Last week, I was fortunate to spend some time on retreat at Hawkwood College for Future Thinking near Stroud. Something I thought I should write about as the college is somewhere I feel that many readers of this blog would feel at home. Looking at the program of upcoming events in the reveals talks by people such as The Art of Good Ancestry by Roman Krznaric, who was interviewed for the site by our very own John Payne back in January, and titles such as How to Fall in Love with The Future by Rob Hopkins. With the largely vegetarian superbly healthy organic (and tasty) food, much of which is grown on site, Hawkwood definitely feels like a Joy in Enough type of place.
Both of the courses I mentioned above were from their Transformative Leadership course, but in actual fact the subjects covered at Hawkwood are very broad, covering subjects as diverse as Spooncarving, Kindling connection through theatre, Mushroom growing, as well as Finding Quiet Strength.
What unites these diverse disciplines? The aim of Hawkwood is to be a place for people to create, explore, converse and to grow, being inspired by the natural surroundings, certainly, but more than this – the mysterious Hawkwood ‘energy’ ie. a ‘hidden and vibrating source of creative energy, rather like a volcano, waiting to burst forth’, as one of the information posters in the foyer dramatically claims.
A view from Hawkwood down the Severn valley
Hence – despite spending time in the Jonathon Porritt library to work on my compositions, (yes the famous environmental campaigner and former CEO of Greenpeace has donated his library to Hawkwood) – I was actually attending for a course on Songwriting with Dan and Katie Whitehouse, and could only allow myself to be slightly distracted by all the fascinating titles on display.
But, in keeping with the Hawkwood ‘energy’ – one might say spirituality – this wasn’t a songwriting course simply about chord structures, or how to write lyrics. On arrival at our first session we were given a compass, each with a different question – mine said ‘what is it you want to leave behind?’ A very resonant question for me, and one that wouldn’t have been out of place on an Ignation style retreat. Following practitioners such as Helen Cameron in the Artist’s Way, part of Dan’s method is to encourage artists to reach beneath the surface of the conscious mind, to find their source of inspiration.
A key concept in discovering the essence of a song was what Dan described as the ‘Polaroid Moment’, a key phrase, idea or moment encapsulating what a song was about. To illustrate this Dan set us a group task of writing song about the history of Hawkwood, and how it came to be the place it is today.
We were divided into four groups, and each group assigned a different portion of Hawkwood’s history to write a verse about. Here is what we came up with, (plus a bit of tweaking.)
V1
Long before recorded time
Ancient folk were drawn
To shelter from the harsh north wind
To sun the soul to warm
V2
The cotswold lion made their wealth
The locals toiled in vain
Wills carvings secret on the beams
Reveals the peoples pain
VERSE 3
From the ashes of the war
Lily and Maggie schemed
One had a house
One had a plan
Fulfilled their chosen dreams
VERSE 4
More than just a residence
A place of vibrancy
Under the magic sycamore
At Hawkwood come and see
Dan suggested that the ‘Polaroid Moment’ for Hawkwood was the moment in 1947 when Lily Whincop, who had recently bought Hawkwood, and her friend Margaret Bennell (who wanted to set up an adult education college) met over a cup of tea and Lily said, ‘I have a house, you have a plan, couldn’t we put them together?’
Hence the chorus of the song became:
I have a house
You’ve gotta plan
Couldn’t we put these together
I have a house
You’ve gotta plan
Couldn’t we put these together
Our dreams will last forever
I must confess I was rather pleased then that my suggestion that the chorus be a kind of blessing or incantation,was adapted into the bridge:
May your sycamore always grow
And the Hawkwood spring always flow
Once the song was completed we sang it as a group to the staff of Hawkwood, some of whom were visibly moved – a deeply joyful yet poignant experience. And here is the complete song as an audio file.
What I am trying to say – if you hadn’t guessed – is that communicating a vision of the way the world is or should be, needn’t and indeed shouldn’t only be a prosaic one. Poetry, prose, art and song are also an essential way of expressing our truths. Something Christians used to say is ‘why should the Devil have all the best tunes?’ We might very well say something similar about the climate and biodiversity crisis and how best we can respond with alternative dreams and visions of the future to the fantasies of techno-capitalism.
Joy in Enough 