Refugia
where life insists
‘How to matter, and not just want to matter?’
Donna J Haraway
Refugia robustly supports you in the courage to feel what it is to be alive together in these times of trouble, through small community and 1-1 support.
Held over 6 months, Refugia is a therapeutic space of conversation, reflection and encounter, supporting you in growing awareness and resourcefulness in relation to our collective context. We'll meet one another at the threshold of learning and unlearning, deepening into all we know and all that cannot yet be known. This is a space of depth and dimension, where timelines convene - the wounds and wisdom of the past, the textures of the present, and the future reimagined.
“The darker the circumstance, the more brilliant the invitation.”
Less ‘programme’, more practice
Refugia is for those feeling alarmed and unsteady with the language of polycrisis, collapse and fascism, for those who at times feel frozen by the seeming speed and fragmentation of these times, for those longing for rest as well as for participation…and amongst it all, heeding the irresistible, irrepressible call back to life.
Guided by conversational encounter, shared reading and therapeutic writing practices, we will navigate our individual and relational responses to the current realities. During our time together we will consider, explore and contextualise these realities, all the while rooting ourselves in the safe enough experience of slow, curious and nourishing connection.
Refugia means ‘a small space of safety where life endures’. Indeed, life in this space can thrive among us, even when surrounded by adversity. The terrain we might explore is vast and terrific, and to some extent we will only come to know it by what emerges from our togetherness.
Fine writers and thinkers who will accompany us along the way include Donna Haraway, Báyò Akómoláfé, Audre Lorde, Rebecca Solnit and Francis Weller, to name just a few. My intention is to keep the texts we read together short(ish) and freely accessible.
Some of the themes and ideas that may support us along the way:
~ making kin in a time of acceleration
~ narrative and throughtopia
~ decolonising ways of being
~ safe uncertainty
~ response-ability and nervous system awareness
~ relational friction and agility
~ grief, shame and shutdown
~ rest, joy, and aliveness
‘We are intertwined with each other - and we are derived not from some distant source, but from each other.’
- Báyò Akómoláfé
Gathering on fortnightly Tuesday mornings from January to June, there will be an online community space called The Well, and a monthly 1-1 reflection and support session with myself.
There are 6 spaces, and we begin on Tuesday 27th January.
Refugia is £1320 - a monthly payment of £220 - and alternative payment plans are possible. I have 2 spaces at a reduced rate of 50%, which are made available to people who would experience financial distress paying full price, and/or who are unable to work due to caring responsibilities, illness or disability.
If you’re feeling the glimmer of curiosity I'd love to hear from you - please contact me just below or you can email me directly at ruthcoatescounselling@gmail.com. We might arrange a call to explore the possibilities, or we can exhange a few messages or voicenotes.
‘Within each of us there is some piece of humanness that knows we are not being served by the machine which orchestrates crisis after crisis and is grinding all our futures into dust.’
- Audre Lorde