Roots of Belonging®

Getting very excited planning our next Autumn adventure 🥾🌲🌞 We’re going to the Peak District!! 💗💗💗🌈 Come join us for a weekend adventure in the Peak District National Park this September 💗⛰️ We are building a community of mixed, dual heritage and multicultural POCs who understand we belong in nature 🌺🦋🪲🐌🐞 This weekend event is kindly supported by the YHA, Sport England, Cotswold Outdoor and Pilgrim Trust. 🌞 Sign up at the Luma link in bio 💌 @yhaofficial @officialsportengland @cotswoldoutdoor @pilgrimtrust

CANCELLED New event! Sign up for our Autumn book walk on The Possibility of Tenderness by Jason Allen-Paisant 🌺💗🌈 We’re excited to offer our community members free entries to Kew Gardens for our Autumn Book Walk on The Possibility of Tenderness by Jason Allen-Paisant. ​This free event is for those who self-identify as mixed, dual heritage and/or multicultural people of colour 🌞🦋💗 About the Book: ‘The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican memoir of plants and dreams is a personal history narrated through the lens of the ‘grung’ and plants. It’s also a people’s history of the land, a family saga, an archival detective story through time. It’s the migration tale of a young scholar who arrives in Britain from rural Jamaica to study at Oxford to achieve ‘upward social mobility’ and who now lives in Roundhay, Leeds. Suddenly amidst his journey of dreams and class aspirations, the plants and people of his native district, Coffee Grove, begin to offer different ways of living, alternative dreams, and the possibility of tenderness and the permission to roam England.’ ​We are nurturing a community that deeply understands we belong in nature 🌈🌷 ​More details to follow! Link to book via Luma (in bio)

"Nature never asks you where you're from, or expects you to be anyone other than who you are. It's a space of total acceptance and belonging." We recently caught up with community group @rootsofbelonging , a safe space for mixed, dual heritage, and multicultural people of colour in the outdoors. Following their recent trip, we wanted to further spotlight their epic community work by asking them some questions about their group, what inspires them to get out there, and why it’s so important to have an inclusive space where folks feel that they belong. Check it out the via the link in our bio. 📷 @hnnh.shw #MyEscapism

Beautiful beings, belonging in landscapes 💗🌞⛰️ Gorgeous shots by @hnnh.shw captured on our first adventure in the Lake District 🌈⛰️🦋 Supported by @lakedistrictfoundation + @passengerclothing 🌷💗 #rootsofbelonging #diversifyukoutdoors

Into the landscape, we write a new story of belonging. 🌞 Our first adventure in the Lake District was special, beyond words. 💗 Grateful to be supported by @lakedistrictfoundation and @passengerclothing to build a sense of home in the lakes. 🦋 📷 pc: @hnnh.shw #rootsofbelonging #diversifyukoutdoors

An incredible and beautiful time in the Lake District for our first @rootsofbelonging national park weekend adventure 💗 This community adventure was made possible thanks to the support of @lakedistrictfoundation and @passengerclothing ⛰️ Thank you to our wonderful community for joining us on this wild journey in the Lakes 🌊 Our gorgeous photos are by @hnnh.shw 🌷🌈 At Roots of Belonging, we host outdoor events for mixed, dual heritage and multicultural pocs/global majority to deepen their belonging in the UK outdoors. #rootsofbelonging #diversifyukoutdoors #lakedistrict

BOOK WALK on LATE LIGHT 🌞💗🌷🦋 Sweet day at Walthamstow Wetlands on the look out for cormorants with a workshop on moths with @outsidewithlira 🥹🥰🌸🦆🦢 pc: @__nathananderson__

Spring means Sakura season 🌸 Come join us for our Forest bathing session for the cherry blossom season at Kew Gardens 🌷💗🌸🌞🌈 When: Saturday April 19 11am - 1:15pm Where: Kew Gardens At Roots of Belonging, we host outdoor events for mixed, dual heritage and multicultural people of colour to deepen their connection to nature and belonging in the UK outdoors 🌸🌞🌈 Luma link in bio to register for free entry to Kew #rootsofbelonging #openinguptheoutdoors #diversifyukoutdoors

It’s during the quietened and slow winter season that I realise how deep and endlessly enriching the practice of forest therapy / shinrin yoku really is. ❄️ the contrast of wintering indoors makes the coming of spring all the more vibrant and enlivening. After years of volunteering in front line mental health support work, burning out countless times and then finding myself at the edges of my capacity, I wondered how I might nurture spaces of mental wellbeing and healing for others in ways that do not extract and exhaust myself in the process. What would that space of care and connection look like surrounded by others with similar lived experience? This week I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel alongside Dr Zakiya McKenzie for the @shropshire_wildlife_trust session on Equity and Justice in the Climate Movement, as part of the Trust’s Environmental Leadership Programme for 18-25 year olds in the West Midlands, in partnership with youth leadership charity UpRising. 🌈🌷 The late Thich Nhat Hahn said that in order to solve our climate crisis, and to change our extractive anthropocentric ways, ‘we must begin by being our true selves. To be our true selves means we have to be the forest, be the river, and be the ozone layer’. This environmental inter-being is our essential belonging. For me, forest therapy opens the door to this essential belonging. It is a practice that guides us towards unconditional, agape love for all life around us. #rootsofbelonging #shinrinyoku #forestherapy

RESCHEDULED Spring is going to be a beauty! 🌼🌷🥾 We can’t wait to host our first Book Walk in April this spring on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s ‘The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance’ 🍓🫐🕊️ We’re excited to offer our community free entries to Kew Gardens for this walk and forest therapy session on The Serviceberry 🦋🍄💕💗🌱 Our community events are for those who self-identify as mixed, dual heritage and multicultural people of colour. 🌈🌞 We belong outdoors 💗🌸🌺🐞🦎 Link in bio to book on our free event via Luma (Subscribe to our Luma calendar in bio) 💌 About The Serviceberry: “As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most?” #rootsofbelonging #diversifyukoutdoors #foresttherapy #community @rootsofbelonging @kewgardens

We are excited to host another session of our Belonging & Forest Bathing workshop on 22 March, to welcome in the Spring Equinox! 🌸💗🌱 Join us for a sweet day in Greenwich Park together, where we’ll be enjoying the first signs of spring in community. 🌞🌈🦋 This event is for those who self-identify as mixed, dual heritage and/or multicultural POCs. 🍄🌲 The event is free to attend and spaces are limited, so please sign up at the Luma link in bio 💌 We can’t wait to see you! Share this post with a friend who you think might resonate with our message of belonging in nature 🏔️ #rootsofbelonging #diversifyukoutdoors #shirinyoku

BOOK & MOTH WALK ON LATE LIGHT 🌞🦋 Join us for a magical morning where we will be learning about moths from the London Wildlife Trust, followed by a Book Walk on Michael Malay’s Late Light in Walthamstow Wetlands! 🥾📚🦋 Learn about the wonderful lives of moths with us as we learn from the team at @londonwildlifetrust ! 🦋💗 We are so grateful and excited to have Michael Malay joining us on 12 April to discuss his debut creative non-fiction work of nature writing, Late Light, which won the Richard Jeffries and Wainwright prizes for nature writing 📚📖 Michael is the first person of colour to win the @wainwrightprize 🌱🌸🍄 Late Light is the story of Michael Malay’s own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England and finding parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines. Mixing natural history with memoir, this book explores the mystery of our animal neighbours, in all their richness and variety. It is about the wonder these animals inspired in our ancestors, the hope they inspire in us, and the joy they might still hold. Late Light is about migration, belonging and extinction. Through the close examination of four particular ‘unloved’ animals - eels, moths, crickets and mussels - Michael Malay tells the story of the economic, political and cultural events that have shaped the modern landscape of Britain. Sign up at the Luma link in bio 💌 This event is free to attend. For those who self-identify as mixed, dual heritage and multicultural people of colour. 🌈 Artwork is by @illoustrationn 🦋 #rootsofbelonging #latelight #diversifyukoutdoors