Fallow Session 3 - Forest Frolicking
July 7th - 12pm - 4pm at Epping Forest - meet up location below:
📍Meet-up Location📍
We will be meeting at 12pm at:
Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge
8 Ranger's Rd
E4 7QH
For this Fallow session we will have a special guest Maymana join Dre & LION for a journey through London’s largest forest, Epping Forest. In this session, the forest serves as both therapist and playground, with Dre & Maymana as your guides. This session aims to revitalise connections between humans and nature, strengthen your observation skills, and be a moment for the restorative effects of nature to support your health and well-being.
You can expect a blend of frolicking and reflecting, with opportunities for journaling to capture your thoughts and experiences.
🌲Agenda🌲
- 12:15: Introductions - This will be an opportunity to share names, pronouns and any needs we may have from each other or from the space
- 12:30: Grounding Activity
- 12:45pm - 2:30pm: Walk + Reflection activities - We will be leaving promptly at 12:45pm!
- 2:30pm -3:30pm: Lunch and chat! Please remember to bring lunch/snacks/drinks for yourself and food to share if you would like!
- 3:30pm - 4pm: Closing
An important part of Fallow is being in community with each other and so it’s really important that we feel comfortable with each other throughout the day. With that in mind please make sure you arrive in time for the introductions so that we can all get to know each other, know people’s needs from the day and begin to shape the space together!
We will be leaving for the walk promptly at 12:45pm! It’s tricky to track people down once we’re in the woods so please make sure you are ready to go by this time!
Please dress comfortably and appropriately for the weather, as we will be outdoors for the entire duration.
Accessibility
We will be spending just under 2 hours walking through the woods, where the ground may be uneven. This will be a slow walk that will move at the pace of the group, with time to pause for reflection throughout.
We really want this to be a space of building community and friendship and there will be loads of people coming alone who are looking to connect. However, if you’re worried about coming alone, drop us a message and we can pair you up with a buddy!
We will also open the day by sharing any needs that we may have of each other or from the space. If you have any other questions about accessibility, please drop us a message or email! If you need your travel costs covered, please let us know too (sam or sumayyah @ landinournames.community)
This event is pay what you can but if cost is a barrier to attending, please email sumayyah@landinournames.community for a free ticket.
Dre Ferdinand is a licensed social worker, artist and therapist, whose practices include movement, energy, sound, soil, and EMDR, a modality that has informed her approach which she refers to as ‘MESSE’. Dre’s practice framework is rooted in healing, social and restorative justice. Her professional journey involves aiding individuals and communities in processing and recovering from systemic harm and trauma as well as advocating for therapeutic support for social workers. Her teachings are centred on helping people navigate their internal landscape, collective care, and processing trauma. You can contact Dre at hello@dreferdinand.com or @idreferdi
Maymana Arefin (she/they) is a multidisciplinary British-Bengali artist, writer and facilitator based in London. Her practice spans mediums such as poetry, clay work, collage and painting in response to themes of ecology, grief, embodiment and the power of collective imagining. In 2020, Maymana founded @fungi.futures, a space to map radical alternative futures guided by her joy and passion for fungi. Through leading nature immersions, plant and fungi walks, her work focuses on deep rest and healing and restoring our communion with our non-human kin. Maymana’s award-winning MSc research on how the mycelial networks of fungi may be used as a metaphor for mutual aid seeks to re-imagine an unjust world through a politics of hope. She is strongly committed to justice – in all of its forms – and believes that in order to realise this, we must prioritise care.
Land In Our Names is a grassroots collective of Black and People of Colour getting land through reparations. Our collective is based in London, Britain, and works to reconnect Black and People of Colour to land, both in the city and in the countryside. Our work addresses the inequalities in access to land and food, and reimagines land stewardship towards climate and racial justice. We are organising toward collective ownership and land stewardship by Black and People of Colour, to heal the colonial-rooted trauma that has separated us and continues to extract from the land.
Fallow
Fallow is a series of community care workshops integrating the healing and repair element of Land In Our Names’ aims and values into our work. We believe that there is a deep need for accessible healing spaces for Black and People of Colour (BPOC) landworkers and earthworkers, climate, food, farming, land and racial justice organisers. Moreover, it is vital to connect this work to land and food, in particular political understandings of land and food that are rooted in ancestral, anti-colonial, and radical practices. We see collective care as essential in supporting food growers and other landworkers who experience physical and mental burnout from low wages and intensive physical labour. It is important for social justice organisers who similarly struggle with low wages, long hours and demanding work.