Schumacher College

I've spent almost an entire week at Schumacher College, the educational hub of holistic studies. This is truly an amazing place. Never have I had the privilege of meeting so many interesting people with incredible stories and life experience, who are really out there actively participating in creating a better world. I've enjoyed many open, deep and meaningful conversations and enjoyed basking in the wisdom distilled within these walls.

Schumacher College

While I came here to spend the week taking things easy and soaking up the atmosphere, my time here coincided with a course on 'complexity and collaboration'. Having gleaned a little of the course content, I would never have though such a subject would capture my interest as it did. I can certainly see the implications of applying this theory to community groups, systems of government etc. Much to explore here.

One of the things that makes Schumacher special is the emphasis on participative learning and holistic lifestyle. Here all the students participate in tasks such as cooking, gardening, cleaning etc. While this was no shock to me, it was funny to see some of the more conservative, business-type people on the course groan at the prospect of cleaning up after themselves, only to see them working away with smiles by the end of the course :-)

One of the things that brought me immense joy was to wander around the kitchen garden. This is an incrediably productive English cottage style garden, pumping out the usual salad greens alongside many layers of flowering perennial plants that contribute to the daily salads. Simply beautiful.

Schumacher gardens - landscaped with productive perennial food plants :-)

Just behind the accommodation block, is another incredible forest garden which has been loving nurtured by Martin Crawford. I had the opportunity for a guided tour around this garden, and it was highly interesting to see some of the temperate perennial and medicinal plants growing here. Again, truly beautiful and inspiring :-)

You can learn more about the garden here;

Another highlight was a deep ecology walk with ecologist Dr Stephen Harding. This took place through the beautiful countryside encompassing cow paddocks, ocean and forest. The walk was 4.6km long and represented the entire lifespan of the earth (4.6 billon years). Throughout the 4.6km walk we stopped to describe major landmarks in the earths evolution. At the end Stephen pulled out a tape measure and described the entire human history in less than 1m. It really drives home the point of how old this planet is, how long it took for her to support human life, and how quickly we are destroying that delicate eco-system.

Deep ecology walk - cows, ocean and a yacht race ;-)

Deep ecology walk

More amazing views - cave :-)

Heading 'home' after the walk

I was hugely interested in the nearby town of Totnes, being the thriving hub of the Transition Towns movement. This was a really cute town, once again a yuppies dream and centred around an old castle.

View of Totnes atop castle :-)

I also had the pleasure of attending a talk by eco-psychologist Hilary Prentice hosted by the 'Inner Transition' group. This was a beautiful, heart-expanding and poetic talk about the aspects of inner transition, indigenous culture and eco-psychology. I felt like I had shared in the beauty and wisdom acquired over the lifetime of this intriguing woman and the group echoed the sentiments of one chap who summarised the evening with, "intellect as the servant of soulfulness".

I also had the pleasure of exploring the beautiful Dartington Gardens, just a short walk from the College :-)

Dartington gardens

So anyway, tomorrow I pick up a hire car with the intention of working my way through the countryside. I've not organised accommodation, or the exact details of where I will travel, but am just allowing this to unfold.  Although slightly apprehensive about this, given the close proximity of everything in this country I figure I can't get too lost...surely? ;-)

So far it hasn't felt much like summer here. I found this the other night...couldn't resist. Here's to hoping the sun comes out soon :-)