Grounded Gathering 2019 at Deepwater

Grounded Gathering is back for it’s 4th edition. This time we will gather in Ngarabal country, just outside of Deepwater (NSW).

Our annual Gathering is split in to two parts. The first is a five-day, hands-on, workshop program for a small group of participants (we call them ‘sprouts’) ready to invest in their future through practical education tied to projects happening on the site. Then as the weekend rolls in, we open up the space for all the ‘pollinators’ to come in and celebrate with a good ol’ fashioned permaculture action party.

Some people have called it a “Festival”, but we don’t use the “F” word. It is a gathering of a like-minded soul-tribe that believe in the power of permaculture ethics and principles to guide our decision making and heal our sacred connection to country, community and culture.

We love to party, but we approach it in a more holistic sense. Flipping the latest catch phrases on their head we are “building a trace” and “increasing our environmental impact” in ways that restore harmony with our great mother and ourselves.

The crew behind Grounded have been contributing to the transformational festival scene for many years. It has been a catalyst for the evolution of our feelings, thoughts, words and actions. However, it’s time for those events to continue to evolve, and we’re now working with the best ones to bring retreats and more permaculture action to their parties.

Our approach is a natural evolution of the same expression. We not here to to throw the most hedonistic party we can and then try and make it ‘sustainable’, that approach is old hat. With our best efforts and highest intentions, we use the ethics and principles of permaculture to organise a truly Grounded Gathering.

We’re always challenging ourselves to respect and reconnect with country, community and culture.

We hope you can join us this coming Autumn Equinox for Grounded Gathering 2019… see below for music and workshop program details!

Practical Workshops (18th-22nd)
When working and living on the land, the list of things to do is never ending. Grounded works in partnership with landholders to develop infrastructure onsite that serves not only our Gathering, but the site and local community thereafter. Below is a list of workshops that will be happening for the small group of participants during the week.

Permaculture Ethics & Principles (w/ Annaliese Hordern)
Annaliese is a passionate Permaculture, sustainability and community development educator, with a strong focus on Ethnobotanical research. She strives to evolve the Permaculture Design Course curriculum and advanced classes so that it inspires participants toward personal and global change.

Annaliese has undertaken numerous advanced Permaculture trainings around the globe, documenting Permaculture pioneers and next generation practitioners. She has visited and lived on many Eco-communities demonstrating inspiring examples of sustainability – infusing these influences into her transformative education programs through Symbiotic Nature and into a one acre Permaculture property on the Sunshine Coast, QLD.

Her workshop on ‘Permaculture Ethics & Principles’ is an interactive and engaging session designed to give participants a solid grounding in the essence of permaculture.

Cultivating Group Ecology (w/ Erin Young / Thriving People, Better World)
Erin Young is a change-maker who works with regenerative people systems, supporting thriving people for a better world. With over 12 years of interaction with humans and nature, Erin now works as a trainer, facilitator and pollinator of Social Permaculture and whole-systems design for human systems.

With a core drive to build the literacy of ‘humans as ecology’, Erin’s facilitation and education sessions use sharing circles and Dynamic Group facilitation, activating groups for empowered and holistic interactions. ? Erin holds a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering (Hons) from Brisbane’s Griffith University (2004), and gained her first permaculture design certificate in 2010 in Portugal. Based on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia, Erin lives with her husband in a cottage in the forest within a regional community of practical joy-filled creatives.

Fermentation (w/ mystery guest)
Catching and storing the energy of fresh produce is one of the mainstay’s of permaculture and human societies since we started this experiement called agriculture. This hands on workshop will have participants in the kitchen learning the basics of fermentation.

Wicking Garden Beds (w/ Patrick Nufer)
Patrick (aka Patch) is all about the fair share of homegrown goodness. He started Organic Flow Gardening in early 2018 after a seven year journey through various horticulture industries with the goal to make growing produce at home easy and affordable for his neighbours and local community. He specialises in soil health, home composting and up-cycling materials with a Permaculture twist.

Patch’s workshop will focus building wicking garden beds out of recycled, repurposed and easily accessible materials. Wicking beds water plants from below rather than above. They’re basically containers with water reservoirs at the base – like a giant self-watering pot. Moisture is drawn up through the soil via a process called capillary action or wicking.

Mainframe Design & Farm Tour (w/ Geoff Lawton)
Spending a full day on site Wednesday 20th March, Geoff will share some of his permaculture journey and give participants an insight into the concept of Mainframe Design and how it has been applied to Strachan Farm, the site of our 2019 gathering.

We know many people might want to sit in on this session and so we have opened up this day as a one day workshop for locals and super keen beans to join in. Follow this link to register for the single day workshop.

Felt Workshop (w/ mystery guest)
Since the site of our gathering is a working sheep farm, it is only fitting that we run a felt workshop to give participants a taste of working with wool. More details on this to come!

Peaceful, Effective Activism & Bushfood Walk (w/ Jake Cassar Bushcraft)

Jake is a Bushcraft teacher specialising in edible & medicinal wild plants (natives & weeds). He utilises his Bushcraft to mentor young people in need of direction and to draw attention to environmental causes in his local area. He also do music therapy with disabled adults weekly and works as a singer/musician.

Jake is not into fluffy spirituality.. he believes in taking action to create change and taking responsibility for our community and environment.

Ecological Identity (w/ Ahri Tallon)

Ahri Tallon is a community development practitioner working to organise and build community cohesion and power. With a long history of experience in environmental and progressive movements, he seeks opportunities to work collaboratively to create groups, inspire participation, engage networks, organise events and run programs. Particularly through creating more cooperative economic structures and facilitating cathartic experiential group processes, Ahri seeks to support the creation of a more self-aware and loving world.

Plant Trees and Party (22nd-24th):

When the weekend rolls in, we harness the collective power of community to hold ceremony, celebrate and facilitate some permaculture action!

Friday is the day to arrive, set up camp, chill out and settle in. After a hearty sunset meal we starting cranking the choonz to warm up the gathering for the weekend.

Saturday is the big day. After a morning dub-yoga session and tasty breakfast, we will immerse ourselves into a whole range of workshops and permaculture actions happening around the site. With many hands, those daunting tasks required to regenerate land become light work and we knock out literally hundreds of man hours before lunch. The afternoon is spotted with a some more workshops and short talks before the opening ceremony and celebration kicks things up a notch for the big feast and nights celebrations.

Come Sunday we wind it back a little. We facilitate some more permaculture action and workshops in the morning and then from lunch we fire up the sound system again to kick back and enjoy the electronic sounds of some of the freshest producers around, dishing out a healthy dose of grounded bass frequencies.