This is part II of the blogpost series In appley cycles – Tales from the micro orchard , which takes you into the world of small rituals – specifically ways to arrive into new places and create intentional spaces for workshop sessions.
The Nordic Summer University is migratory, always held in rather remote places in the Nordics or Baltics – places one might otherwise probably not visit. Arriving in a new place calls me to explore with an attempt to encounter, learn and acclimatise.
That includes finding the human hotspots and wild ones, sensing the more-than-human beings, the plant-scape, the bodies of water and the rhythms of weather and light.
Where does the sun rise and set? What is abundant here? What is ripe now? What is wild and what is cultivated? What are the smells and colours and stories? How does it all create a unique ecosystem?
Working with plant allies to create intentional spaces
When I facilitate even short sessions, I like to work with small rituals that create an intentional frame and increase presence and engagement. A week-long Nordic Summer University (NSU) with its dense program benefits from such “digestive helpers”, especially during this year’s heatwave in Finland, which wrapped us in sizzling, humid air, making bodies and minds sticky and a bit slower.
For my session, which was placed at the end of the day and right after a keynote, I therefore chose a more sensuous ritual with a local herb and flower iced tea to awaken the participants’ senses, facilitate a reset to transition from one topic to a new one and stimulate the groups’ focus on the natural world even when we were inside.
In the days before the session I had explored the land around and scouted for potential plant allies for the infusion.
The tea was made with foraged wild meadowsweet (flowers and leaves), yarrow, nettle, alongside cultivated calendula and lemon balm from Alkio Opisto College’s small kitchen garden.
I presented the tea and its intention to the group and asked participants to first hold the glass and inhale the scent before taking a sip – and then invited further sipping while I read the poem In appley cycles – Tales from the micro orchard that started the session.
What are the little bodily or sensuous ways you use to create intentional spaces for group workshops and sessions?
Read previous blogposts:
A micro-fermentation of the poem ”in appley cycles” with other alchemists during the NSU Summer Symposium in Finland
During the 2025 Summer Symposium of the Nordic Summer University in Finland, our study circle on the ecology of transformative learning practices with/in a more-than-human world explored the overarching theme of economy, woven through our sessions, practices, and workshops. I hosted a short session on reimagining economies through a poem about practices of reciprocal care between place, humans, and more-than-humans – as a portal to transformative learning and a (possible) shift toward post-anthropocentrism. The 30-minute session invited the group to sense, listen, and share, using In Appley Cycles – Practicing Reciprocal Care and Commoning in the Collective Micro-Orchard as our…
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