NORTHSIDE
TRAINING
Ffynnon Dawel
Helen Blackburn (PTSTA) is a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and trainer who is committed to providing therapy, supervision and training in a way that honours our reciprocal relationship with the land. She is based in rural West Wales, and since 1998 has been working in partnership with the woodland garden at Ffynnon Dawel where she lives.
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Her four seasonal weekend courses are based on the theme of ecological connection:
March - Finding Ecological Balance: Harmonising our need for connection, creativity and contemplation
June - Our Secret Gardens and How We Tend Them: Physis, curiosity and playful connection
September - Finding Our Place in Nature: Reimagining our cultural parent from an ecological perspective
December - Coming Home: How do we describe the ethos
at the heart of our ecological practice?​
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Courses are stand alone or can be booked together. Click on the course images below for more information.
Finding Ecological Balance
Harmonising our need for connection, creativity and contemplation
28 - 30 March 2025, ​£220
This course is an invitation to be deeply curious about our human nature, and how we can fulfil our needs for connection, creativity and contemplation in our daily life and practice. We will meet in Springtime, when the first flush
of new growth will support our learning journey, involving discussion, woodland meditation, crafting, storytelling and ritual.
Our Secret Gardens and How We Tend Them
Physis, curiosity and playful connection
13 - 15 June 2025, £220
We will explore the idea of being gardeners who tend our souls and the soul of the world. Amidst the beauty of summer in full bloom we will connect deeply with our secret gardens, both as a dynamic metaphor and practical embodiment. Working directly in contact with nature we will examine how the therapeutic relationship can intimately facilitate, protect and nurture our creative growth. We will consider the significance of dormancy and seasonality, emergence rather than intentionality, whilst at times actively gardening and cooking, creating
art and writing reflectively.
Finding Our Place in Nature
Reimagining our cultural parent from an ecological perspective
22 - 25 September 2025, £280
We will gather at this fruitful time of year to find ourselves in the mountains and the waterfalls as they reveal their shape to us at the beginning of the autumn. We will explore our relationship with natural magnificence and wildness, and how this affects our experience of power and authority. Whether it invites a sense of joyful expression or fearful oppression.
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Coming Home
How do we describe the ethos at the heart of our ecological practice?
5 - 7 December 2025, £220
This is an invitation to sit together around the fire as the year is closing in, and to explore the language we use to describe the work that we do. With the clarity that is reflected in the shape of bare branches against the winter sky, we will consider the place of poetry and metaphor in our work ; how that relates to the land and our native selves.