Tag: HazelHillWood

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Fuelling the Regenerative Design Lab

This March we are holding the Spring Residential workshops for Cohort 6 and Cohort 7 of the Regenerative Design Lab. Appropriately I was down at Hazel Hill Wood this weekend for the wood’s Wood Chop Challenge — the annual event that provides firewood for that heats the retreat buildings used by many groups who come to the wood to learn, including the Lab.

For me this process captures something of the essence of regenerative practice.

The firewood is both product and process.

It both meets a human need — staying warm and comfortable while in the wood. And it meets the wider need of the ecosystem through careful management of the woodland. And, what’s more, the work of producing it — felling, chopping, transporting and stacking — becomes part of the experience of that place.

In that sense the Wood Chop Challenge is a small example of what regenerative practice can look like: meeting our needs while strengthening the living systems we depend on.

You can read more about it on the Hazel Hill website here.

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The dream walk experiment at Hazel Hill Wood

Last week at Hazel Hill Wood we ran a ‘dream walk’ with staff and trustees. The aim was to tune into our long-term hopes and aspirations for the site, as we continue the responsibility of creating a thriving place for care and learning.

Hopes and dreams are part of what a place is trying to do. They arise from our relationships with place and help steer the flow of change.

We began with Zuma Puma’s Box-Clearing warm-up (a technique I learnt from one of my clown teachers —more on that in another post), then set out into the woods. The rules were simple:

  • Walk to a place in the wood.
  • Walk with your gaze slightly raised to invite in fun and curiosity (another technique from another clown teacher, Robyn Hambrook) 
  • Share what you’ve always hoped for this place.
  • Imagine how it could be, how it might change.
  • Speak until you’re done.
  • The next person picks up — not to challenge, but to add their own dreams.

We captured dreams in audio and notes, later mapped across the site.

What I learnt from facilitating the process

  • The temptation to say why not is strong — the delivery mindset of Horizon One is never far away. With reminders, we shifted into a more open Horizon Three frame.
  • Some dreams resonated and compounded — one voice building on the next until a vision took shape.
  • Some spots felt dream-silent, as if they were low-energy places. Others flowed with possibility, hinting at where change energy gathers. This was a real ah-ha moment for me.

This dream walk supported three things at once: observation in Continuous Place-Based Design, imagining Horizon Three in the Three Horizons model, and adding inputs to our Kalideascope. 

You could consider carrying out a dream walk where you are: walk, notice, and speak your dreams of place aloud. You might be surprised by what takes shape.