Details:
Date: Friday 9th – Sunday 11th July (evening finish)
Retreat Leader: Paul Wielgus
Requirements: This gathering is for the curious, the weary, the wild-hearted. No previous experience is needed—just a willingness to be surprised by your own aliveness. Whether you come alone or with friends, you’ll be met with warmth, spaciousness, and good compost for your soul.
Cost: Generosity Model – Donation only (by clicking the ‘Donate Here’ button below). Land of Joy provides: All meals, accommodation, workshops, materials and good firewood for soulful nights.
Format: Onsite only / Retreat begins: 7pm on the 9th July / Retreat ends: 11th July at approx 9pm
Recommended arrival: 3pm – 5pm to join for supper and get settled into the space
Accommodation: Land of Joy wishes for everyone who visits the centre to feel welcome, accepted, safe and secure. Our accommodation options are very limited, with mostly single-sex shared accommodation and a very limited number of single rooms. Single accommodation can therefore only be offered on a priority basis. Please read the relevant sections of the booking form carefully.
About the Retreat
How do we stay open to life when the world around us can feel uncertain, painful or overwhelming?
Falling in Love with Life is a weekend gathering exploring what helps us come more fully alive—and how that aliveness can become part of a wise and compassionate response to the times in which we are living.
Following in the spirit of Falling in Love with the Future, this retreat offers space to pause, reconnect and rediscover the qualities that help us meet uncertainty without becoming overwhelmed or closing down. You don’t need to have attended the previous retreat; everyone is welcome.
We will make room for what is difficult in our world, while also turning towards what nourishes and sustains us: rest, connection, imagination, joy, wonder and our relationship with the living world.
The beautiful surroundings of Land of Joy will be an important part of the weekend. Stepping away from everyday pressures and into the landscape gives us an opportunity to slow down, listen and remember that we are part of something larger than ourselves.
Rather than searching for ready-made answers to the challenges of our time, we will explore the inner and collective conditions from which more loving, courageous and imaginative responses might grow.
What Will be Offered?
The weekend will weave together the Four Wells of Rest, Connection, Imagination and Joy—not as separate subjects, but as sources we can return to and draw upon in our lives.
- Through the weekend there will be opportunities for:
- Meditation and quiet reflection
- Shared enquiry and meaningful conversation
- Time immersed in the landscape and natural world
- Creativity, imagination and play
- Gentle movement and embodied practices
- Ritual and shared moments of connection
- Rest, spaciousness and time simply to be
Together, we will explore Howard Thurman’s invitation to discover what makes us come alive—and what might happen when we allow that aliveness to shape the way we meet ourselves, one another and the world.
Who is This For?
This retreat is open to anyone who feels drawn to pause, reconnect and explore what it means to live fully in uncertain times.
It may particularly speak to you if you:
- Feel weary or overwhelmed by what is happening in the world
- Long for more connection, meaning or aliveness in everyday life
- Want to reconnect with nature and your own sense of belonging
- Are curious about the role of joy, imagination and creativity in difficult times
- Would value time with others to reflect, explore and simply be
No previous retreat, meditation or other experience is needed. Those who joined Falling in Love with the Future are warmly invited to continue the journey, while those joining for the first time will be equally at home.
Why Attend?
This weekend offers an opportunity to step away from the noise and demands of everyday life and reconnect with what helps you feel genuinely alive.
You’ll have space to:
- Rest and replenish
- Reconnect with yourself, others and the natural world
- Explore what nourishes your own sense of aliveness
- Make room for both the difficulties and beauty of being alive
- Rediscover imagination, wonder and possibility
- Explore how greater connection with life might shape the way you meet the world
A weekend of resting, reconnecting and reawakening—falling in love with life, coming alive together, and allowing that love to guide how we meet the world.
About the Retreat Leader
Paul Wielgus
Paul spent a large part of his working life facilitating groups of all sizes, as well as one to one coaching, up until 1999 when he left a large organisation to set up his 2 businesses, Dragonfly Coaching For Life and Social Innovation (2020 Vision)
In 2019 he decided to stop all his commercial life to dedicate his time to activism with Extinction Rebellion and XR Buddhists
His core belief (and experience) is that in activism and in life, the most important thing is to learn not how to fix things, but instead to try to learn how to find creative and courageous, kind and wise responses to the many challenges we face. Finding Joy is a key aspect of this work.
He live in Somerset with his lovely partner Ros, where a significant part of their lives is dedicated to serving their unpredictable cat, Olly.