An Emergence Magazine retreat with Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

Dates: Thursday, April 25th – Sunday, April 28th, 2024

Location: Sharpham Trust, Devon, United Kingdom

Fee: £390 – £590, depending on accommodation choice. Fees include everything but travel. Needs-based financial assistance is available for some (see additional details in the expression of interest form).

The retreat is currently full. If you would like to be put on the waiting list, please complete this form expressing your interest to join and we will notify you via email as soon as possible regarding availability.

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In the face of our ecological unraveling, time as we know it is rupturing. Around the world, buds bloom too early, winters don’t quite arrive, and time bends as long-buried carbons emerge to haunt the future. As we increasingly run out of time, accelerating towards climate catastrophe, how can we free ourselves from the clutch of the minute hand and embrace the possibilities inherent in every moment? 

This April, join us in the ancient and mysterious region of Dartmoor, in Devon, England for a four-day retreat led by Sufi teacher and Emergence’s founder and executive editor Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee that will consider how we can attune to a sense of time rooted in the living world. 

Expanding upon Emergence’s forthcoming print edition, Vol 5: TIME, this gathering will open participants to move beyond the time-bound consciousness of control, separation, and linearity we have created, and towards a different kind of time in which we are attentive to our present moment of ecological crisis and transformation. Through talks, writing workshops, storytelling, meditation, and nature connection practices, we will remember the primordial cycles and rhythms of the Earth.

An Emergence Magazine retreat with Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

Dates: Friday, May 23rd - Monday, May 26th, 2025

Location: Whidbey Institute, Washington, USA

Fee: $900–$490, depending on accommodation choice. Fees include everything but travel. Needs-based financial assistance is available for some (see additional details in the expression of interest form).

Please contact events@emergencemagazine.org if you have any questions.

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The Earth’s seasons have always been an essential gateway to the continual revelation of creation, renewal, growth, decay and death that underpins all of existence. For generations, they have been at the foundation of our cultures, spiritual traditions, and the many rituals and ceremonies that pay homage to the cyclical nature of life. And while these offerings and celebrations have traditionally helped align us with the rhythms present within the living world, long-celebrated seasonal moments—the migration of geese, the arrival of blossoms, the return of rainfall––are slipping away as the Earth begins to turn to a different tune. Even when modern life insulates us from Earth’s subtle fluctuations in response to a rapidly changing climate, can we remember to hear the song of the seasons that calls us always into relationship? 

In May 2025, join us on Whidbey Island in Washington State, USA, during the liminal space between Spring and Summer, for a four-day retreat that will open pathways into rooted ways of being with the Earth’s circle of life as it shifts and transforms. Attentive to the seasonal markers that have been lost and the essential rhythms that remain, we will explore what it means to renew and honor our evolving connection with the cycles of creation.  

Led by Emergence executive editor and Sufi teacher Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, this retreat will encourage participants to turn their attention to the deeper patterns around and within through spaces of requiem, invitation, and celebration—each offering a way to remember and realign with the Earth’s many rhythms. Through talks, nature connection practices, meditation, discussion and writing workshops, we will look toward an ancient understanding of seasonality, place, and cycle amid the discord of our time.

We are also holding a similar retreat in Devon, England from June 26 – 29, 2025. You can learn more and apply for that retreat here.

An Emergence Magazine retreat with Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

Dates: Thursday, June 26th (check-in 3-5pm) – Sunday, June 29th, 2025 (departure at 12pm)

Location: Sharpham Trust, Devon, United Kingdom

Fee: £630 – £485, depending on accommodation choice. Fees include everything but travel. Needs-based financial assistance is available for some (see additional details in the expression of interest form).

Please contact events@emergencemagazine.org if you have any questions.

---------------------------------------------------------------

The Earth’s seasons have always been an essential gateway to the continual revelation of creation, renewal, growth, decay and death that underpins all of existence. For generations, they have been at the foundation of our cultures, spiritual traditions, and the many rituals and ceremonies that pay homage to the cyclical nature of life. And while these offerings and celebrations have traditionally helped align us with the rhythms present within the living world, long-celebrated seasonal moments—the migration of geese, the arrival of blossoms, the return of rainfall––are slipping away as the Earth begins to turn to a different tune. Even when modern life insulates us from Earth’s subtle fluctuations in response to a rapidly changing climate, can we remember to hear the song of the seasons that calls us always into relationship? 

In June 2025, in the wake of the summer solstice, join us along the ancient and magical River Dart in Devon, England, for a four-day retreat that will open pathways into rooted ways of being with the Earth’s circle of life as it shifts and transforms. Attentive to the seasonal markers that have been lost and the essential rhythms that remain, we will explore what it means to renew and honor our evolving connection with the cycles of creation.

Led by Emergence executive editor and Sufi teacher Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, this retreat will encourage participants to turn their attention to the deeper patterns around and within through spaces of requiem, invitation, and celebration—each offering a way to remember and realign with the Earth’s many rhythms. Through talks, nature connection practices, meditation, discussion and writing workshops, we will look toward an ancient understanding of seasonality, place, and cycle amid the discord of our time.

We are also holding a similar retreat on Whidbey Island, Washington, USA from May 23 – 26, 2025. You can learn more and apply for that retreat here. 

We’re looking for stories that explore the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. We’re interested in both local and global stories that are in-depth and narrative-focused. We consider long-form content as well as shorter, time-sensitive pieces that offer a more immediate response to current events. This includes: essays, op-eds, poetry, films, photography, multimedia, and audio stories. We only consider unpublished works or online premieres for film, photography, and multimedia. Being familiar with the work we publish can help you see if your story will align with our editorial impulse. In addition to general pitches and submissions, we are interested in new work that explores the following two themes: Seasons and Ecology of Intelligence.
 

Seasons. The Earth’s seasons have always been an essential gateway to the continual revelation of creation, renewal, growth, decay and death that underpins all of existence. Generation after generation, the seasons have been at the foundation of our cultures, spiritual traditions, and the many rituals and ceremonies that pay homage to the cyclical nature of creation. These offerings and celebrations have traditionally helped align us with the rhythms and patterns present within the living Earth.

Yet modern life, detached from a kinship with the land and dominated by mechanization and human-centric activities, insulates us from Earth’s subtle fluctuations. The hegemony of the Northern Hemisphere’s four-season cycle masks the many changes that make each place unique—evident in the seventy-two microseasons of traditional Japanese calendars, or the seven seasonal spells celebrated by the Wurundjeri people in Melbourne, Australia. And with unprecedented transformation accelerating across our landscapes, the Earth is veering out of synch with any kind of seasonal calendar, ancient or new. As the biosphere warms, ecosystems collapse, and weather patterns become erratic, the steady and stable turning of the seasons we’ve come to expect is disappearing. Long-celebrated seasonal moments—the migration of geese, the arrival of blossoms, the return of rainfall––are slipping away as the Earth moves toward new rhythms.  

For this theme, we invite contributions aligning with the following three movements: 

Requiem: In a time when the birds who once marked the beginning of Spring are silent; when the heat of Summer wipes out a harvest; when a land of root-protecting snow is dry and bare come Winter, what does it mean to celebrate the seasons? How can we grieve and pay tribute to what has been lost? What would it mean to create a requiem for the seasons?

Invitation: How might we learn to once again be attentive to the ecological gestures that herald the Earth’s transitions? As the seasons detach from familiar patterns, how can we remember an ancient understanding of seasonality and place, and invite a renewed consciousness of our boundedness within the shifting Earth? 

Celebration: What rituals and traditions bring us into a space of receptivity, connection, and reverence for the seasons? In a transforming world, how do we renew and honor our evolving relationship with the cycles of life? What can we reach for in celebration amid loss and collapse? What emerges as new markers of the nature of creation?

We are interested in experiences of seasons from different latitudes and that come out of close relationship with a specific place, conveyed through essays, reportage, and photography, as well as shorter (1-2 page) expressions of the seasons in the form of poetry, brief lyrical essays, micro-fiction, practices, recipes, guides, illustrations, and the like. These could be from a human perspective or a more-than-human perspective. 

Ecology of Intelligence. So deep-rooted is the belief that intelligence belongs solely to humans that we have equated “intelligence” with “humanness.” Insular and hubristic, this view has meant we only recognize forms of intelligence that resemble our own. Yet in the face of ecological unraveling, the false hierarchies and categorizations that have perpetuated our separation from the living world are fracturing, opening us up to the existence of entirely different forms of intelligence. If we can look beyond ourselves, to the creativity, flexibility, inventiveness, and adaptability of other organisms, what opportunities does the present moment hold for engaging in collaboration with a multitude of intelligences? Recognizing our entanglement with the more-than-human world, how might we reimagine our limited ways of knowing into an ecology of intelligence? 

For this theme, we’re inviting contributions that align with the following sub-themes: 

Expanding the definition of intelligence: As we begin to recognize that every sentient being occupies a unique sensory landscape that engenders a place-specific perception of the world, how might we recognize differences in intelligence based on how we interact with the biosphere? Beyond focusing on attributes we associate with the human, such as spoken and symbolic language, logical reasoning, and self-awareness, what other ways of making sense of the world, of relating to place, can we come to regard as intelligence? 

Embracing more-than-human intelligences: Instead of uplifting the intelligence of animals whose abilities resemble those of humans, what would it mean to meet and learn from nonhuman intelligences on their own terms? How do other beings demonstrate rich and complex forms of language and relationships? What are the possibilities for collaborative knowledge-making between species? What new ways of doing and being might be learned in the joining of human knowledge with the knowledge held within ecosystems?

Ecologizing artificial intelligence: If we recognize that our technologies are continuous with the natural world—that our machines are made of and from the Earth—how does that change the way we construct them? Instead of envisioning an AI-driven future that further insulates the human from the natural, can we instead build technologies to reflect, and help us recognize, other kinds of intelligence and the ways we are intimately connected to the world?

Below is a list of our pitch and submission requirements.
Pitches:

• Pitches must be 500 words or less.
• Clearly outline the story you want to tell, explain what makes it interesting, why it matters now, and what perspective or reporting you will bring to it.
• In 200 words or less, include why you think this story is a fit for Emergence.
• Include your bio and links to previously published work or portfolios if you have them.

Submissions: 

• In no more than 500 words, include a description of the work.
• In 200 words or less, include why you think this story is a fit for Emergence.
• Please include essays, op-eds, and poetry as an unpublished online link (Google Docs or similar).
• For films, provide a password-protected Vimeo link.
• For photography, multimedia, and audio stories, provide a link to view work on Dropbox or Google Drive.
• Include your bio and links to previously published work or portfolios if you have them.

Please note that we receive a high volume of submissions and cannot respond to every inquiry. We’ll be in touch if we’d like to pursue your story.