The Birth of a Culture in the Woods

How a Home Ed Camp Taught Us to Be Human Together

Last week I hosted a home ed camp for 19 families in a local woodland. This was the altar we tended to for the week in the centre of where we gathered for our morning circles, often reforming and adding offerings to, it became a beautiful metaphor for the experience.

Humans often find it hard to be human together. It’s as if centuries of trauma, separation and individualism has culminated in an age where we just can’t do it anymore. We have lived and bred within systems that dehumanise and cause deep harm, and often we do it on autopilot without realising there are other choices. My whole life I felt this way, I went to school because I didn’t have a choice, I went to work, because I didn’t have a choice. When I recognised my agency, that I can work towards liberating myself and my family from these harmful systems, it was like walking into the light. It has required so much of me, internally and externally to walk this path of liberation and it is never ending.

I started with leaving my corporate job. I completely revised my identity, I had seen myself as a feminist in a man’s world, I had worked for a long time to climb the career ladder and within weeks that all dissolved away as a lie. I became a mother and broke intergenerational cycles of how parents and children relate. I stepped out of the school system, I completely undid everything I thought I knew about learning, children, and my own experience of education.

As I step further and further out of these systems, I make decisions to let go of what does not serve me and nurture something that no one around me is. It’s often path forging and these things are not trivial. These things often require me to completely compost myself, to step outside of my comfort zone, to challenge my fundamental beliefs and identity. I have had to be prepared to be completely undone, to spin and unravel and fail and make mess. This has been my life path, to find what the spark of my soul truly is underneath all the layers of conditioning, the internalised systems, the trauma. As a mother it has always been so important to me to keep that spark alive in my children, so they know themselves as they grow, and don’t have to spend over 40 years rediscovering who they truly are, as I did.

Home educators are all doing this to some extent, to step outside of the school system is a very bold decision in a society where school is seen as the only way. Often when people leave the school system and see what is possible outside of it, they go through an evangelical phase, which stems from seeing all the harms of school from the outside. It is akin to when you want a friend to leave an abusive relationship, you want to scream at them “this isn’t what love looks like! You can have better, please leave!”

So it is hard to explain to people who don’t home educate quite what it is like to go to a home ed camp, where the people who attend have done and are still doing a lot of work to deconstruct the systems, conditioning and trauma layered up between us and our authentic selves. It’s not that people in school don’t do this, or that home educators do it better, it’s just that when you consciously deschool it unravels everything swiftly and deeply.

At camp, around the fire, a lovely friend asked “what do you think it is that holds us together, if it’s not unschooling?” because many of us do that to different degrees. And I realised, I think it’s that we all hold the value of authenticity very highly. It’s rare to have a conversation among those folk that isn’t about some lesson they’ve had around how to uncover something about their authentic selves or how they’ve laid the groundwork and advocated for their children to be their authentic selves. One of my beautiful camp friends has spectacular pink hair at the moment. It is just simply this joyful expression of their true self. We had one of those bright shining conversations about how being fully your weird and wonderful self often gives others permission to do so too that will stay in my mind for years.

In the lead up to this camp I put a lot of thought into it. I attended Cultural Emergence Camp with Looby Mcnamara, and had a beautiful experience at Applewood Permaculture Centre. She got me thinking about culture, and about cultural health. She showed me that it’s important to make culture visible so that there are less misunderstandings or assumptions. I went because I had long ago decided to run this camp using the 8 shields model that she models with Jon Young. Gail, my elder mentor pointed me at 8 shields a few years ago. Through 8 shields, you inhabit and embody the energies of a direction. You show up with that presence, you tend to the quality of that direction at the camp and you become a steady point that others can orient themselves by. You “seed” the energies within the camp so that others can embody them.

So I invited the folk to put themselves forward for the 8 shields directions. I made medallions for everyone to wear and pass on if they left the campsite. We had morning acorn circles after the community circle where we talked about the energetics of the camp and highlighted anything to keep an eye on or add extra support to. It was amazing to hold these things with others, it created a support structure that really held people.

And with the inspiration of Looby, at the opening circle of camp, I went through all of the agreements that I knew were true for our community.

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Our camp agreements were…

Stop means stop/ no means no

And any other words that might mean that. If you are an adult and you notice stop not being honoured please step in.

Ask first

This means, if you want to play chase, you ask first and you don’t just randomly start chasing someone. Or an example, not pointing guns at people who haven’t said they want to join the game. Ask if you want to borrow something or if you want to go in someone’s tent.

Safety and kindness

We care for ourselves, each other, and the land, the beings that live here, by being safe and kind in how we speak, play, and move. This means: no hitting with sticks, no using words as weapons, no hurting insects or trashing things on purpose. Be aware of natural hazards like stinging nettles, brambles, thorns, uneven ground, fire, and tools and help younger ones notice dangers too.

Ask for help

If you need to pass on responsibilities or you are feeling alone with something, ask for help.

All feelings welcome and honoured

This about not fixing or trying to stop people’s feelings. If a child is struggling with feelings that feel too big for them to manage, please get their adult to support them.

Contribute to the health of the culture

We tend to our cords of connection and the group field. We are all responsible for upholding a healthy community culture, that means being considerate of your contribution to the whole. This includes helping with shared tasks, taking care of the space, and noticing what the community needs. When necessary speaking up with timely feedback with solutions.

Mistakes are part of learning

We expect misunderstandings and mistakes we stay in relationship by being willing to be curious, listen, apologise, and repair. We approach conflict with open hearts, curiosity, mutual care and collaboration. We strive to recognise power imbalances and ensure all voices are heard and respected. In conflict we commit to staying in relationship even if we need a break, we prioritise connection and take ownership and responsibility for what is ours. Connection, Ownership, Responsibility, and Discernment, these help us hold an accountability culture rooted in care and community. They invite us to reflect before reacting, and to restore connection wherever it’s lost.

We hold each other in high regard, in the knowledge that everyone makes mistakes and everyone does well when they can.

Everyone belongs

We welcome and celebrate difference. We aim to create a space where everyone feels seen, heard, and respected, including people with different needs, identities, and ways of being.

Share with Care

We don’t keep secrets that make people feel unsafe, confused, or left out. Surprises (like gifts or plans) are different from secrets that hurt or divide. If someone asks you to keep a secret that doesn’t feel right, please tell a trusted adult.

When someone shares something personal like in a circle or a quiet chat, we treat it with care. That means not repeating it to others unless we have permission. This is different to secrets, it’s called confidentiality, and it helps build trust in our community.

Shine your gifts and encourage others

Everyone has something special to offer, a story, a song, a skill, a way of seeing. We celebrate each other’s gifts and support one another to shine. Encouragement, curiosity, and appreciation are gifts.

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I made it absolutely clear that we know that these things are not about being perfect or being punished if you don’t or can’t do them. If the agreements were not being met in a way that harmed the group, we’d respond with care and aim for repair, involving families when needed. This was mainly about revealing the camp culture so everyone understood it clearly across the generations and backgrounds. I explained it was a co-created space, that we are tending the culture together. Often culture is invisible and actually making culture visible as an altar or fire to tend really made the idea tangible.

We had some conflicts that were challenging, but because people were tending to the whole rather than protecting individuals it seemed to take the spike out of them. We were trying different and new things out in terms of how to relate to each other through conflict. It wasn’t easy and it was sometimes messy but it was beautiful. There was often a vibe of timelessness and calm to the camp, where time just seemed to not matter. Days would just pass by with people just happy to be. Because this stuff had been said upfront, less needed to be said throughout the camp. People of different cultures and backgrounds were able to step into this space to be together in a culture they understood and consented to. There was a profound beauty to how everyone understood and contributed to that vision.

I put a lot of work into envisioning this camp, so when I got there I was able to relax because people stepped up into the culture it was like the birthing process had already happened and I was in that beautiful fuzz after the hard part where you just get to enjoy. I worked this hard because, the biggest reason I decided to run this camp was for my son. The last camp we went to was where we realised he had PANS/PANDAS. A condition where your immune system attacks your basal ganglia and causes neuropsychiatric symptoms like aggression, suicidal ideation, depression, ocd, separation anxiety, dilated pupils, rashes, demand avoidance. It was traumatic for all of us to be stuck in a wet field in just a tent while he went through this. So to step back into camp life, I created this one closer to home, where we could leave if he struggled. We are on top of his flares now, though I think it will shape our decisions as a family for a long time to come. So, it was almost more important to me that he had a space where he and other children with similar struggles could feel accepted. This camp was not just about creating a magical experience; it was about giving my son a space to be fully himself, where his unique challenges were not a problem to be fixed, but a part of the life we hold with care. Watching him and other children with similar struggles engage, explore, and shine with the right community supports was profoundly moving. These are kids who are outright rejected in other settings. It was amazing to see how the village stepped up when it was needed. It reminded me why we do this work so that every child can feel seen, heard, and supported in being their authentic selves.

As someone who is systems and collapse aware, and in the words of Vanessa di Andreotti; actively trying to “hospice modernity”, I do all of this because I dream of a world where all the systems of harm that create so much suffering are no longer relevant. This camp was a beautiful snapshot for me of what that world could look like.

So when a friend asked if I’d run a camp for schooling families, I wasn’t sure. I wonder, would these agreements alone be enough, or would people first need help to deconstruct the conditioning they still carry?

When chatting to some of my friends at this camp, we realised that we’ve been deconstructing together for along time as we were initiated into unschooling by the amazing work of Lucy Aitkenread and Essie Richards of Circle together during the pandemic. School is a different kind of hard to home educating. School is often seen as the easy choice. I don’t think that’s true for an increasing number of families. When you are embroiled in a system that does not serve humans, a huge amount of life force has to go into advocating, masking, sustaining, surviving rather that thriving and that is draining. With home education you are free to do what’s right for your family, whatever that looks like, doing things alone is often hard but often it is less draining and less of a fight.

The truth is, it’s not our task to fix the old world. We’re midwifing a new one. We have to remember how to be human again, together, to step out of abusive systems and into cultures that hold life, love, and authenticity at the centre. To build spaces our children can not only survive in, but thrive in.

We had a market on one of the days, where kids haggled and exchanged and used money or didn’t. We had a cabaret where everyone got a rowdy round of applause. We danced to “chicken banana” in animal costumes. 3 year olds spoke their gratitude to the whole camp in circles and were heard. We had a musical Lammas parade around the woods to honour the elements. We worked together for our meals and held each other in love. And it was beautiful and messy and hard and easy and entirely different to any other experience of being human together that you would get anywhere else.

I know that anything school can offer right now will be irrelevant to my son’s life. Within years, AI will reshape the job market. He faces a future of climate breakdown, mass extinction, financial and population collapse and uncertainty. What he needs are not exam results but the skills to run a community, lead a circle, trade and haggle, express emotions and boundaries, bridge across generations and cultures, relate to the land for food and water, and to problem-solve while honouring life and the Earth. That’s what camps like this are teaching him.

I know that to choose to live outside of the mainstream systems is radical. Yet often I don’t notice. Camp is one of those times where it is quietly, lovingly and softly extremely radical.

I have learned from this camp myself. I learned that holding a cohesive space isn’t always about being inclusive at the expense of the whole. That spaces of co-creation are beautiful and entirely possible within clear containers. That when people aren’t able to engage with the cohesion we’re holding, they naturally vibrate out, and that’s OK. In an over-culture that’s quickly losing cohesion, spaces like this, with clear boundaries and shared agreements, are more necessary than ever. It’s about having a container that holds our human mess. I loved the way the energy of co-creation flowed with the day, with the village stepping up and taking responsibility for the health of the whole culture. Details take care of themselves when you build a strong container for people to flow and collaborate within. Cohesion here isn’t about erasing conflict, it’s about creating the conditions where we can keep returning to one another, even when it’s messy. It’s about learning how to be in relationship in the midst of uncertainty, so that something larger than us can hold us all.

So perhaps if you are struggling in an old world system, or still trying to reform it from the inside, perhaps it’s time to ask: is this where my life-force belongs? The truth is, those systems were never designed to love us back. Stepping out is not about abandoning responsibility, it is about remembering where our real responsibility lies; with each other, with the Earth, with the children. That’s the work of midwives of the new world. There is so much we don’t have agency over, but we can gift ourselves and others the experiences and containers we dream of.

Every act of care, every circle held, every child seen and heard, sends ripples that shape the world we are becoming. These moments didn’t stay in the woods, they rippled outwards, shaping how children and adults carried themselves, connected, and held each other and they will continue long after the camp has ended.