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Singing & Foraging
March 26 2021 - March 29 2021
With Lucy O’Hagan
Follow the path of your ancestors and learn how to gather and process wild foods and medicines from coast to forest, river to field and all the hedgerows along the edges.
Join ethnobotanist and ancestral skills teacher Lucy O’Hagan on this journey to explore your inner and outer nature. We will rewild our minds and bodies as we explore a new environment from which to harvest nature’s bounty each day. You will learn how to safely identify and sustainably forage from a range of plants, trees, fungi, seaweed & lichens.
This week will be woven together with focus on taking time to relax, unplug and reconnect with our inner and outer nature. You will be invited to take part in nature-based meditations and sensory awareness activities to connect you on a deeper level to the earth and our plant allies.
What Songs will we Sing?
Great songs! Songs from Ireland, the British Isles, the rich vein of traditional music from USA, and songs from many World music traditions. And always a new song by Candy Verney, in collaboration with a local singer/songwriter, or with Lindsey Williams (together we have written a book of songs for choirs: Songs from Life). We will learn music by ear, no reading of music necessary, though I’m happy to provide written music to those who want it for more difficult pieces. We’ll go to sing in special places nearby – in an old church, out in nature. Sometimes we experiment with improvisation and singing games.
Meet your hosts
Lucy O’ Hagan
Her passion for teaching began after finishing a degree in Social Anthropology and French, when she had the chance to work in schools in the Caribbean and on Reunion Island, assisting in the integration of environmental learning across the curriculum
Over the past two years, Lucy has been swept away by a strong love of Ancestral skills which satiates both her love for nature-based skills as well as the deep soul work that her heart craves. Last summer, she took part in Lynx Vilden’s Stone Age immersion projects, living wild for 4 months with a community. From the ancient caves of the Dordogne, to the northern lands of the Sami, she deepened her understanding and love of Ancestral skills, whilst also exploring cultural regeneration and deep nature connection practises. Since then, she has begun to assist Lynx with classes and is preparing to do a week-long Stone Age Project in the Arctic this February and a month long Stone Age project in North America in 2020- living as our ancestors might have done.
Candy Verney
Candy’s passion is to inspire and create, through singing, a sense of harmony which gives an experience beyond the ordinary. She has been building singing communities in different ways all her working life. She created and developed 6 community choirs in and around Bath for 20 years. She runs Community Choir Leader Trainings, seeding singing groups throughout UK and Germany. She initiated and directed The Trowbridge Song project, celebrating diversity through sharing traditional music, in a rural town in Wiltshire. She is now director of The Song House, a retreat centre in Co. Donegal, NW Ireland, where she also runs singing holidays and trainings. Recently she has collaborated with Lindsey Williams and together they have written a series of songs for choirs that are a joy to sing, whose lyrics inspire and comment on modern life: Songs for Life