Heron Meadow
Community Interest Company in Roydon (near Diss)
Healing and Learning with Nature
We offer the people who come to visit us a chance to connect with nature
with its inhabitants and with themselves in a different way, a way which is both new to our current ways of life, and also very ancient...
Walking or driving to Heron Meadow
Scroll down to find out more
about our regular activities
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How you can support us
Heron Meadow CIC (Community Interest Company) premises and activities started in 2020 thanks to personal financial investments. It is run now as a non-for-profit organisation.
If you would like to support our project and help us with our care for the land and the animals, you might like give a one-off donation or consider setting up a small regular subscription payment to become a Friend of Heron Meadow . In exchange for a monthly subscription we will send you by email once a month “Messages from the Land” (our latest news, with photos and short video clip). It would help us a great deal and it would keep you in touch with us with your glimpse into the life of the Meadow throughout the seasons.
Booking is now open for these events !
Read more
Book with the links below :
Booking form 6-9 yrs old children
Booking form 10-14 yrs old children
This year the theme for our Nature retreat will be " Celebrating Four Seasons of being a Woman". Read more
Email Rose for more information and to book your place
[email protected]
Our regular activities
Open Mornings
We are open for visits 10am-1.30pm the first Sunday of each month from April to October.
No booking.
Meditation Walks
Mindfullness in Nature
We are offering 6 Mindfullness in Nature Meditation walks from April 24th to May 29th, 6-7pm
Contact : [email protected]
Constellations in Nature
Constellation workshops are profoundly moving - they are a deep yet gentle way of gaining greater understanding of ourselves, our families and our issues.
Contact Anna if you are interested :
annamagee123@
gmail.com
Earth Drumming
Using drumming and percussion to help us connect with nature and
with each other ....
Contact Jane if you are interested :
[email protected]
Children Circle
A monthly Children Circle to reconnect with Nature and each other.
Contact Anna
[email protected]
or Jo [email protected] if you are interested
Heron Meadow Singing Group
An experiential session once a month to connect through voice with each other with the land, to explore yourself and your sound
Contact Jo if you are interested : [email protected]
Hosting therapy sessions
Heron Meadow CIC hosts each week all year long art therapy sessions for Apricot Centre who support children and young people.
" Heron Meadow is a very inspiring place and a wonderful therapeutic value in the experience of visiting! " J.M
"Anna and Magali have created a place that mirrors and embraces their wise, generous, loving and deep work. This is a unique, rich and precious resource for which I am immensely grateful. "E.Q
"I learnt so much about the relationship to myself, other beings and the natural world from being in the presence of the ponies and through connection to the land. " M.C
About Us
Based on the ground of a 10 acres land registered has a care farm, Heron Meadow CIC (Community Interest Company) premises and activities started in 2020 thanks to personal financial investments.
The Meadow itself is a natural landscape, rich with its own healing and learning opportunities. This space is a beautiful traditional water meadow in the Waveney river valley, on the border between Norfolk and Suffolk.
The vision of this project is grounded in our own deep respect for the land itself and in our desire to listen to and learn from it. With great care, we cultivate connection, consciousness, belonging...
Heron Meadow is a healing and learning centre of ‘Whole being’ where we invite our visitors to experience themselves as energetic aspects of a greater whole, moving in a constant flow of communication with all other aspects : trees, birds, water, wind, ponies, sheep...
A sense of wholeness is reflected also in our recognition of the life natural cycles of birth, death and rebirth in which we all participate. Being in touch with it bring some surprising chances for healing, enhancing wellness and embracing life.
What we offer
"Anna and Magali are highly skilled facilitators and community builders. They bring wisdom, heart and commitment to everything they do. Heron Meadow is a place of beauty, connection and healing, powered by their generosity of spirit and vision." S.D
Self- development with Nature
Experiencing a connection with the natural worlds can help people towards healing and recognising their unique gifts and a sense of belonging.
Our "Constellations in Nature" and "Self-discovery with Horses" support personal growth, inner balance, and offer a new template developing empathy and respect for all life, including ourselves.
Supporting our community
In these times of change, we offer some guided activities and events, free or at low cost, run on a not-for-profit basis to strengthen our community and build our resilience. Anyone from the local communities is able to join, regardless of income.
For children and teenagers
We are working in a collaborative connection with Apricot centre and MTM Youth Services., who support young people.
Seasonnal events to reconnect with nature are organised for children, as well as individual session tailored to specific needs.
Our vision
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.
Useful information
Heron Meadow is in the Waveney valley near Diss. Directions will be provided on booking. Booking your place for any of our activities, events or visit is essential, as we have a limited number of place in our car park and in our yurt.
Heron Meadow CIC has been created in December 2020. We are fully insured, qualified, DBS checked, and our Animal Welfare License is n° 21/00094/AAL
Our prices include a donation to Heron Meadow CIC to make this company sustainable financially. Concessions are possible for all our activities.
We are offering individual session for all our activities.
Heron Meadow CIC Team
Anna Magee,
co-founder and co-director
A farmer’s daughter, born in the Breckland area, I have always had a strong affinity for all animals and for the land. For over twenty years I have worked as a psychotherapist in Norfolk. I have specialist trainings in working with trauma, family systems and the effects of intergenerational trauma. Now my enduring love and deep respect for the inherent wisdom of nature convinces me of the importance for us human beings to re-connect with own natural wisdom, in order to find a more balanced belonging place within larger natural systems.
Magali Buhrer,
co-founder and co-director
After years of offering psychotherapy in private practice in London, I moved to Norfolk where I have been able to follow my deep interest for people and my love and strong connection for nature and horses . I have enriched my experience with the Native American Medicine Wheel teachings, seeking a way to learn from Nature and the interconnected aspect of life.
The new approach I developed is based on Awareness and Mindfulness practices, my training in Equine Facilitated Learning, and the Medicine Wheel model.
Jo Bowley - very much enjoying my involvement with events at Heron Meadow.
I am an adolescent therapist working for Map and was also a youth worker for 20yrs so I feel its really important to encourage young people and children to be connected to nature as understanding the living world helps them understand themselves and enables a greater awareness of the world they are navigating through.
I look forward to all that is offered and I am grateful to be part of it.
Vera Proudlove,
Our beloved friend and a co-creator of the Heron Meadow vision became suddenly very ill and she died just before Easter, in 2024. Vera was a huge source of inspiration, strength and joy for us - and for a great many people, her loving heart seemed to have room for everyone and her deep wisdom was always offered with humility and gentle humour. Losing her has been a huge teaching in itself - requiring us to think deeply once again about what we are offering here and how to go forward without her.
Collaborative Connections
Heron Meadow CIC has been building a network of partners who share a close affinity with our own vision and core values : with MTM Youth Services in Diss https://mtmyouthservices.jimdo.com , Apricot Centre https://www.apricotcentre.co.uk/ who support children and young people and also Menscraft https://menscraft.org.uk/ who support boys and men of all ages. Environmentally, we are collaborating with the Waveney River Trust who are running restoration projects of the river itself and the wildlife habitats along its corridor.
Heron Meadow CIC is supported by the National Lottery Community Fund