It is our first evening together. There are thirty of us, some of whom have met before many times, others of us are renewing friendships from previous years and a few are new to the gathering.
We walk from the courtyard where the swallows fly and the sparrows nest, out around the majestic house and up the hill. As we meander upwards the group spreads out and conversations that began over dinner continue until we join the colours and the shadows of the sun as it drops down below the hills far behind us in reflective silence. The track is firm compounded sand and stone, sparse bushes and low green trees inhabit the hillside where granite boulders preside over dry land.
We reach the place where a pink thread of wool leads us like lost souls through the undergrowth to the hidden gem: an old ice hole. We gaze with amazement at its stone lined depths where ice and snow were brought in winter to provide a place to keep things cool in Spring and early Summer, before the heat became too much.
What happens when a group of people gather together for a few days in the low mountains of central Spain with no explicit purpose?
We sit there for a while in unforced quietness, allowing the journey of the day to settle into the place and time and possibilities.
After a while I get up, noticing that sunset has shifted into the beginnings of a deep dusk. It has been many hours since I left my home in rural Dorset and travelled alone for the first time for twelve months and I am tired. It is not my time to walk down the hill in the dark, and I feel the need for solitude. I tread with care following the thin woollen thread until I get to the worn, solid path where there is light sufficient to see the hills in the distance. It is that eerie silver glow that seems to infuse the earth before darkness falls.
I feel the past drop away as my breathing relaxes and the care of each step brings me an attention that stretches way beyond my fleeting existence. The thought of my wife and son at home arises and passes in the knowledge that all is well.
When a group of people come together with few expectations, no intentional goals, and no pre-organised programme, what happens?
The next morning at our first meeting together in the stone lined, high ceilinged upper room we are told that we do not have to join in any activities that might come about. That there is no pressure to join in and that all conversations are open – nothing is exclusive.
We are a mixed bag of humanity with ages stretching from fifteen to seventy-three (which is me); with different backgrounds, different experiences and brought together by a willingness, or perhaps even a passion for exploration. This room is full of questions.
The scene is set where coercion is converted to freedom, competition to convivial collaboration and conflict to listening and understanding.
Here the days weave between meals of delicious food, thoughtful conversations that ebb and flow as the tide of the sea, reading and solitude of space. In old land with its stone buildings, yellow golden fields, high flying eagles and the sounds of excited swallows that dive over the rusted iron railed ancient stone ponds.
To be here is a privilege; and every privilege carries its responsibility. We hold that responsibility lightly, but we all know the state of the world, and we all know the paths our lives have taken. There is no unifying ideology, yet no sense of separation or division and from these few days we take away different experiences. The human interaction has depth and lightness, and that mainstay of sanity, humour, is never far from the surface. There may well be intensity, passion and at times opinion might be close to argument. However, we are not here to convert, persuade or convince. We are here to explore, to reflect and to learn.
The gathering is held by www.yellowlearning.org : a space for learning.
A space for learning. Not a classroom, not a school nor a university, a space. The space that is a designated environment in which there is the freedom to learn. I have taught at schools in which this has been the case. I have visited schools where learning is not seen as the teacher and the taught, where the student and the teacher learn together. A space in which respect and affection flourish.
If we have respect for our children and young people, then there is freedom to learn. If we allow that respect to enter our lives fully, then we create the opportunity to understand our fellow beings, the world around us and ourselves. Without that learning is is merely instruction.
It is through working with children and young people for over thirty-five years and my consequent involvement with Yellow that the Revolution in Mind Project has emerged. Here I have had the opportunity to present and share the writing I have been doing, which stretch back many years. Here I have been able to have conversations that explore learning, understanding, educating, freedom and more. It is here that I have found that most precious of things - the interest of others.
And it is here this time that we have launched the Project to explore the possiblity of changing the way we think through intergenerational learning and dialogue.
We are designing a website and producing a book around my writing. We are also incorporating poetry and artwork by younger people: the beginnings of genuine intergenerational creative collaboration. We are also looking into the possibility of holding an in-person event.
All this is taking place in the spirit of quiet urgency, and in the understanding that the process itself holds the key to whatever emerges.
I shall be writing more about this in the fairly near future.