A Review of the Year 2009

It is just over a year now since we made our first tentative forays into launching EarthAbbey. It has been a fascinating experience and it feels like time for a brief review.

We began by trying to give a clear outline of what EarthAbbey might be.

• A membership, on neo-monastic lines, based around encouraging one another to live in tune with the earth

• drawing on insights and tradition derived from an open, creative Christian spirituality

• situated outside the main religious institutions, but in a constructive relationship with them.

Everything we have done this year has suggested that this is a good place to be. The environmental challenges that now face the people of earth clearly have a spiritual root. We are going to have to change the whole way that we relate to the natural world and this will demand a new way of seeing ourselves and a process of inner transformation.

Highlights in brief

Publication of The Dream that inspired the Bible- a vision of hope for the whole creation
This book lays out some of the thinking that lies behind the formation of EarthAbbey. It has been greeted with considerable enthusiasm by those who have read it, and we are keen to make sure that people hear about it. If you can help with this please get in touch (see below)

Becoming aware of Permaculture
It is clear that there are strong streams of environmental creativity today that can relate to a spiritual worldview. Permaculture is a philosophy and design practice concerned with working in harmony with natural systems and fits with our approach very closely. Several of us in Bristol have now completed Permaculture Design Courses, and we have visited some inspiring permaculture communities around the UK, like Ben Law’s Prickly Nut wood, for example, which featured on Grand Designs.

Grow Zones
The most significant practical development this year has been Grow Zones, which is a project where teams of us have worked together on each other’s gardens to grow produce on permaculture principles. Everyone involved in this expressed surprise at how rewarding the process was, not just in terms of veg, but also in the way that working land seems to encourage new friendships and a deep, often unspoken, spirituality. As we till the soil we reconnect with the earth, with the constraints of the seasons and our own fragility. To simply be in touch with the earth through growing is to find a certain stillness of soul and presence of the divine that is hard to describe. One Bristol member told me how after the Grow Zones team had visited their garden, he spent the rest of the day outside, happy just to be there. We are hoping to launch Grow Zones as a national project in Spring 2010. If you are interested in making it happen where you are, let us know.

Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival
Greenbelt offered the first opportunity for EarthAbbey to announce itself on a national stage and we made many new friends there. Foraging sessions were massively popular, with up to 200 people following Bruce and Sara round the racecourse identifying over 40 wild food plants, even among the jumps, on the racecourse.

Developing your EarthAbbey Rule of Life
One of the key reasons that we hope that people will join EarthAbbey is as an encouragement towards their own personal transformation. Our commitment to ‘live more in tune with the earth’ has to be worked out, and I am keenly aware that we all need help with that. The booklet Developing your EarthAbbey Rule of Life by Bruce Stanley and Chris Sunderland was published in August and is designed to help you get started. We are considering running some New Members weekends, to allow people to meet one another on a regional basis and creatively explore their own personal journeys. Would you be interested in attending one of these?

Houses and Lands
Some of you who have read our original brochure will have noticed the plans for redevelopment of a church site in Bristol into an eco-community. That particular project did not go ahead, but another fascinating opportunity has arisen in one of the most deprived areas of the city, where we are planning to put an EarthAbbey household in a former vicarage and to work its substantial walled garden as a growing project for the neighbourhood. More details about this soon.

I am aware that EarthAbbey members are also participating in a host of other projects, not as ‘EarthAbbey’ projects, but simply getting stuck in and trying to help things happen, like yeast in the dough. These include:
- Community supported agriculture initiatives
- Work on the land with asylum seekers
- A new local currency system
- An eco retrofit project in a large estate
- Creative writing
- Storytelling

Together these add up to a considerable amount of know how and practical experience that should prove useful as we go on. I know that many of us are dreaming of doing new things and of living in new ways. What would help to tip us over into realising our dreams? We are proposing running a series of Dry Bones workshops around the UK, encouraging people to take those first steps in realising their dreams, sharing experiences, and drawing in expertise to make things happen. Would you be interested in attending a Dry Bones workshop?

Gatherings
We have experimented with many different forms of gathering this year, trying to find ways of meeting that engage both with ourselves and with God at a deep and meaningful level. A series of Meals for Body and Soul introduced different areas of environmental interest in the context of a meal and contemplation. We have had Easter sunrise on the allotment, orchard harvest thanksgiving, evenings sharing from inspiring books, or on an advent theme. Someone commented that the thing about EarthAbbey events is that they are always surprising and full of fresh insight.

The Website
Many people have made first touch with us through the website, even from as far afield as Australia, where we now have members.  Some have commented that it is full of beautiful and interesting things. The website seems to be currently functioning as an interactive, non-paper magazine for EarthAbbey. If you have short articles and interest pieces that would fit the weblog please send them in. We will post them up for you. Also if you have ideas for web development we would be glad to hear them.

So that is it for 2009. It is very good to be in touch with you. May God be with you on your journey in the coming year

Chris aka Breaking Wave

Contact EarthAbbey through the contact button on this website or by phoning 0117 9574652

Suggested Task: Here are a few responses that you can make

• If you are not yet a subscribing member please consider it. We are exploring holding some weekend events around the country for New Members. Would you like to come to one?
• If you are interested in hearing more about Grow Zones and how you can do it, please let us know. We are hoping to launch Grow Zones as a national project in Spring 2010.
• If you have a project that you would like some help with, tell us about it. We have in mind some Dry Bones – turning dreams into reality workshops around the UK, engaging with people’s projects and helping them on to the next stage. Would you be interested in attending one of these?
• If you have read either The Dream that inspired the Bible or Developing your EarthAbbey Rule of Life and have ideas for how they can be marketed in your patch, please be in touch.

Your comments.

Dear Friends,

Peace and all good.

I was asked to leave a monastery last year because of my practice of avoiding eating processed food and advocating growing more of our own food was not seen as living the charism of poverty and community life deeply enough by the majority of the sisters. Some said I might be a prophet, but they were not ready. In the past year, I have become a facilitator for the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium
(http://www.awakeningthedreamer.org) and have completed a 6-month course in Permaculture. I am also working with the town of Clemson, SC on becoming a Transition Town. I live on land not my own, temporarily at present, trying to apply permaculture. I am seeking how to expand my spiritual practices in alignment with the needed awareness of the divine in Creation and how to find /form the spiritual community I deeply desire. I would love to stay in connection, but don’t want at present to subscribe as I am not yet bringing in a stable income. Just wanted at present to say “hi”, I’m very interested in what you are doing. Blessings, Nancy