Songs of Return
27 May – 24 july 2025
Course Structure
An online programme with optional retreat
Dates
Fees
An Invitation
When wolves were welcomed back into their ancestral homeland in Yellowstone National Park, America, two Ojibwe brothers were there to ‘sing them home’. In their tradition it is understood that all creatures are part of the music of place, each with their own ‘song’ to make up the natural symphony of life.
Our capacity for singing the world alive has been forgotten in most places. But in this singing for the wolves, perhaps something very old and important was being remembered on behalf of us all – an ancient contract of honouring our extended, more-than-human family, a forgotten but sacred duty of tending to the wild.
Some species are beginning to return to denuded landscapes around the world, invited by us, but finding their own way home. Some will sadly not return. In these precarious and volatile times, it might be the time for us to slow down and listen out for those voices of the other than humans – perhaps somehow helping them find their way, or welcoming them back, or to be witness to their leaving.
If we apply ourselves creatively and sensitively to the dreaming and listening process, might we even find songs and stories that have been waiting for us to offer our attention? Perhaps, this act of holy communion might bring something to the change required to tip the balance of the world back into order, and give ourselves and others a sense and a hope of belonging.
Could this gifting of our deep imagination be a part of returning ourselves, gently and humbly, back into our original place, as part of a harmonic convergence of beings, helping to sustain the vitality of the wild? Might this even be the way to ‘sing ourselves home?’
There might be a song of whale, of pine marten or marsh frog, in any and all of us whichever place we come from, on whichever land we stand upon and choose to sing from.
Join us for Songs of Return, an animate, collective, emergent dreaming, creative and ceremonial practice dedicated and offered to our other than human kin.
What to expect
This is a ceremonial practice of three parts.
Part I: We will gather as a circle of dreamers online to celebrate our returning and leaving species in music, poetry and discussion. At this first meeting we will set our dreaming task to track the threads of the others than human in our lives, in our memories and our places and to listen very intentionally and particularly for their songs of return.
Part II: Together we will cross the threshold into a different type of listening to the world, through ceremony and vigil, through deep listening and through being on our own and with our circle on the land. This can either be done together residentially in the UK at a beautiful camping place on the banks of the River Dart in South West England, or you can do this in your own place with instruction on how to prepare and gather.
Part III: We will re-gather online to share our experiences, our songs of return and to gift what we have received back to the world.
Is this for you?
This is for anyone who feels the grief and the longing in our current times for a deeper more reciprocal relationship with the natural world. It marks the beginning of an exploration, for all of us as individuals, and collectively within our circle, into more subtle ways of working with the loss and re-introduction of our other than human kin, through ceremony, dreaming and the simple act of offering back and singing home.
“When we sing to ourselves, we tend to something sacred within us, and when we sing to the Others, it is tending to Creation, and is an act of worship“
(Please note, we use the term song loosely, so that our songs of praise might take any number of forms. It’s simply about the quality of attention we give)
Your Guides
The lead guides of this course are Chris Salisbury, Angharad Wynne, Sam Lee and Rachel Fleming.
Chris Salisbury founded WildWise in 1999 after many years working as an education officer for Devon Wildlife Trust. With a background in the theatre, training in therapy, and a career in environmental education, he uses every creative means at his disposal to encourage people to enjoy and value the natural world. Chris directs the acclaimed Call of the Wild Foundation program for educators-in-training as well as Where the Wild Things Are, a rewilding adventure based at Embercombe in Devon. He is also a professional storyteller (aka ‘Spindle Wayfarer’) and is the co-founder and artistic director for the Westcountry and Oxford Storytelling Festivals. His recent books include Wild Nights Out: The Magic of Exploring the Outdoors at Night (foreword: Chris Packham) and Folk Tales of the Night: Stories for Campfires, Bedtime and Nocturnal Adventures.
Angharad teaches from the old Brythonic tradition of the British Isles, the spirit ways of the ancestors of this land, and how we can recover and remember them to help us restore balance in ourselves and with the world around us.
Sam Lee is a Mercury Prize nominated folk singer, conservationist, song collector, award winning promoter, broadcaster and activist. He plays a unique role in the British music scene. A highly inventive and original singer, folk song interpreter, passionate conservationist, song collector and successful creator of live events. Alongside his organisation, The Nest Collective, Sam has shaken up the music scene breaking boundaries between folk and contemporary music and the assumed places and ways folksong is appreciated. Sam’s helped develop its ecosystem inviting in a new listenership interrogating what the messages in these old songs hold for us today Read more about Sam here https://samleesong.co.uk/
Rachel Fleming has worked with animist education for many years, designing and delivering educational programmes for Schumacher College, University of Wales Trinity St Davids and Embercombe, with a focus on the meeting place between human, spirit and nature, between ‘ecology’ and ‘spirituality’. She is co-founder and curator of the Contemporary Animism programmes and loves to convene conversations that explore the deepest depths of why we are here, the ways we find belonging to the world and how to be in service to soul. She is committed to scholarship, word magic, creative imagination and the medicine of circles.