A transformational six day residential programme for men aged twenty‑five and above. Specifically of interest to those who possess a sincere desire to cultivate authentic depth and presence in their lives and the world.
Twelve men. Six days. A working farm at the edge of the moor. No phones after the first afternoon. No spectators, no agenda but the one we keep together.
The programme moves through five movements — arrival, council, solitude, threshold, return — each held by the same small team of practitioners. The form is deliberately old. The questions are not.
We meet around fire, in council, in silence, and in the kind of unhurried conversation that only emerges when a group has lived together for several days. The intention is not retreat but return: that you leave with something durable, not delicate.
Each day is built around one movement of the work. Mornings are slower. Council is held in the afternoons. Evenings are reserved for fire, food, and the kind of long talk that earns the next day’s practice.
You come down the lane in the afternoon, leave your phone in a box, and meet the twelve men you will spend the week with. The first evening is unhurried: shared food, an introduction to the land, the rhythm of the place. We mark the threshold simply and go to bed early.
The first full day is given to council. You learn the form. You hear, in some detail, why each man has actually come. By the evening fire it is clear enough what the week is going to ask of you. The work has begun.
A day & a night alone on the land, with a simple question to sit with and very little else. You return at first light, hungry and clearer than when you left. We hold a quiet welcome and walk you back into the circle.
The threshold day. The form of it is not described in advance. It will involve fire, witnesses, and a piece of work each man has been carrying without quite knowing what to do with. By nightfall, something has actually moved.
The day of speaking. Each man tells, in his own time, what he has crossed and what he is bringing back. The rest of the circle witnesses, slowly. By the end of the day there is a quite specific knowing of what life on Tuesday is now being asked to look like.
A slow morning. Practical conversation about how the work returns home — the practices, the correspondence, the men you have just met and will keep meeting. We close around the fire and you are on the road by noon, with a different week ahead of you than the one you arrived from.
Applications are by letter rather than form. Write to Paul with a paragraph or two about what brings you to this work — he’ll write back, and if it seems right we’ll arrange a conversation by phone.