Alex Mrkich is a Teacher of Maths at ICHK. This is his account of a three day retreat and vigil at Kadoorie Farm.

Day 1: We arrived at around 6:00ish, perhaps 20 guests. After an excellent meal, we gathered in a circle, and the organisers asked each of us to discuss a feeling we had. For many people it was "full" from the meal; mine was "exhausted" from work. All the answers were accepted as valid. We discussed the role that nature plays around us, and the organiser encouraged us to think of nature in images, not words, since words are a human construct with thousands of languages - an image is understandable without human language. We were asked about the word "lion" and asked for responses. They included 'wild', 'danger', 'noble' showing how one image can contain many ideas. 

 The organisers firmly discouraged the use of phones, and there was no wifi, so we were all encouraged to speak to each other and live more in the moment.

 Day 2: We began with an early morning discussion of any dreams people had the previous night. The organiser had an excellent grasp of Jungian archetypes, and this was a very interesting discussion.

After an excellent breakfast, we had a discussion of what can be considered sacred. One of the discussion points was that Aboriginal cultures consider all sites to be sacred - hence the need to treat the land everywhere with respect. In the West we consider specific areas to be sacred, and then develop/destroy the vast areas around it. This compartmentalisation is very negative. We discussed that most of the world's creation myths involve people emerging last, after the world's flora and fauna has emerged. And because of this humans should ask permission of the animals and plants that were already here to live on our Earth.

An interesting event occurred next. The speaker was from Botswana, and his English was very slightly accented.  He kept mentioning that humans should accept the law, but after several minutes he realised we were not hearing him correctly, and the word he was saying was lore. He clarified the difference: lore is how an area organises itself and is a reflection of its beings and history. Law is how humanity organises our society, often around material goods. Understanding the lore of an area helps you to appreciate how long a site has been there, and the longevity of ecological balance. 

We then discussed that 99% of human history is pre-industrial, and much of our culture and ways of being come from this part of our history, even if we do not always realise it. All tribal groups stress thinking of long chains of memory - many ancestors, and therefore many descendants. He suggested that the best way to remember is to rediscover practices, not by thinking. When we do something or make something that triggers much stronger emotions and is much more fundamental to us. We discussed the concept of humans as fire-makers. The only animal that does so. This fire (essentially all technology) is what has produced this separation between ourselves and nature. 

Nature is a difficult place, and the best way to experience it is without creature comforts - some difficulty is better to experience nature. Comfort is a part of our society, and we do not wish to part with it, but nature is a rough place, and only when we embrace that can we understand it, and ourselves. Nature reveals herself through presence, and is non cognitive. This topic increasingly led to discussion of the upcoming night time vigil, on the local hill. The organiser stressed that the hill has two levels of presence: the hill itself, and the deity herself within the mountain. One of the organisers also mentioned that on other vigils each person must declare everything that they have with them that was made with fire, and that therefore is foreign to the hill. 

In terms of language, we were always sitting in a circle, and noted that people of 1000 years ago would still be able to recognise that we were communicating. It was said that the language of poetry is the best language to describe nature and emotions - much of modern language is transactional. 

The idea of "Kittens as an act of God" was talked about. Imagine you are knitting with two balls of wood, as your kittens watch. You are called away to answer your phone. When you return you find the kittens have completely mixed up all the yarn and everything you planned is a disaster area. Now, how do you approach what happens next? You must untangle the wool. Does anger help? No. Do you do this quickly or slowly - slowly, of course. If you try to untangle the wool quickly it becomes more difficult. This analogy is key to the process of untangling your help, and any issues you have: it must be done with patience and slowness. 

In the afternoon, we met with a speaker from New Guinea. He was an environmental refugee, having had to leave his country when miners entered his island, and he left to try to convince the world to help him stop the mines. He told us, astonishingly, that he is only the second generation to meet a white person, and it is only four generations since fire was introduced to his village. 

After this we prepared for the evening vigil.  Neither Fedoris or I had understood what this part of the event was like. We would be staying on the top of the hill from sundown, either until midnight or until dawn. We ate lunch at 12:30, and then we fasted until lunch the next day. We set out at 2:00 pm, walking up the hill. We walked slowly and made many stops for discussions and story-telling. Many people, including Fedoris, walked up the hill barefoot.

During our ascent we had a chance to see some of the tree-planting work being done to restore the hillside. We reached near the top at around 6:00, where we had a short ceremony, and we all received a blessing of tobacco. At this point we also had to decide if we were staying until midnight or until dawn (Fedoris and I both chose midnight. Over half the participants chose dawn). We were on the hill just before sundown. To help stay awake everyone walked around the top of the hill quite a bit, which also helped us stay warm. I won't lie - the six hours from sundown to midnight were challenging, I think for both of us. When one of the organisers rang a small bell to signify midnight we were happy. I will say that being on top of the hill for so long was an interesting way to experience it - it makes me think more of the hill as being alive, since normally when you hike a hill you leave the top soon after reaching it. 

Day 3: The morning was spent recovering from the night vigil. After lunch, we spent the afternoon with each person discussing their experience on the hill. People were candid about their challenges. The organiser said that a single vigil has a 2-3 year timeline for people to understand its effects. It is not dramatic - it is better to let the emotions work themselves out. 

We ended by a discussion of "delicate activism". The organiser stressed that many things we seek are damaging - particularly tourism, in our zeal to visit places of beauty we often destroy them. We should not seek drama, but only to help others.

It was an interesting event. It was not relaxing, since it asked quite a bit of its participants, but this is a good thing. There are many aspects that can be thought about in the ICHK context. Going forward there are many projects at Kadoorie including tree-planting and conservation that have links to our Deep Learning programmes.