Mindfulness in Nature at Sharpham
When you experience Sharpham's inspiring and nourishing environment, we hope you'll connect spiritually with the natural world, so you’ll:
- become aware of how we are all part of nature - not artificially separate from it
- pay attention to and appreciate the natural world surrounding us
- explore nature through your senses and your natural creativity
- Tread more lightly on our finite planet, developing a respect and reverence for all living things
Our Approach
1. We strive to offer a range of accessible doorways or entry points to mindfulness for people at all stages of their life or mindfulness practice.
2. The way we manage the Trust and its activities should reflect a mindfulness approach in terms of doing so non-reactively, non-judgementally, openheartedly and compassionately.
3. We want our approach to mindfulness and its teaching to be rooted in our principles and our mission of connecting people to nature. As Maurice Ash said, “We and our environment are inseparable.”
4. We believe that mindfulness has an important role to play in addressing the ecological and social challenges of our times and coming to stay at Sharpham offers a unique opportunity to connect and build appreciation and gratitude for the natural world whilst developing mindfulness practice.
5. We aim to cultivate a community of practice that encompasses our teachers, practitioners and the wider community coming together around shared values and practice.
6. Our teachers or retreat leaders should be suitably experienced and qualified for the activities they are delivering and should pursue on-going training, development and mentoring.
“Behind all this there is a further thought: that, as a matter of survival on the land today, new forms of social life will have to be evolved; and that, simultaneously, those forms, and that survival, will require the evolution of a new mentality, a new set of values, in mankind. The Sharpham Trust was devised with all this in mind.”
Maurice Ash
We try to exemplify our principles in practical ways, some examples incude:
• Managing our farm land organically without the use of harmful chemicals
• Generating renewable energy through solar panels on our barns and heating our buildings with large biomass boilers run on wood chip
• Growing our own food and supporting local food suppliers
• Use biodegradable cleaning products
• Promoting wildlife and biodiversity across the estate
• Encouraging greener transport
• Creating a green burial site Sharpham Meadow
