Fabulous four-day workshop at the East Summer School
For the second year running we put on a workshop as part of East Summer School (ESS) organised by the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC). Young people who live in boroughs around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (QEOP) are offered a huge range of free workshops over a 2-week period by prestigious organisations such as the BBC, London School of Fashion, Sadlers Wells as well as Bloom and many others.
Our four-day workshop, called ‘Harmony in Nature’ attracted a diverse group of young people between the ages of 12-14 who found themselves exploring and experiencing nature in all sorts of surprising ways. We were based in the Blossom Garden in the north part of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park so we were outdoors the whole time.
On Day 1 we learnt how to connect with our 5 senses so we did things like smelling soil, tasting bean shoots, lying under trees to see the patterns made by the leaves and branches, all of which brought the group closer to nature and to each other. We went on an amazing wellbeing walk with Neal, an expert guide from Our Park Life, and discovered sights and sounds we would never have known about, such as hearing and feeling rustling reeds along the River Lea, seeing huge views over the Wetland Bowl and resting in the shady woodland of the Waterglades; massive walls made of materials from recycled buildings and a bubbling stream that cleans water for the local area gave some idea of the green ethos that runs throughout the design of the Park. No wonder one participant said about the workshop as a whole, ‘It helped me get away from the city life and was very calming’ – yet we were in the heart of East London all the time!
Day 2 was all about Diversity and Interconnectedness. There was a fantastic gardening session run by Tom, a professional conservationist and gardener from Ide Verde, which took place on the bank at Carpenters Lock. Our young people got thoroughly stuck in and cleared a great big area of plants like wild carrot that were choking the gentler wild species. They had a great time and managed to fill far more giant bags than they were expected to. One girl said how glad she was to have made a difference to the Park.
In the afternoon we collected wild grass seeds around the Blossom Garden, learnt that wheat grains are seeds, ground some into flour and then each person made some bread dough to take home and bake. It was a bit messy and sticky but enjoyed by all. To bring the message home that our diverse individual natures all have value, people worked in groups to plan how they would cope with particular scenarios like being stranded on a desert island by making use of everyone’s talents and strengths. This was fun but challenging.
Day 3 was about Oneness, that is, feeling oneness with nature, with each other and with oneself. We learnt about labyrinths- how to draw one from scratch starting with the ‘seed’ shape, and then we walked a full-sized one we had laid out on the lawn. This was a most unusual and exacting exercise which some were a bit mystified by but others really connected with. We had comments like, ‘When you’re walking the labyrinth to the centre and back your worries go away; you feel free.’ ‘It makes you be in the present moment so it’s very restful.’
Photo © Vipul Sangoi
While some were doing this, others were making extremely fine drawings from life of a particular plant that attracted them. Everyone loved this activity for the calm that it generated and because they discovered that when you really look at what is in front of you, you are able to draw accurately and connect with the beauty of the life form. In the afternoon we looked at the meaning of William Wordsworth’s poem The Tables Turned which is all about nature as our teacher. Then, working in pairs, our young people learnt one stanza by heart, which they did in no time at all. They then stood in a semi-circle on the hillside and spoke the poem verse by verse. Once everyone got the idea of how to project their voice to the birch trees on the opposite hill, we had a moving and beautiful performance which a passer-by called Dave was good enough to stop and listen to, making an appreciative impromtu audience. We finished the day by creating little clay garden figures decorated with seeds, twigs, leaves and so on, while some people made a mini clay labyrinth.
Photo ©Vipul Sangoi
Day 4 was called Seeking Patterns in Nature and the Cosmos and was led by the renowned artist and geometer Tom Bree. Number 5 was the theme so we started by looking for flowers with 5 petals in and around the Blossom Garden. He then taught us how to make pentagons with compasses starting with a circle of 10 dots. Out of this the young people grew bigger patterns of pentagons and pentagrams and coloured them all in beautifully; each person’s was different although each used the same template. Later we made 3-dimensional dodecahedrons from pentagons. We saw how the Golden Ratio is present in this geometry and amazingly how the same ratio is in the path that Venus makes, in the cross section of the DNA molecule and in our own body proportions. Tom had made a special Golden Ratio calliper to show these proportions which itself was fascinating. Using a big pile of pre-cut bamboo sticks the group, under instruction, created the framework of a life-sized geodesic dome by tying the sticks together in a set patter . At the word go, the taller people lifted the roof sticks from the ground and suddenly everyone gasped as we found ourselves inside this amazing dome.
This unexpected experience of harmony made a fitting end to the course which had provided so many different approaches to harmony in nature. In their final comments people wrote, unprompted, that they had learnt about different aspects of nature and its importance; about harmony and working together and how we are connected. One of my favourite comments though, was from a boy who said that it was great ‘taking a break from social media by going out and exploring nature.’ This was so good to hear. One parent of a boy with learning difficulties told us that he had an amazing week; we were lucky that a young bright girl from Ukraine joined us who was bursting with enthusiasm over every activity; the ultra-urban boy who had actually signed up to do skate boarding found that he could connect with nature just as effectively as he could connect with skate boarding. Walking the labyrinth very slowly with bare feet might seem very different from moving at helter skelter speed on a skate board but he said the act of connection was the same. Interesting!
Photo ©Vipul Sangoi
Photo ©Vipul Sangoi