Episode 116: We Are Avon | The Power of Pilgrimage

Episode 116 is a live panel recording from last months We Are Avon gathering themed around the Power of Pilgrimage.

 If you're a regular listener, you'll know about place-based initiative and bioregional project, We Are Avon, based in the Avon Valley in the West of England, where I live.

We Are Avon is a place-based movement working to regenerate the landscapes, rivers, and communities of the Avon catchment.

Across Spaceship Earth, people in growing numbers are recognising that the crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, water pollution, and food insecurity are deeply interconnected.

The health of our rivers reflect the health of our landscapes and the wellbeing of our communities.

The Avon river connects more than five hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, two cities, and nineteen towns across a single watershed. If the Avon flourishes, the entire region flourishes.

So We Are Avon exists to catalyse this transformation, and we're bringing together farmers, growers, citizens, landowners, conservationists, artists, activists, organizations, and local communities to restore the river, regenerate land and food systems, and to co-create a thriving bioregion that's rooted in care for place.

I am currently one of the co-directors and have released several episodes from panels and live events that we've been doing in the last 18 months, and this episode is another of those.

This was recorded live as a panel at our May community gathering at the Finisterre store in Bath.

This conversation is an exploration around the power of pilgrimage, the ancient practice of walking land and rivers as a way to connect us back to self, each other, and the landscapes we're part of.

We hosted special guest, Zofia Page, Executive director and Co-founder of Friends of the River Medway, an innovative non-profit restoring the river while reconnecting people to it as a living presence. Her work weaves together ecological action; the Rights of Nature movement; and a renewed, enchanted relationship with the more-than-human world.

Over six years, she has brought the Medway from background to foreground through conservation, citizen science, advocacy, art, storytelling, and ceremony. Her vision found its fullest expression in the River Medway Pilgrimage, a pioneering source-to-sea journey that led to two councils acknowledging the Rights of the River Medway.

Alongside Zofia was Hamish Evans, regenerative farmer of Middle Ground Growers here in Bath, River Pilgrim, prefigurative activist, and fellow co-director in We Are Avon.

This was a conversation about the practice of pilgrimage.

What is it?

What have these two learned from their experiences, and how might more of us step up and get involved?

This was a beautiful conversation with two extraordinary young change-makers who carry incredible vision, wisdom, humility and dedication to our home planet.

In a time where mainstream reality is falling apart rapidly, perhaps these ancient practices of walking the land, moving through landscapes together in community might offer us different perspectives, deeper connections, and other ways of seeing this moment and the future that we’re being invited into co-creating.

The We Are Avon pilgrimage is this solstice weekend.

The Medway is 18th to the 27th of July.

Everyone is welcome to walk as much or as little as you like, links below, there are river movements rising like springs all over the UK. Find one near you and find out what's yours to do.