Remembering the Future: A Journey with the Earth Elders
Photo credit: Courtney Louise / The King’s Foundation
In early July, Ostara supported a group of indigenous elders on a journey across the UK — a quiet pilgrimage to reconnect with sacred sites, ancestral waters, and centres of learning. The Earth Elders, who carry deep cultural, ecological, and spiritual knowledge from across the Americas, the Pacific, and Africa, have been close collaborators of Ostara since our founding. Our relationship began in June 2024, when we sat together in circle around a fire at the Oxford Nature-Based Solutions Conference — a fire that marked the launch of Ostara.
The Earth Elders’ visit to the UK began with an extraordinary day — again around a fire at Highgrove, hosted by His Majesty the King. You can read more about that gathering in this BBC article. I had the honour of designing and accompanying the journey that followed: from the wild valley of Embercombe, to the ancient spring of Blick Mead — the cradle of Stonehenge — to the halls of Oxford University. This was not a tour or a delegation. It was a deliberate invitation to walk together, to listen, and to begin restoring relationships between people, place, and knowledge.
At Ostara, we believe that meaningful systems change, and our ability to reimagine the future, cannot happen through policy and innovation alone. It must be rooted in reconnection: to self, to community, and to the Earth. We are living in a time when many of our dominant systems — economic, political, even ecological — are unravelling. But alongside this collapse, we see new possibilities emerging. This journey invited us to ask what becomes possible when Indigenous wisdom is brought into meaningful dialogue with Western thinking, not as an add-on, but as a guide toward a different future. A future we will only find if we walk together — blending ancient and modern ways of knowing, being, and imagining what comes next.
Embercombe: Youth and Elders in Circle
When the Earth Elders arrived at Embercombe — a hidden valley in Devon and a place that pairs inner growth with outer action — they were welcomed with song by the young participants of The Catalyst, a transformational programme for 18–25-year-olds. We sat in circle around the fire, sharing stories and reflections. For the Elders, it was a powerful shift from high-level conversations in royal gardens to the raw, real presence of the next generation. They spoke with weight and hope: reminders that wisdom must pass from generation to generation, not as instruction but as invitation.
The next morning, the Elders walked the land with Mac Macartney, Embercombe’s founder, who shared stories of the valley’s transformation over the past 25 years from overgrazed pasture to a thriving sanctuary where people connect deeply to the wild land around them and their wild nature within. At the Stone Circle, we paused in reverence. The Elders shared how they felt a deep resonance there — a sense of connection with other sacred places and other communities doing the work of remembering. A fire was started with a traditional hand drill, and as the ember came to life, it was passed from person to person, each of us breathing it into flame. A quiet ritual of shared breath and continuity.
Blick Mead: The Memory of Water
From Embercombe, we travelled to Blick Mead: an ancient spring near Stonehenge with evidence of continuous human settlement for over 10,000 years. It has often been called the ‘Cradle of Stonehenge’. Charlotte Pulver, a long-time guardian of the spring, led us in ceremony at the water’s edge. As the Elders made offerings, ancient Yew trees stood in silent witness. It felt like a conversation with the land itself.
The water from the ceremony was carried to Stonehenge and poured onto the stones, and a few drops were added to a vial the Elders carried with them — waters from sacred sites around the world, now joined by this place and this moment.
Oxford: Listening in Circle
Our time in Oxford brought the journey full circle — not in conclusion, but as a deeper point of inquiry. The Earth Elders were welcomed by professors, researchers, and students working on nature-based solutions and exploring what nature-centric education might mean. But instead of gathering in rows, we sat together in circle. The Elders shared their vision for a University of Mother Earth and the Houses of Original Thought, and spoke with clarity and humility about what true knowledge exchange could look like.
They reminded us that Indigenous knowledge cannot be an afterthought or an inclusion. It must be centred — alongside the Earth herself — as a teacher. As one Earth Elder said…
We are not relics of a past world. We are the here and now. We remember the future.
It was a powerful reminder that this is not about going backwards, but about learning to walk forward differently.
We explored what it might mean for one of the world’s oldest institutions of Western learning to begin listening differently: to nature, to place, to ancestral memory. It was not a conversation with answers, but an opening. A possibility. A beginning.
A Personal Reflection
For me, this journey was a profound reminder that change doesn’t only happen in big institutions or policy rooms. Reimagining the future happens in quiet moments of coming together — sitting in circle, lighting a fire, listening and remembering. I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to experience some of these moments alongside the Earth Elders, and to carry a part of this experience forward in the work I now do.
