What's on

Arrive at St Giles House and settle into your accommodation.

Gather in the Library, in the main house.

Welcome from our host, Nick Ashley-Cooper.

Introduction to the weekend with Pippa Evans and Jonathan Rowson

Dinner

After dinner entertainment: The Realisation Players (Pippa Evans, Christopher Ash and Susan Harrison) ask us what we are arriving at the festival with, and transform it into improvised, musical vignettes. A truly spontaneous beginning to the weekend that has to be seen to be believed.

Early morning activities – yoga, running, wild swimming in the stream

Breakfast

Difference, Divisions, Diversity – Panel Discussion chaired by Mark Vernon.

Our invited speakers talk about the current landscape of polarisation and, with their distinctive perspectives, also ask us to start to think differently about difference. Drawing from life experience, historical insights and cultural analysis Linda Woodhead, Indra Adnan and Satish Kumar will open up themes for the weekend and ground them, personally and politically.

Break

Small Groups

What were you most moved or provoked by? Discuss what’s been heard with the task of forming a shared question/comment to bring back to the whole group.

Whole group

Hear back about discussions in the small groups with further thoughts from the panel.

Lunch

A choice of workshops.

i. Holding Improvised Space
Susan Harrison takes us through the basics of improvisation as an ensemble. How do we simultaneously work together and bring our individual offerings? Using movement and physicality, we will play with the fundamental idea of ‘Yes And’ whilst considering what it is to be both in agreement and at odds with each other. (90 mins, maximum 20 people)

ii.  Live recording of The Sacred Podcast
The Sacred is a podcast about our deepest values, the stories that shape us and how we can build empathy and understanding between people who are very different. In this live recording, host Elizabeth Oldfield, talks with peace-pilgrim, life-long activist and former monk, Satish Kumar. (90 mins)

iii. Journeys in Time
In this workshop on time and how the experience of it is changing, Perspectiva associate director of practice and Zen Monk, Ivo Mensch, takes us on a tour through our experiences of time and why we need to care for temporal awareness. A marriage of theory and practices of inquiry. This workshop complements Saturday’s workshop on free time, though both also run independently. (90 mins, maximum 30 people)

iv. Nature’s principles of harmony and learning to live differently
Richard Dunne explores nature’s universal principles of harmony and why they are so important in helping us live differently and more sustainably, into the future. The workshop includes a practical element with the chance to try out some sacred geometry. (90 mins, maximum 30 people)

v. Artificial Intelligence: the threat and subtle opportunity.
Mark Vernon discusses how the spread of AI poses tremendous risks for a society that has forgotten the potency of different types of intelligence and projects its shadow onto the AI-other. He will use the poems and imagery of William Blake in particular to ask about a freer tomorrow. (90 mins)

Tea

The Metaphysics of Difference: A Deep Dive with Iain McGilchrist

How might a half truth be more valuable than one deemed complete? Why is attention and perspective fundamental to our participation in life? What are the limits of the impulse to include and tolerate? Is there a worldview fit for contemporary challenges? Iain McGilchrist offers his distinctively thrilling take on the social, psychological and spiritual aspects of difference.

Dinner

After dinner entertainment – firepit, stargazing

After Dinner Chat

Nick Ashley-Cooper chats with Indra Adnan about the history of St Giles House, his vision for its future, and how taking up custodianship of the place led to dramatically unexpected departures. What has he learnt about facing personal change and social differences? How can his story help us with the adjustments we all face? (60 mins)

Early morning activities – yoga, running, wild swimming in the stream

Breakfast

Beyond Projection, Engaging Insights. A Future for Difference.

Panel discussion chaired by Mark Vernon

Difference can be valuable. Lessons may be learnt from particular experiences that can spark the social imagination. Conversely, what errors do contemporary philosophies, politics and even the languages we speak draw us into, perhaps unawares? Might limitations and vulnerability be our friends, not enemies? Tomiwa Owolade, Kübra Gümüşay and Tom Shakespeare help us re-envision the themes and aspirations that are emerging.

Break

Small Groups

What were you most challenged or inspired by? Discuss what’s been heard with the task of forming a shared question/comment to bring back to the whole group.

Whole group

Hear back about discussions in the small groups with further thoughts from the panel.

Lunch

A choice of workshops.

i. Clashing Chords
Christopher Ash leads this exploration of the voice and song, playing with harmony, dissonance and holding notes that don’t seem to fit, culminating in the co-creation of a song drawing on the themes of the festival. All voices, whatever shape or size, welcome. (120 mins, maximum 20 people)

ii. How to be a Maverick
Ed Haddon, the founder of Haddon Coaching, will explore ways of discovering a different voice, one that is adaptable and courageous, positive and distinctive. This inner guide can help unfold what’s uniquely yours and, therefore, be personally satisfying and of wider benefit to society, too. (90 mins, maximum 40 people)

iii. Antidebate
As we nestle in elegant surroundings and the beauty of nature, do we imagine we are all in agreement? What are the undercurrents of difference that might not surface here, but would cause conflict and confusion in the ‘real world’? The Antidebate, developed by Perspectiva, reveals our diversity while bringing multiple perspectives into new relationships. With Indra Adnan and Michael Bready. (90 mins)

iv. What do we know about free time? 
Dominique Savitri Bonarjee invites you to experience time inside the body and the materiality of time as we experience it at an imaginal and sensory level of perception. A participative inquiry using fluidity and movement, drawn from Dominique’s dance and art practice. (90 mins)

v. Ripples
This mindfulness-based workshop with Grace McIntyre uses writing and art to create a collective story with postcards. Welcoming playfulness and the unknown, it is designed to help individuals process their experiences of challenge and connection from the weekend by supporting their meaning-making. (90 mins, maximum 20 people)

Tea

The arts of difference: Rory Stewart on politics in a time of strife (online)

The diplomat, writer, walker, academic and MP, now star of The Rest is Politics podcast, will join us remotely, in conversation with Jonathan Rowson. What kinds of formative influences shaped this different kind of political figure? What are the intellectual, cultural and spiritual virtues needed to disagree agreeably? Are today’s public institutions worthy of the challenges of our age? If not, what follows? Including a time for Q&A.

Dinner

I’m With The Band 

A very serious folk band improvise very serious songs about very serious things. Please bring your very serious ideas.

followed by Dance Party

For one night only, EDM adept, DJ Nick AC, returns to deliver musical trips and journeys in the St Giles House basement nightclub. Till midnight.

Early morning activities – yoga, running, wild swimming in the stream

Breakfast

Pack up rooms and tents

Final meeting in small groups

How have we found the weekend? What might we take forward?

Starting the day with your small groups for final reflections.

Tales of the Unexpected

Gathering to share our surprises and be surprised.

Tea and quest

Farewells

Departing ritual around the statue of Anteros.

Lunch (optional)

Bus leaves for the station at 14:30.

All leave St Giles by 15:00.