SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY FESTIVAL PROGRAMME

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. The pilgrimage will begin at 8:30pm on Friday 6th June and will end at 6am on Saturday 7th June. Please note that the pilgrimage route will include stairs, uneven surfaces, and narrow pathways. Tickets for the Planting Pilgrimage are limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

This experiential workshop offers a gentle gateway into embodied interconnectedness, rooted in the wisdom of Taoist philosophy and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Drawing on the 八纲 (Bagang, or Eight Principles), we will explore subtle qualities of energy—nature, temperature, intensity, and depth—as they manifest in our bodies and in the world around us. Through meditation, sensory exploration, and movement, we’ll invite participants to tune into their own internal landscape and its dynamic connection with the wider ecology.

Both deeper nature connection and spiritual ecology invite individuals to explore their relationship with the natural world more meaningfully. By integrating these practices and principles into daily life, many find not only a sense of belonging and peace but also a sense of agency and responsibility in preserving the planet for future generations. Embracing these concepts can lead to a more harmonious existence, both personally and collectively, within the larger web of life.

The Director of the Oxford Real Farming Conference and the Listening to the Land programme, Francesca Price, brings together Irish writer and farmer, Manchan Magan (Listen to the Land Speak) Welsh farmer, Abel Pearson (Glasbren), and London grower, Sandra Salazar, (SoilSistars) to talk about what they have learnt from the Land and how they believe that tuning into its intelligence and ancient wisdom could be the way we move beyond the multiple crisis’ we currently face.

Join St Ethelburga’s Rebecca Brierley as she interviews Alastair McIntosh, a renowned scholar in Celtic spirituality and Christian ecology, in a conversation that seeks to explore the Christian perspective on balancing care for humanity with stewardship of the Earth. Drawing on his rich heritage, Alastair will be invited to reflect on the Christian values and teachings that can guide us through the challenging times we live in, meet the call of our hearts, and nurture our relationships with each other and the planet.

For a few hours, humans become “living books,” offering personal stories of belief, identity, and connection to place — stories of love, belonging, exile, grief, wonder, and wild encounters. There will be an eclectic mix of topics and themes! Browse the catalogue, choose your book, settle down to listen, and journey through the themes of this festival, through the lens of another’s experience.

In this experiential workshop, explore Sanskrit chanting and meditation as practical tools to deepen your relationship with the natural world. Together, we’ll learn simple chants, experiment with mantra writing as a creative and reflective practice, and participate in a guided meditation to harmonise body and earth, designed for all backgrounds. The session will conclude with a Sanskrit song celebrating our shared experience of being alive. All are warmly welcome—no prior knowledge or particular beliefs required.

In this workshop, we will explore the cycle of the year, getting intimate with the microseasons of this land, and how they are expressed through the other kingdoms of life. We will reclaim festivals and practices from our ancestral traditions, and experiment with co-creating a ‘calendar of kinship’ we can adopt in our own lives, workplaces and communities. Aligning with Earth time is just one of a wider set of practices in the Kincentric Leadership toolkit that help us co-create with a living intelligent Earth. So we will also touch briefly on that wider map of skills and principles.

In Khmer, to know where you come from is to ស្គាល់ មជាតិ skal cheate, or to know your taste. Reconnecting with her homeland of Cambodia through the taste of Battambang oranges, yellow mushrooms, and chapchang snails, filmmaker Kalyanee Mam shares the land-tastes that helped orient her to a way of life deeply tethered to the land.

Studies show that divided Britain is united on two issues. A majority of the country feels exhausted with the divisive tone of our civic conversations. And a majority of people are deeply worried about climate. How can we depolarise our conversations with one another? How can we bridge divides for the sake of earth? This will be an interactive, participatory workshop exploring how we can step into the shoes of the ‘other’, and become more functional and united in our response to climate.

As existential threats and global conflicts intensify, our workplaces, homes, and places of worship increasingly become arenas for challenging conversations about identity, land and belonging. This workshop, led by a Jewish and a Muslim facilitator from Solutions Not Sides, will explore how we can build emotional, physical, and spiritual resilience so that we have the tools we need to better navigate these conversations. Join us to learn how fostering empathy and resilience can promote healing and unite our community, enhancing our collective ability to engage deeply and constructively in conversations across difference.

Join Xiaoan Li and Sylvester Jones from the Fetzer Institute for an interactive session to map the global spiritual ecology movement. This interactive workshop draws on years of Fetzer’s research, integrating participatory discussions and hands-on mapping exercises. Together, we'll highlight the rich diversity of this global movement and connect you to a wider network of organisations and activists. Come ready to collaborate across traditions, geographies, and disciplines as we co-create a living map of the spiritual ecology landscape.

Simmy Singh is a violinist and composer whose work flows across classical, electronic, jazz and folk traditions. With Indian, English and Welsh roots, and a passion for diversity and connection, Simmy brings a rich, emotive voice to her instrument. Deeply inspired by the natural world, she sees music as a bridge to help others reconnect with the earth and their inner landscapes. Whether performing with orchestras at the Royal Albert Hall or collaborating with electronic artists in intimate settings, her music invites deep listening and heartfelt response. At the Spiritual Ecology Festival, Simmy offers a soulful performance that draws on her cross-genre explorations—an invitation to pause, feel, reconnect and reflect on our intimate and magical relationship to the web of life.

Singing in Sanskrit—a sacred language she has studied since childhood—Gaiea Sanskrit brings pure, heart-centred sound into the world as an act of devotion. Her performances are immersive and transformative, intended to transport listeners into a state of deep stillness, wonder, and connection with the divine. A Sanskrit scholar and founder of the Cosmic Choir, Gaiea weaves ancient sound with modern resonance. Join Gaiea Sanskrit for a musical hour of peace on earth in the company of the sounds of Sanskrit.

Join us to share contemplative silence for the sake of our world. Those of all faiths and none are warmly welcome. There’s no need to have a prayer or meditation practice, or a spiritual belief of any kind. Whatever your preferred mode of contemplative practice, you are welcome to bring it to this gathering.

Join us in a heartfelt session of communal singing that celebrates the living bond between people and place. Together we will sing traditional songs from the British Isles and beyond - tunes that hold deep cultural memory and offer a soulful way to connect with each other and the more-than-human world. These are songs carried through generations to honour the land, the seasons, and the cycles of life. No prior experience is needed. Whether connecting with the joy of The Farmer or the longing of Shenandoah, this session is an invitation to root ourselves in song, story, and breath.

Facilitated by Nessie Reid, with speakers Rosebell Abwonji, Francesca Masoero and Maritza Arizaga Rosebell Abwonji and Maritza Arizaga will share their insights on justice, displacement, and environmental crises within their own experience in the community conservation field. We will also open the discussion up to invite participants' positions within the conservation landscape, considering where they see themselves in relation to power, land, and decision-making. Francesca will share about Global Diversity Foundation's Conservation Justice Programme, including a history of how the Conservation & Communities Fellowship came about and why, including a brief overview of Malisili’s Greening the Grassroots report.

In India, nature has long been sacred—rivers are goddesses, trees are teachers, animals are companions. But with urbanisation, screen dependence, and aspirational pressure, India’s children are growing up disconnected from this reality. If India is to have a resilient, compassionate future, her youth must reconnect to her ancestral wisdom. This talk explores how spiritual ecology—through stories, rituals, and direct experience—can help youth rediscover a living relationship with nature, a revival of indigenous wisdom that sees the Earth as sacred and shared. By nurturing ecological soulfulness, we prepare a generation to shape the future with care, courage, and deep connection.

We live in a time of increased geopolitical conflict and rising polarisation. Most national and regional conflicts throughout history have involved contested stories of land, belonging and identity. How does the deep ecology lens help us to view conflict differently, and how can it offer practical tools for peace? What conflicts are there within and amongst deep ecologists themselves, and what can we learn from such disagreements? How can spiritual ecology inspire new responses to the root causes of conflict in our time?

Join us as we contribute to The Patchwork of Belonging – a growing series of collaborative, mobile patchwork quilts exploring how we find, lose, and reclaim our sense of belonging. In this informal, hands-on session, you’re invited to create a patch that responds to the question: How do you find belonging? Using provided materials—or anything personal you bring—stitch your story into the fabric, placing your patch alongside others to reflect our shared yet diverse experiences of land, place, and food. You’re also welcome to reflect on the forces that disrupt or prevent belonging.

Helena’s many years in indigenous cultures opened her eyes to the ways that the global economy destroys human scale structures and experiential, holistic knowledge. In so doing, it has marginalised the two most important activities we engage in as human beings: how we rear our children and how we rear our food. Helena will outline how ‘going local’ is a path of spiritual reconnection to others and to mother Gaia.

This participatory workshop invites you on a reflective and creative journey in response to the climate and ecological crisis. Rooted in the values of active listening and imaginative freedom, the award-winning Letters to the Earth offers a space to express your feelings, hopes, and visions for a more regenerative world. Through guided exercises, you’ll explore your connection with nature, share your emotional responses to the state of the world, and craft a personal letter—to or from the Earth. Come to connect, create, find greater inner and collective resilience, and be heard.

Written down somewhere between c.500 BCE – c.1100 CE, Perek Shira (Chapter of Song) is a Hebrew text designed to honour all beings in our ecosystem. Verses of praise are pulled out from various verses from the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) to honour the interconnectedness of all beings, and the wisdom we can learn from witnessing them. The beings are as diverse as Sun, River, Barley, Apricot tree, Bear, and Snail. Join Kohenet Rachel Rose Reid for an hour or so of devotional chant which will be accessible and welcoming to people of all faiths and none.

Join Farhana Mayer and Ruth Valerio as they delve into the themes of Laudato Si' from both Christian and Muslim viewpoints, exploring the shared and distinct elements of ecological and ethical principles within these faith traditions. This discussion will highlight how spiritual ecology is woven through the theological tapestry of Christianity and Islam, reflecting on how both religions emphasise the interconnectedness of creation and call us to take care of God’s world.

Join director Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and filmmaker Kalyanee Mam for a screening of Taste of the Land as part of our Spiritual Ecology Festival. Taste of the Land, from Emergence Magazine’s four-part Shifting Landscapes documentary film series, follows filmmaker Kalyanee Mam as she returns to her homeland, Cambodia, which has been changing through deforestation, industrialization, urbanization, and development. Through years of tender, immersive filmmaking, Kalyanee has documented the disappearing relational ways of life held within Cambodia’s landscapes. As she deepens her connection to this place through both the lens of her camera and the intimate relationships she forms with land and people, Kalyanee awakens an ancestral memory of the taste of the land that lies within. The screening will be held at Rich Mix community arts hub in London—a fifteen-minute walk from St. Ethelburga’s Centre. The film will be followed by a Q&A with Kalyanee and the film’s director, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee.