLING OUT EVERY SINGLE TIME BECAUSE I WAS ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED before finally managing to pluck up the courage to spend a week in silence with other human beings, sitting on a cushion and letting my mind shout at me day and night. And once I finally got there, how was it? Well… 

When you see images of people meditating, they always look so blissful and calm, don’t they? And that is part of it, sure. For maybe one minute every five hours, if you’re lucky… The rest of the time the images should arguably look like the people are in a war zone, assailed from every side by thought after thought after thought… 

But, eventually, after time had slowed to a crawl and my senses had become refined and retuned and I began to watch my thoughts as one might watch the clouds passing across the sky – eventually, by the end of the week I had discovered something truly revolutionary. Ready?

I am not my mind.

God, what a relief, eh? From that point on there was no stopping me. Change and transformation here I come!!! Toot toot!!!

No, not really… At every stage of change, when I could possibly have resisted, you can be damn sure I resisted. I fought and kicked and screamed against letting go of any of the assumptions and desires I had in place for what I thought my life should be. I insisted that I would change no more. But life, as it so often does, had other plans. And, like it or lump it, change I would and change I must.

Now, some seven years after my first retreat, the list of things I do and have done that I could never possibly have imagined seems endless: I have a daily practice of sitting meditation; I have sat in more circles of total strangers undergoing profound spiritual and psychological distress than I could ever have imagined; I have undertaken a vision quest where I went alone into the wilds of north wales with nothing but minimal shelter and water to sustain me;  I have assisted others who have undertaken the same process; I have facilitated transformative gatherings, workshops, and walks; I have co-produced and directed with Fern a documentary series about the unique and wonderful spiritual activist, Satish Kumar; and I have trained as a Warrior for the Human Spirit with my teacher, Margaret Wheatley, and this year I will be stepping up to assist her in training others.

So, as you can see, when I say that everything has changed, I’m not even vaguely exaggerating.

So, why now? Why is it ‘about time’?

I’m 46 years old as I write this at the end of January 2018. I will be 47 in about eight weeks. On a personal level, I’m running out of time. Now, I know that the voice in your head that insists that you won’t ever die has balked at what I just wrote, but the absolute, ineluctable truth of it is I have less time ahead of me than there is behind me. Someday soon – terrifyingly soon – I will die. And I am absolutely certain that I want to be of service while I’m still here and offer some of the hard-won wisdom I have learnt to others.

I could spend the rest of my life asking the question ‘who do I think I am?’ I suspect we all could. Who do I think I am to teach, to guide, to speak, to stand up, to lead, to be generous, to think I have something to offer, to imagine I am talented, valuable, can be of service….? And the only answer to that I can offer is simple –

Who do I think I am? No-one. Just a human being. Alive for now, able and willing to serve for now. Curious, passionate, questing, failing, falling, laughing, crying. A human being. 

Time to get past that question then… That’s the personal level. So, why is it ‘about time’ on the global level?

I don’t really need to tell you, do I? You’re alive too. You know what’s going on, even if you do everything you can to protect yourself from it. None of us know what the future holds – for our species or the planet – but based on where we are right now, today, it doesn’t look good. At all. In fact, it looks really, really bad. And I could bed deep into my old friend, cynicism, and say that I’m alright and screw everyone else and the sky isn’t falling and why do I need to change and grow and share and love… I could do that. But I refer you to the paragraph above where I talked about the fact that I’m running out of time. We all are. Fast. Time to put up or shut up.

So, inspired and nurtured as I have been for the last 20 years by the love and awesome curiosity of my partner Fern, I’ve decided that it’s about time… It’s about time I offer whatever talents and learning I have in the service of others. It’s about time I set aside my fragile ego and my fear of failure and share my life’s learnings for the betterment of all. It’s about time that I accepted that being a teacher doesn’t mean I have to know everything or be everything. Quite the reverse. As I look around the world right now, the scariest, most dangerous people I see are the ones who claim they do know everything… And the most profound and valuable teachers are their opposites. The ones who have walked the path ahead of us and with deep humility and a sense of their own unimportance, share what they know in the hope it will be of service.

What I now know to be true to my very bones is that change is life and life is change. Nothing about that sentence is simple or easy (or grammatically correct…) but it is profoundly and undeniably true. I embrace life and change in all its complexity, beauty and harshness. For however long I have left, I commit to serving life. 

 

It’s about time...

Fern and I hope you will join us at CAT in September.

I will also be teaching a couple of days on 'Changing the Frame: the Science and Art of Communicating for Transition' at Schumacher College in April. The course runs from Monday 19th March to Friday 6th April. Full details available here. 

Reflections at R50 - Resurgence’s 50th Birthday Celebration: ‘One Earth, One Humanity, One Future’

And so it was that after walking for four days along the Thames, we arrived at R50 with Satish Kumar…

22 September

I have a feeling the coming days will be an important marker for the environmental movement as well as an historic occasion for Resurgence and the many communities that are coming together around the themes of ‘One Earth, One Humanity, One Future’ for ‘R50’ - its 50th Birthday celebrations at Worcester College, Oxford. Satish Kumar is currently still Editor in Chief - the longest serving Editor of any publication in the UK. He will be handing over to the new editor Greg Neale at the end of the event and moving to a more supporting role. Satish is actually the main reason that all of these hundreds of people are gathered together, many of whom have accepted invitations to speak or attend specifically to wish him a Happy 80^th Birthday year. People’s affection for him is palpable and genuine, their respect for him as a teacher and activist is a privilege to witness. Resurgence is a unique magazine dedicated to the environment, activism, social justice, arts and ethical living. Vandana Shiva the environmental activist says, “it joins what is interconnected. It is the most important magazine available.”

Resurgence Banner, Photo: Fern Smith

R50 brings so many incredible speakers, writers and activists from all over the world together. I'm due to chair a session tomorrow with three leading artist/activists two of whom I know well and have influenced me directly. I have just finished walking for three months round Wales and then four days along the River Thames in company with many other ‘pilgrims’ to be here in Oxford at this moment. It feels in fact, that I've walked my whole life to be here in this very place...

My partner Phil Ralph joins me in Oxford too since this event also marks the official launch of Emergence’s crowdfunded documentary on Satish Kumar, 'Being an Earth Pilgrim' which took us two years from inception to production to make. I've a sense this is going to be a pivotal few days in both our lives.

The opening session was a powerful and moving statement of intent, indictment of our current world order, call to action and vision of possible futures. It included contributions from Jonathan Bate, JamesSainsbury, Vandana Shiva, Satish Kumar, Prince Charles (on video) and David Puttnam. I scribbled a raft of notes throughout. These words taken from the speakers above are a radical précis of the first two hour welcome session…

Awe, wonder and the resurgence of the human spirit,

This is true wellbeing and wealth.

We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it.

But what is the role of the messenger?

In this theatre of life it’s reserved only for God/s and Angels to be lookers on.

What we resist is the destruction of the earth and human society

It's a battle worth fighting...

23 September

Breakfast at Worcester College in the beautifully impressive vaulted dining room. I wasn't up to eating much and deliberately avoided any caffeine to not trip my nerves into overdrive. I was chairing a session on arts and climate change at 11.30 and was determined not to shake and rattle my way through it!

Good friend Lucy Neal author of the brilliant book ‘Playing For Time: making art as if the world mattered’, was breakfasting with us. She was due to speak along with Peter Gingold of Tipping Point and Alice Sharpe of Invisible Dust at the session I was chairing. I'd prepared and over-prepared, which is always my way. At 11.30, we were all present in the Nash Room, the smaller of the two spaces at R50 and were ready to go…Peter reflected on the past eleven years of Tipping Point’s existence highlighting the many artworks relating to climate change that it has commissioned or inspired. Lucy spoke about her conviction that celebratory community events can act as powerful catalysts for change and Alice shared projects she’d commissioned such as High WaterLine Bristol, where residents chalked 20miles of pavements to highlight flooding. I felt privileged to be introducing these three amazing people and holding space for the conversation that was to follow. People really got a tangible sense with specific examples of the incredible role that artists have played and are playing, in documenting and responding to climate change and issues of social, ecological and economic justice WHILST ALSO helping us imagine and build the possibility of a more life-sustaining future. I had a giddy celebratory feeling after. My body tired with relief. The work of these three people is inspiring and ongoing, I urge you to have a look at their work by following the embedded links above.

Peter Gingold, Lucy Neal, Fern Smith & Alice Sharp, Photo: Alice Sharpe

After my session, I had a chance to really be at the event wholeheartedly to listen, absorb and be moved…There were so many speakers, so many choices. You couldn't see everyone especially as two sessions ran simultaneously throughout the event. You had to make difficult choices…It was an amazing line-up and you can see the whole programme here. I heard Caroline Lucas, now returned as joint-leader of the Green party, speak with calm authority and clarity describing a new political progressive alliance, "Where we have common ground we need to work together for the common good". Tim Smit from the Eden Project, spoke next - half stand-up, half sooth-sayer, "humans were in love with the natural world until they fell in love with themselves". This was only a flavour of the incredible sessions to come.

It was a beautiful warm day, with the ancient and stunning grounds of Worcester College to stroll in. Good vibrations were in the air - many meetings, talks, minds and hearts opening. Vandana Shiva, the great Indian activist, and RowanWilliams, Archbishop of Canterbury were the most incredible double bill imaginable - powerful words delivered from the heart. I knew I was slowly filling up to my limit. When Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall appeared for a  conversation with Satish, I had to disappear outside to decompress and just walk amongst the great old trees with Lucy, catching up on a summer's news. Off and out of the Worcester College grounds later into the city centre and a little Italian restaurant with Phil, Lucy and her husband Simon - our great saviour and Director of Photography for the Satish Kumar DVD - who'd just turned up for the launch. Warm company, stories swapped and making ready for tomorrow's 'grand launch' after breakfast. September slipping by. Into Autumn and onwards to the turning and the darker days to come. Till then, still blackberries to pick, dahlias to admire and sitting ducks to enjoy.

Simon Maggs & Fern Smith, Photo: Phil Ralph

24 September

Up and ready for breakfast in the great hall. I played Lucy's husband, our Satish cameraman, Simon at 5aside chess. Twenty minutes or so of manoeuvres and pawn ponderings. We prepared ourselves for maybe speaking/maybe not about our DVD in Satish's session this morning. You never know till the last minute with Satish what might happen. We’re OK with that, we are called ‘Emergence’ after all. The most likely outcome was what happened - he spoke, briefly mentioned the DVD, then played our short trailer. Here it is...

It was a proud movement. Satish is definitely behind it and clearly delighted with it which is as much as we could have asked.

Phil Ralph, Fern Smith, Satish Kumar, Jane Davidson & Simon Maggs, Photo: Roy Riley

Charles Eisenstein spoke as the other half of Satish's session. Calm, authentic and a great wordsmith. He spoke of the "conversion of nature into numbers" and the myth and problem of the "separate self". We could have listened to him all day but it was not to be. A short break, and then the brilliant BruceLipton, author of The Biology of Belief. He talked about epigenetics and the new human consciousness. It was a delivered at a breakneck fast delivery to fit in in the allotted time - we were all racing to keep up with his impeccable logic and lightning fast mind. Evolution was going to save us. The future is a story of unity and not separate units. All of us are potentially the individual cells of a new super-organism.  If you've not come across his work before do check him out. Remarkable stuff. Madeleine Bunting then spoke about identity and place, "where is your spot? What is the place which holds your sense of self and community?" I'd got her book. Had it now for a good few years, and now after hearing her speak, I'm finally committed to reading it. Lunch in the sun, on the grass under the great, old Worcester College trees.

25 September

We - Phil, Lucy and I - sat on the usually deserted 'top-table' for breakfast in the great Hogwarts-like hall at Worcester College. The only other Breakfasters on our table (at the other end) being Bill McKibben, George Monbiot and George Marshall. What a power trinity! We cleared our rooms for the 10am get-out and made ready for the morning session... I'd read Bill McKibben's last book 'Oil and Honey' and knew he was probably the top world heavyweight climate writer and activist. Older and taller than I imagined, his voice was like the voice of the deep earth. What a force – not over-bearing or hectoring but speaking with a rationality, stillness and quiet knowing that feels like it could power the earth for centuries: "Getting arrested isn't the end of the world. The end of the world is the end of the world".  What a line. What a notion. Certainly not one to pull punches or soften blows but a deeply humane, thoughtful and compassionate individual. Words that really rung true and moved the heart and mind: "The planet is well outside its comfort zone. We need to be outside our comfort zone." He spoke about himself as being quite an introvert and preferring a life as a solitary writer than an activist and leader of the international climate movement, 350degrees.org. To follow him - an unenviable task but done beautifully - was Paula Byrne, another writer. She spoke about the power of poetry being the only thing strong enough to help us as we stare into the abyss of grief, depression or overwhelm. Poetry - "the best words, in the best order" said Coleridge. "Poetry like wilderness is something that can break us out of the enchantment of consumerism" responded Bill M in the Q and A. Here's to the language of the soil and of the soul and praise be to the poets for writing it.

Bill McKibben, Photo: Fern Smith

The end of the Resurgence event was drawing near. More chances to meet and talk with lovely people and walk the beautiful grounds of Worcester College by the lake, past the sleepy ducks, through the orchard and under the weeping willows. A final session with George Monbiot and others with the tough task of bringing it all together. As he spoke, the rain rose to a crescendo finale - it really was like the voice of the gods. A number of times, he just had to shout from the podium, though amplified, to be heard over the thundering downpour. It was awesome - total theatre. "We are surrounded by a socially constructed silence. That's how we can live with the injustices of today...Our task is to live as if viewed from the future." It felt like nothing more could be said, then Scilla Ellsworthy, three times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize said it, and so much more. When asked by people what they could do in response to the crisis we are living through, she immediately responded, "What breaks your heart? What skill or passion do you have which aligns with this? Do that...”

Satish spoke next, to whoops, whistles and rapturous applause - stepping down as editor of Resurgence and handing over to Greg Neale, for hopefully another fifty years. R50 drew slowly to a close with more content than we really knew what to do with. Ideas, conversations and connections that couldn't possibly all be followed up in one lifetime. I was pleased I managed to tell Bill McKibben as he was leaving that his now famous quote, "Where are all the goddamn operas?" has motivated so many artists including myself into action. It was the inspiration behind Emergence's report to the Arts Council of Wales, ‘CultureShift’ in 2014.

Culture Shift Report

I know for sure that I did walk to Oxford, walked Wales before that and walked my entire life before that for 52 years to arrive where I needed to be, at ‘One Earth, One Humanity, One Future’ Resurgence’s 50^th Birthday Party.  I was in the right place. The only place I could be in, feeling what I feel and knowing what I know. Now at home, a week later, how to integrate all this and to respond creatively and effectively? Onwards from here for me and for Emergence. Wherewards? Whatwards? With whom? A new day and a new moon is coming. I trust I shall find my way…

Fern Smith is an artist and creative director of Emergence www.emergence-uk.org.

She is co-director of the Emergence documentary, 'Being an Earth Pilgrim' a six hour landmark documentary series about internationally renowned peace activist Satish Kumar available now from the Resurgence Shop. All proceeds go to Resurgence.