WILDCRAFTING PATHWAYS
Transformative wisdom for a regenerative lifestyle
by Joanna Sweeney
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Book launch, talk, reading, Q&A, signing & celebration
19.30pm Wednesday July 15th 2026
Free and open to the public
Booking essential (Eventbrite link to follow)
Brú Moytura, Sligo, F52 N292
Wildcrafting Pathways Eco Retreat
at Brú Moytura, Sligo, Ireland, F52 N292, July 13th – 16th 2026
BOOKING
MINDFUL NATURAL BUILDING
Devised and presented by Peter Cowman BArch.
Tuesday, July 14th, Part 1 & Wednesday July 15th, Part 2
Video Workshop Intro by Peter
You are invited to participate in this interactive workshop comprised of the current evolution of almost four decades of development, practice, insight and refinement of a simple idea – that we all possess the ability to create shelter.
We first display indicators of this innate facility as children ‘playing house’ where imagination, role-play and self awareness are key elements of the experience. In later years the construction of hideouts, forts, dens and makeshift shelters occupy many children over long summer days.
This innate sheltermaking facility is of a similar kind to birds’ nest building ability or ants ability to create precisely oriented air conditioned mud tower shelters. In all cases the maintenance and propagation of life are key elements in such natural practices.
Hunter-gatherers had been constructing temporary communal shelters for an extended period before they began creating permanent dwelling places 10-12,000 years ago. They brought to this new way-of-life traditions characterised by a focus on the unity of the group ranging across open territories overarched by a mythologised cosmos. Domestication altered the nature of this day-to-day life by constructing permanent boundaries which subdivided space into public and private domains separated from the expansive outdoors.
This reordered reality altered traditional kinship, social and economic structures as well as relationships with territory and the mythos that underpinned the nomadic way-of-life. Eventually this led to the development of agriculture and altered concepts of place, property, territory, culture, individuality and so on. This forging of a new evolutionary path has led to the modern world with its cultures, religions, technologies, built environments and the familiarities of settled life.
The dwelling places of the new domesticated way-of-life shattered the traditional unified worldview by subdividing tribe, territory and cosmos into distinct parts. In effect the traditional perspective on the world was retained but was now applied to a miniaturised version of the familiar separated into distinct parts. Family replaced tribe, enclosed space replaced open territory and imagination replaced an overarching mythologised cosmos. In effect, familiar external realities were interiorised and reduced to a human scale.
This conceiving, constructing and inhabitation of permanent shelters was marked by a gradual increase in cultural development. From the perspective of the here and now and the view this offers into that long-ago, these advances – respect for ancestors, religious belief, painting, myth-making, the creation of artefacts – can be interpreted as references to the mystery of life and to awareness of an inner human drive to maintain and express this aliveness. This awareness, variously named in variously cultures over time, is best describe as ‘consciousness’.
The sheltermaking process offers the opportunity to connect to individual human consciousness because it is a component of universal space. Mindful engagement with this process offers an individual valuable insight into the life they were born to live as well providing appropriate context for the living of that life.
The workshop will be presented in 2 sessions. The first session will deal with matters covered above and in the video intro. The second session will cover the practicalities of design and construction and will be linked to freely available existing material located elsewhere on this website. [Version 28/4/2026]
THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS ENERGISED BY THIS OPPORTUNITY FOR ME TO ENGAGE DIRECTLY WITH PEOPLE ON THIS FASCINATING TOPIC. THE EVOLUTION OF THIS CONCEPT HAS BEEN DRIVEN BY THIS TYPE OF DIRECT ENGAGEMENT.
IF YOU WISH TO EXPLORE ITS RELEVANCE TO YOUR LIFE IT WOULD BE WORTHWHILE TO DO SOME EXPLORATIONS OF THE MATERIAL LOCATED ELSEWHERE ON THIS WEBSITE.
THERE IS AN ABUNDANCE OF MATERIAL FREELY AVAILABLE THROUGH THE LAC ON LOW-COST CONSTRUCTION METHODS BOTH FOR SMALL PLANNING-FREE BUILDINGS AS WELL AS FOR LARGER MULTI-PURPOSE ONES.
LOOKING FORWARD TO ENGAGING WITH YOU IN JULY.