June 13-16, 2025

Living Waters: A Nonbinary Co-operative Inquiry with Apennine Mountain Streams, Varese Ligure (in English language)

This retreat will offer a first-person exploration of the nonbinary view that all agents, including the Earth itself, are integral to the fabric of the living cosmos, all co-creating one entangled rhizome. We will be lead in our exploration by the Vara, Stora and other wild river persons in the upper Vara valley, Liguria, Italy. The Vara valley is a wild part of the Appenines formed by its many untamed rivers and little mountain streams.

Understanding – and nourishing – this entanglement therefore means to allow experiences of entanglement to happen and to enfold them into poetic space. We will experiement with this through direct practical engagement with the local rivers and streams. In order to frame our activities, we will read contemporary literature from posthuman, multispecies and animistic perspectives.

The main activity however is the participants' own actual engagement with brooks, rivers or urban water channels. The seminar builds on a growing body of protocols and multi-year experiences which have been emerging through a broadening multispecies research in collaboration with "country", undertaken in close exchange with indigenous research groups.

Introduction to the topic (first chapter of my book "Essbar sein" in unoffical english translation).
Story of a recent Living Waters episode and introduction to the local mountain Deity, Gottero.

Seminar program

Signing up: Course fee € 500, plus accomodation costs (preferably in a very good traditional Hotel, Albergo Amici (half pension € 60 per day and guest) or of own choice. The course will take place outside and in the rotund on the highest floor of the medieval Fieschi castle in the village centre. Many nice and very traditional restaurants in the village which still is a bit like Italian life in the 1970s. Ample possibilities to explore the area plus visit the 40-mins distant Mediterranean coast. In order to sign up, please email me (address on the contact page). Varese Ligure is reachable by train and bus (IC line Milan–La Spezia–Livorno–Salerno, leave train at Sestri Levante and take bus 750 to Varese Ligure) and by car (from coastal motorway A12 or Cisa motorway A15).

Terms and Conditions

img_4724_copia.jpg