Journey

Our journeys are immersive experiences for groups that work on many levels – through a blend of rational and empirical frameworks, reflective and somatic practices, storytelling and sound – to help people examine the reality of the status quo, become more comfortable in uncertainty, explore expansive possibilities for the future, and consider what true transformation will take at the levels of self, group and system. You can read more about the methodology and its stages here on our blog.

This methodology is designed to create high levels of trust, security and empathy, enabling people who are different from one another, and may not have had contact, to relate to each other, listen deeply to each others’ perspectives and, through a held creative process, shape something new and powerful together. 

From 2020-2024, we ran three journeys in place in Barrow-in-Furness (2020), Sheffield (2021) and York (2023). Each of these journeys were months-long projects in which the ground was painstakingly laid through research, relationship-building, partnerships and recruitment of the crews. The purpose of these journeys was to enable a cross-section of people from all walks of life to co-create a sober assessment of the set of interlocking challenges they were facing and, looking at what must change, a narrative of possibility for their town or city’s future and the stars that they can use to orient towards it.

We also ran three leadership journeys; Bold Dreams for Our Future in four parts over 2022, Wayfinding in times of Uncertainty in partnership with Yale’s International Leadership Centre in 2022, and our second Wayfinding journey for a group of international leaders in 2023. 

Within our third area of work around systems, we ran a shorter process, ‘Reimagining Care’ in 2022, to prototype possible work around futures of care and repair. We also undertook a scoping into a possible journey around the financial system in 2023. Then in January 2024 we ran Our Future is Open with a group of 18-25 year olds, in service of young people and future generations.

“I was thinking: what made this different? How would you explain? In the normal world you bifurcate activities that you may do at a spiritual or wellness retreat where you think about your deep presence on earth and you separately work with the family construct, and separately with a work retreat about climate or purposeful connection. What this did which felt unique was it combined these three processes. It called on all of us to work on those three levels. This is not how we live.”

Participant, Wayfinding 2023

We have most frequently run the journey as residential, offline, immersive retreats somewhere beautiful in nature. At its shortest, this happened over several days and at its longest we split the journey into four sections and ran them in harmony with the seasons over the course of a year. Our place-based work happened within those places and communities and was not residential to allow for easier access and participation.