About Kate Gathercole
Contact
kate@aluladown.uk
Herefordshire, England, UK
In recent years my work has been focused on a variety of approaches to engagement and change-making, finding ways of exploring the feelings of separation that we feel, and bringing people into a place of greater connection with themselves, their community, and the more-than-human world.
Art, music, therapeutic interventions, permaculture and group work all have a role to play in catalyzing this change, and for me they meet in my work with Cultural Emergence.
My work is relational, with experience in environmental advocacy, community activism, event/project management, & group facilitation. I am also a registered homeopath, and practiced in gestalt based and Balint group work.
I am mother to three lovely grown children, and I currently share a small-holding on a hillside with a double bass player, hens, dog, cat, bats, beautiful trees, and enough flowers, fruit and vegetables to keep us happy through the year.
As a folk singer, musician and artist, I draw my relationship with nature into my work, and this creativity is also fundamental to the way I like to work with groups. In facilitation I aim to support and enable - opening up space for change, encouraging curiosity, recognising the wisdom of the group, and working with ‘what is’.
I met Looby when she was introducing People & Permaculture to the world. The work immediately resonated for me in the way it combines therapeutic and wisdom based understanding with approaches applicable to community activism. I have recently supported Looby in the online teaching of Cultural Emergence courses.
"What is magic? In the deepest sense, magic is an experience. It's the experience of finding oneself alive within a world that is itself alive…”
David Abram
What Kate Offers
Courses I can facilitate:
- Cultural Emergence courses (including ACE / CEED & PEACE) in collaboration with other facilitators.
- Custom made courses drawing on elements of nature connection practice / permaculture / art & music / therapeutic working
Services:
- 1 to 1 mentoring / consultancy, with particular support for those working in or with community / activist / Transition Town groups
- Cultural Emergence and Permaculture design work
Kate's Permaculture Work
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground
Rumi
I completed my Permaculture Diploma in 2021. My Diploma work included traditional land based designs, social permaculture designs, cultural emergence designs, designs that focused on organisational change, designs that developed opportunities for creativity, designs that felt supportive, and designs that felt transformative.
The designs I discuss in my presentation (video below) wove permaculture principles and methods with other approaches, including appreciative inquiry, logical levels, The Work That Reconnects, gestalt and homeopathic philosophy, as well as the principles and core routines of Cultural Emergence.
I have continued to develop permaculture and cultural emergence designs since completing my diploma, in relation to the area of land where I live and in the communities where I work in Herefordshire. I find the Design Web and 8 Shields Model both provide really dynamic and inspiring frameworks for workshop planning, creative work and personal development.
Kate's Music
Over the years my musical projects have been varied. They currently include:
Alula Down,
Mixing traditional folk song with found and manipulated sounds. Our four seasonal albums ‘Postcards from Godley Moor’, drew strongly on the tradition of listening practice taught in Cultural Emergence and wisdom cultures. The ‘Summer Postcards' were The Guardian newspaper’s Folk Album of the Month in August 2020.
More here: https://aluladown.bandcamp.com
rushes/esp
A four-piece experimental group creating original improvised soundscapes drawing on traditions in folk, free jazz, electronic music, minimalism and drone. “Improv is the art of being in the moment, absolutely attuned to your instincts” Emily C-D.
More here: https://rushes-esp.bandcamp.com/releases
Bushelbag Carollers
A four voice harmony a-cappella singing troupe, we sing seasonal folk songs, joining wassails and festivals to celebrate the enduring power of song and our relationship with the land.
More here: https://www.instagram.com/bushelbag_carollers/
‘We are poets because we have words on our tongues, and in our hearts. Through poetry we participate in the re-enchantment of the world.’
Teo Bishop
Kate's Homeopathy Practice
“The yield of a system is theoretically unlimited”
Bill Mollison
Like permaculture, homeopathy operates with complex systems. It is an approach to healthcare that recognises emergence and interconnectedness, and that engages with the energetic potential animating all things. Over the years I have been privileged to work with many great teachers and patients - and I am hugely grateful to all of them for all I have learnt.
In 2004, working with my homeopathic colleagues in Hereford, we set up a charity that for many years provided homeopathy free of charge to users of local services, including Women’s Aid and the local drug & alcohol support project.
A link to my homeopathic practice is here: https://kategathercole.uk
Working with Community
“Use the intelligence of co-operating hearts”
Cultural Emergence principle
In 2010 I co-founded and coordinated a regional ‘Transition’ network in Herefordshire, working for more than a decade with an alliance that over this time grew to more than 80 groups, organisations and businesses, reaching out to diverse communities, and developing a voice at strategic level in the county. ‘Herefordshire Green Network’ (HGN) remains successfully integrated into the life of Herefordshire, and continues to develop innovative projects of relevance to people, community and the local environment.
More here: https://hgnetwork.org