Heron Meadow

Healing through Nature-based activities and Animal encounters

Heron Meadow welcomes people, complete with their gifts and their struggles, to access support and be resourced through a connection to a natural environment. 

Sessions and workshops that favour embodied healing practices can help us reconnect to body, senses, emotions, perceptions and to intuitive skills.

Being in a safe non-verbal exchange with nature and animals, is particularly potent for people recovering from trauma or exhaustion. 

The quiet and slow time of nature and animals reduces stress and anxiety. People experience calmness and can connect to their most authentic self and needs, away from our busy society. 

All activities foster a sense of empathy and respect for all forms of life, touching heart and mind in a transformative way. 

A sense of belonging to the natural system of a living land is also beneficial to people who struggle to find their place in the family or community system. As they carry away this connection with them, it supports them in finding a path towards their gift and contribution to their family and community. Creative activities such as crafting with natural objects, drawing, nature-walking also contribute to learning about the self as well as seasonal cycles and the progression of life.

Learning from Nature

Learning from Nature is explorative... it arrives through our direct experiencing and experimenting with various forms of 'speaking and listening' to the other beings of the land. It is creative and fun and is particularly beneficial for those who struggle with more conventional way of learning.

Equine Facilitated Learning activities supports  exploration of our patterns of relating, through direct experiencing of connection with a horse and through observing them interacting within their social world. Horses are incredibly sensitive, relational and fundamentally social animals. They are also highly individual and, like us,  each one carries their own stories, strengths and vulnerabilities. 
Designed activities with our 4 native ponies (no riding involved) are conducted not only on human terms, the needs of all beings involved are listened to and respected. This method develops empathy and respect for all life around us and within us.

Mindfulness practices with the animals and nature encounters bring a different and deeper understanding of nature and of our human nature. Such experiences support personal growth and create a new template for being with the natural world - one which points the way towards a more sustainable way of life.

Community

Heron Meadow CIC organise events which celebrate the cycle of the seasons and the diversity of all forms of life - upon which Life itself depends. 

Participants at these events may take part in storytelling, singing, drumming, dancing, crafting. Such activities have always been used by human beings in order to help strengthen their sense of being part of a community. Additionally, they help us to develop a new inner-story, one which reflects and includes both our individual and collective experiences. The sense of belonging in nature is one that people carry away with them, feeling less isolated, better resourced and more able to connect within their own communities. 

A programme of talks from invited speakers on topics relevant to Nature,  conservation, local natural history and environmental sustainability will be developed. 

Our Core Values

The vision of this project is grounded in our deep respect for the land itself and in our desire to listen to and learn from it.
We wish to acknowledge and respect all of the inhabitants of the land, with all its vivid and dynamic natural elements. Therefore we are in continuous conversation with these elements, experiencing this as an exchange, weaving our sense of belonging within a non-separated natural world.
This attitude of care is reciprocal...the land responds to being respected and cares for us, joining in with our offerings of healing. In this way we see that, as we care for the land, so we we also care for ourselves.
We recognise and value the deep ancestral wisdom which is embedded in the plant and animal worlds. These beings emerged long before humanity and we honour that, as our ancestors did and as still indigenous culture still do.
Heron Meadow  welcomes people, with their gifts and their struggles, and invites them to experience something of this attitude - which is also based upon respect and valuing of people’s individual differences and stories.