Welcome to the booking page for the 8th annual gathering. This year the theme is Stories of the Land – Stories of Us. We are planning a small intimate gathering and primarily, yet not
exclusively, reaching out to people who have been here previously by personal invitation. Hence your receiving the link to this page.

We would love it if you could join us as we weave threads between land, individual
and community.

Common Ground N.I. is at a pivotal point of change. Lisdean (meaning Sacred Enclosure) Farm, the home of Common Ground, is be transferred to Community Ownership in the next twelve months. We are calling in the community that has been inspired by Common Ground and thus far participated in the manifestation of its mission. We want to hear your stories of being in
nature – your relationship with earth and her other than human inhabitants. This might include the difficulties we experience in relationship with nature. We would also welcome, if it arises, the story of what has happened for you here on the farm. We will invite you into the active
reciprocity of your telling your stories to the land itself.

On Sunday we will invite you to find your place, your niche in the ecology of what happens next. We trust that you will be fed in many ways by your time in the land, with human and other than human kin during the gathering. Ancestors and the greater than human are also part of the experience and conversations.

It promises to be a soul nourishing time for all involved.

As usual you are welcome to arrive anytime on the morning of Saturday 13 August.
The gathering will open just after lunch on the Saturday and close just after lunchtime on Sunday 14th August. Onsite overnight accommodation is camping or barn camping.

The plan is:

SATURDAY
1 – 1.30 pm – Welcome and orientation to the process of the weekend. Intention setting for
initial period outdoors.

1.30 – 2.30 pm Time alone on the land

2.30 – 3.30 Group time – personal introductions and sharing of stories of land of being
in nature, encounters with the other than human. Including the experiences of this place (on the day and previously).

3.30 – 3.50 Break

3.50 – 4.20 Telling the story of Common Ground – 10 years – from conception to coming of age? Where we find ourselves globally – post pandemic, deepening climate emergency, war in Europe, economic and other world instabilities.

4.20 – 4.30 Move our bodies break

4.30 – 5.45 Open group session on themes of Belonging to Place and Yearning for Community and Finding Tribe. This will include the given trials and tribulations we experience.

5.45 – 6.30 Break – free time

6.30 – 8.00 Dinner

8.00 – 9.30 Open Mic

9.30 to late Ecstatic Dance

SUNDAY
7.30 Yoga – Movement – Mindful Walk – Qi Gong

8.30 Breakfast

9.30 – 10.00 Introducing the Community Ownership Plan and sociocratic map and the type of
individuals needed to inhabit circles of shared care within the whole.

10 – 10.45 Reflective time on the land. Take what you have heard into the land and ponder on it. And ask land to be a mirror for you in this process.

10.45 – 11.00 Tea break

11-11.50 Check in – what is happening for you? What does this process bring up? How does it touch you? What happened when out in the land. Did you dream in the night whilst being here?

Comfort break

12 – 1.00 Open session – Do you see yourself in what is emergent? Is there anything you might like to bring to this place and community? Invitation to participate in the new chapter – to find your niche in the ecology of what is emergent. Step into the circle that calls you. Does what is emerging in you need holding and expressing elsewhere?

1.00 – Closure

1.30 – Lunch

Departures ….

We do hope you can join us. We will send joining and staying over instructions once you have booked.