The inaugural Expressing the Earth Gathering is happening Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th October. It will be a three-day event, running across sites in and near Hawick in the Scottish Borders. It will offer experiences that connect us with the land and the earth around us, deepening our love for it and our poetic response to it. At a time when we are becoming ever more urban as a human population, how do we engage our hearts and minds to connect with the more than human world?
The weekend will open on the Friday evening with a screening of the acclaimed film Expressing the Earth. Afterwards there will be a chance to put questions to those who were involved in it’s creation: Glenda Rome, director, Claire Pençak, the dance artist featured in it, and Norman Bissell, its producer. Beforehand, there is a buffet supper at a local restaurant.
Saturday is a day of workshops and art exhibitions rounded off with an Open Mic event. The day begins exploring the land with a new translation of the Tao Te Ching. Then throughout the day, there are workshops, each offering contrasting and complementary ways of connecting to the land and responding creatively to it. These include Haiku and poetry writing, drawing, photography, paint making as well as opportunities to explore practices to connect ourselves more deeply with the land. All facilitated by practitioners for whom Geopoetics forms an important influence on their work.
Alongside all this there are two art exhibitions to visit. Emily McLatchie’s ‘Earth and Bone; The Shape of Passing’ at Garfield Mill and William Morrison-Bell’s ‘Dark Sky Series’ at Cornucopia Unit Four. In the evening, there is another a buffet meal and then the room becomes a venue for an evening of poetry and music.
On Sunday we will walk beside by a tributary of the Tweed. At the lunch stop there is a labyrinth installation waiting there to be walked through and reflected on .
The gathering is open to everyone, members and non-members alike, those long steeped in geopoetics and those meeting the word for the first time. You will be welcome to come for the whole weekend or for a single session.
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