Home/Glossary
The words we use.
Every one of them gets used loosely somewhere. Here is what each means on the land, in one sentence and then a few more.
- Altar
- A surface, indoors or out, where things are placed with intention: a candle, a stone, a photograph, a name.Ritual
- Artist residency
- A stay of weeks on the land for an artist or maker, housed and fed, with time and help to make a piece that stays.Art
- Cacao ceremony
- A gathering in circle around a shared cup of pure, minimally processed cacao, held with intention, usually at dawn or dusk.Ceremony
- Ceremony
- A marked moment with a clear beginning, a clear end and someone trusted holding the space in between.Ceremony
- Dark sky
- A place that keeps artificial light low, warm and shielded enough that the night sky, including the Milky Way, is fully visible.Light
- Drum circle
- People seated in a ring with drums and percussion, playing together without a score or a leader, finding a shared rhythm as they go.Music
- Ecstatic dance
- Free movement to music, without alcohol, talking or performance, as a practice rather than a party; often at sunrise, outdoors.Music
- Families
- The tenth pillar: Spiritual Land is designed for the whole family, several generations on one ground, rather than for adults with a kids’ corner attached.Families
- Fire keeper
- The person responsible for a fire from the moment it is lit until it is out: wood, water, safety, and staying to the end.Light
- Frequency
- Vibration, in sound and in the body, felt as much as heard; the physical basis of the frequencies pillar, described without pseudoscience.Frequencies
- Gong
- A large bronze disc, struck with a soft mallet, that produces a wash of overlapping tones felt in the body as much as heard.Frequencies
- Grounding
- Coming back into the body and onto the ground, through feet, water, work, food, or simply standing still outside.Spirituality
- Holding space
- Staying fully present with a person or a group while something difficult or large happens, without fixing, steering or leaving.Ceremony
- Integration
- The time and company after a ceremony or strong experience in which it is spoken, settled and carried into ordinary life.Ceremony
- Intentional community
- A group of people who choose to live and work together around shared values and agreements, rather than by accident of geography.Community
- Land art
- Art made in and from the land, with its own materials, built to weather and mostly left where it was made.Art
- Light art
- Art made with light: lanterns, candles, fire sculpture, projection on trees, installations that exist only after dark.Light
- Medicine music
- Songs, often simple and repetitive, made to be sung together in ceremony and at the fire, for their effect on the people singing rather than for performance.Music
- Permaculture
- A way of designing land and settlements so that water, soil, plants, animals and people support each other, modelled on how a healthy ecosystem works.Ecology
- Regenerative land
- Land managed so that it gains life each year: more soil, more water held, more trees, more species, measured rather than claimed.Ecology
- Rewilding
- Deliberately leaving parts of the land alone so that wild processes, and wild species, return on their own.Ecology
- Ritual
- A small act repeated until it carries meaning on its own: the bell at dawn, hands washed before the shared meal, one true thing at the evening circle.Ritual
- Sacred space
- A place protected, by agreement and by care, long enough for the unperformed version of you to show up.Spirituality
- Sharing circle
- A group seated in a ring where one person speaks at a time, uninterrupted, and nobody fixes, argues with or comments on what is said.Community
- Sound bath
- Lying down while a practitioner plays gongs, bowls and other instruments around you for thirty to sixty minutes; you do nothing.Frequencies
- Stewardship
- Caring for a place on behalf of those who come after, rather than owning it for what it can yield now.Ecology
- Sweat lodge
- A low, dark, dome-shaped structure in which hot stones and water make steam, for rounds of heat, silence and song held by an experienced leader.Ceremony
- Toning
- Sustaining simple vowel sounds with the voice, alone or in a circle, for the physical and emotional effect of the vibration.Frequencies