Summer for Schumacher College
31 July 2025
Hello Everyone,
Our 3rd module of the Schumacher Foundation course is coming to a close, and what a beautiful and nurturing experience it has been for all!
Bathed in high summer sun, in the beautiful re-wilded valley of Embercombe and the inspiring and convivial atmosphere of Coombe Farm Studios, we moved through choreographies for social change, explored the relationship between economics and the arts, searched for new words to draw up a covenant with water. We sat at King Arthur’s round table, spoke to Merlin in a smoky fire hut, meditated on the essence of tea during quiet morning contemplations. We shaped and let ourselves be shaped by the primordial powers of clay. Delving into issues of power, economics and over-consumption, we made pledges with trees, with rivers and with soil, pledges to listen and to learn, to nourish and to grow, to tend to our gardens, our relationships and our communities.
And amongst all this, we walked, sang, laughed, spoke a multitude of tongues, we celebrated and mourned, we read poetry to each other and engaged in long, passionate conversations; we cooked and danced and played music around the fire. An amazing two weeks in which we could all feel that vibrant pedagogy that for so many years has moved, inspired and refreshed the life and energy of Schumacher College was still fresh, still alive, still deeply nourishing for all.
In fact, it is good to be able to write ‘Schumacher College’. The independence secured from our previous hosts means now that we are once again able to gently and proudly use that name. The securing of our Intellectual Property crowns a long process of survival, resilience, hope and re-invigoration that would not have been possible between the profound love and enduring commitment of so many friends. It is in difficult times that the subtle articulations of friendship truly reveal themselves. The rebirth of our College is also a moment that celebrates the profound gift of friendship between us all. To all of you that have helped so much – once again, Thank You!
Our first long course offering that will celebrate this beautiful moment will be Poetics of Imagination. Bringing together poetry, story, drama and myth, this course draws from the vision that has so energised our Foundation Course – that the multiple difficulties the world is now facing can’t be responded to with only one approach, one method, one discipline or one part of the body or the mind. We need to delve into the poetic as much as political, the creative as well as critical, the attentive as much as the active. It is undeniably true that our current crises - whether social, ecological and political – all intersect at the level of the imagination, because the imagination is the visionary soil from which our worldviews, our sense of the whole, our creations and our actions all spring. And if it is true that we are facing a ‘dramatic’ situation and a predicament of ‘mythical’ proportion - could it not be that our resources come from the world of drama and myth?
Led by Alice Oswald and Valentin Gerlier, our ‘Poetics of Imagination’ offers a way upstream back to the mythical pool of imagination: bringing together myth, story and poetic creativity with deep wisdom and imaginative reflection, we will release the unique and enduring potential of these timeless resources and explore what they may have to offer to the world of today. Click here to find out more and to apply.
As ever, we are so grateful for your friendship – and we hope sincerely to see you soon, companions on this new adventure!
The Schumacher College Team
x
Image courtesy of Isabella Jones