Alfoxton Park - Land & Heart: Cultivating Growth

Land & Heart: Cultivating Growth

18th - 21st May 2027

This is the second in our Land & Heart series of work retreats. These retreats offer an opportunity to integrate work and practice by means of nature connection, Buddhist practices of meditation, ritual and friendship.

Spend time with your hands in the soil, directly helping us to restore and maintain the heritage walled garden of Alfoxton Park, contributing to providing home grown food for our community and future retreatants. It was left for 15 years to become overgrown with grasses and brambles and we are currently in the process of restoring it to its former glory through the principles of permaculture.

This retreat offers a chance to switch off from the busyness of life and be immersed in nature, integrating work with meditation as well as using work as practice through the act of service, mindfulness and nature connection.

The wild beauty of the land surrounding Alfoxton park offers a unique setting to develop a wider awareness of your place in the world as part of-not separate from.

What to Expect?

Deepening love for the land through nature connection and mindfulness activities
Helping to prepare and maintain vegetable and flower beds; sowing seeds and planting out seedlings; weeding and mulching.
Out on the land, work may include maintaining newly planted trees, clearing and general maintenance.
Meditation and Buddhist ritual (open to all levels of experience) throughout the day, both in the shrine room and on the land.
Periods of silence to give space for reflection as well as plenty of time for connection with others.

Facilitation Team

Jyotika

Jyotika was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2000. He has worked for Dharma Life magazine, as Subhuti’s Personal Assistant, as Secretary to the College of Public Preceptors, and more recently has project managed the purchase and refurbishment of Shubha Vihara, Ireland’s first Triratna retreat centre. He is now the head gardener at Alfoxton Park, specialising in growing organic vegetables.

There is a breadth of opportunity to engage with work of varying levels of intensity and appropriate to different physical abilities. We will spend 4-5 hours working on the land or in the garden each day. Please contact us before booking with any information or queries regarding accessibility, to ensure that this retreat can meet your needs.

Timings & Travel

Timings

Please arrive between 3pm and 5pm on the first day. Dinner is served at 6pm. The retreat will finish by 1pm on the last day.

Travel

The nearest railway stations are Bridgwater and Taunton. We are about 1h 15min from Bristol by car.

The 15 bus leaves Bridgwater at 16:50 during college term dates and stops at the Plough Inn in Holford. We are a 15min walk from there.

Please get in touch for further advice with public transport, or for help arranging lifts / carpools.

Make sure to put "Coach House 2, Alfoxton Park" into Google Maps. Other variations will take you to Alfoxton House nearby which is not us. Otherwise use grid reference 51.165187, -3.220080.

The What3Words for our car park are ///soup.candy.huddling

Accommodation & Food

Accommodation

This is a camping retreat - bring a tent or live-in vehicle. Toilets, showers and a sauna are available. Warm and waterproof clothing are advisable, along with gloves and boots or wellies. You may also wish to bring a torch and hot water bottle.

We have limited accommodation indoors for those with specific needs. Please let us know when you book if this is the case for you.

Food

We serve a vegan menu using mostly organic fruit and vegetables, from Riverford and our own walled garden. We are able to cater for most general food intolerances, such as gluten free, but not for all diets. See 'Accessibility and Special Diets' below.

Accessibility & Diets

We are committed to Alfoxton being a fully accessible venue and are working hard to achieve this. However, while the renovation work continues, visitors with specific mobility or accommodation needs may experience barriers to accessing all areas of the building and land. Please get in touch about any significant accessiblity requirements.

It is not possible to cook for people with highly sensitive allergies: if you are a coeliac or have any other medical condition which could seriously jeopardise your health or your experience then please get in touch to discuss a potential self-catering plan with our Kitchen manager.

Please contact us about either of these before submitting your booking request.

Costs

Alfoxton Park is a charity and works on the principle of Dana or a 'gift economy'. Read more about Dana here.

A £57 deposit will secure your place on this event. You will be invited to make a donation to Alfoxton when you attend.

If you are an Triratna Order member and need financial support to pay a retreat deposit, you can apply for a grant from the Abhayaratna Trust.

Technology, alcohol and drugs

All of our events are alcohol and drug free.

During the meditation retreats we ask you to turn off your mobile phones and other devices and not contact people outside of the retreat.

For all other events and workshops we ask you to be mindful of the use of devices and stay present, in order to make the most of your time here.

Any Questions?

Send please send any questions to events@alfoxtonpark.org.uk

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