Keep the Peacebuildings Yurt on the Road

Aim

Help keep the Peacebuildings Yurt with its Reciprocal Frame roof on the road in UK and Europe, as an epicentre of personal and global change

Peacebuildings - How can a building generate peace?

The Peacebuildings project has its origin long ago, when I sat on my bedroom floor, age 12, to meditate. No teacher, just a knowing that I was more than the thoughts I had about myself, and a hunger to know what that was. That was the beginning of my lifelong inner journey.

In 1987 when I was 33, the Reciprocal Frame, the roof structure of the Peacebuildings Yurt, leapt out of nowhere and into my awareness, to change my life forever.

When we change....the world will change

Please check it out in the Giving and Receiving video …Its radical…

Why we need your help.

In 2019/20, my friend Christian lent the money to build this beautiful yurt and the huge trailer to transport it. In 2026, Christian needs that money back hence this crowdfunding appeal so that by the 31st August 2026, we raise the £33,000 to repay his impulsive generosity.

The Peacebuildings Yurt Project is at a crossroads. If we don't raise the £33,000, the yurt is sold, and six years of deep transformative work in this beautiful place come to an end. If we succeed, the work in the Peacebuildings Yurt expands, every donor receives the Nine Gateways and the reach of the Peacebuildings Project widens.

Peacebuildings is a deep, radical transformational project — one that operates within our own being, and in the actions we carry out in the world. In a cross-cultural way Peacebuildings offers a vision of how we and life on earth can be. This work matters more and more in our current world. 

Christian's generosity brought this yurt into being in 2020 and made six years of that work possible. So it follows that our offer, in return for his and your generosity, has to be just as radical, just as aligned. 

Therefore, no matter whether your donation is large or small, my gift to you is exactly the same: the very best I have to offer. 

That is the Wisdom of the Reciprocal Frame and the Journey of No Distance year program, consolidated into an app or an online course both named Nine Gateways. 

Nine modules, available one per month for nine months, accompanied by a monthly online meeting for the donor group where questions, feedback, discussion and practice are all on the table. Outside this appeal these courses will have a face value of £900.

More of the Peacebuildings project 

                                    and the Peacebuildings Yurt

Standing on No-thingness

When I first did this, a rush of silent energy shot at my spine. This was the structure introducing itself. Firstly, as a financial structure, an endless cycle of giving and receiving. Next, a non-hierarchical social structure, where we see the awareness behind the eyes of another, as exactly the same as that behind our own. Finally, as timeless wisdom in structural form, but at that time I had very little idea of what that meant. It came with a very simple instruction. Do it.

Since 1987 I have been doing it, but in truth, it has done me. It has taken me on an inner pathway through the complexity of my own mind, to know at age 60, the simplicity of pure awareness and in that peace, happiness and freedom.

How could I know that this journey would involve 45+ Reciprocal Frame buildings, the Peacebuildings project, and last but not least the Peacebuildings yurt as a travelling home for the Journey of no Distance workshops and year programs... I had no idea.

Now as I watch people as they enter the Peacebuildings Yurt for the first time, they look up at the Reciprocal Frame roof and often a silence falls upon them. It's as though they have a remembrance of something that they feel they know, but they cannot capture with their mind. It is clear an imprint is being left in the depth of their being.....just as it had in mine.

It's a vision of what we might be. A vision of what our world might be. A vision that calls us to a very personal inner journey. An inner journey to finally knowing self as silent timeless essence of life....pure awareness.

That essence is continually overshadowed by the busyness of mind. The Journey from busyness to that silent knowing, I now call a Journey of no Distance.

The spark that ignited the Peacebuildings project 

In the early 2000s I was invited to participate in an architectural competition to design buildings for the Colney Woodland Burial Park in Norwich. I won the competition…strange as I am not an architect. I went on to design and oversee the creation of Reciprocal Frame buildings for 3 woodland burial parks, in Norwich, Epping and Beaconsfield. The years I spent on these sites, caused me to witness people of all faiths and none, meeting each other, sharing moments and telling stories of their loved ones, as they held and supported each other in ways that touched me deeply.

A simple thought struck me...."If we can do this in death....why not in life".

This thought was the birth of the Peacebuildings project, which I finally established in 2011, with the intention to create permanent Peacebuildings, as epicentres of personal and global change around the world. That intention still remains.

The impulse for the Peacebuildings Yurt

But in 2011 this was a bridge too far, people did not get it, and/or I was not ready. I knew I had to return to the root, so I started passing on what had been given to me, first in weekend workshops and then in year programs. This work wrought an unexpectedly surrender in me

In 2019 I had the notion to create the Peacebuildings Yurt as a travelling epicentre of change, where I would take the Reciprocal Frame to people, so that they could feel its wisdom, as it made a cellular imprint upon their being, and awakened a curiosity and willingness to approach radical change in their being.

All this, because the physicality of the structure proves that a new way of being is not only possible, but strong, resilient and constantly resolving itself when put under immense pressure.

I could feel my heart beating, as this idea made a home in me. That fear told me it was the right thing to do. The rest of this part of the story you already know...

And in the video below you see the Yurt being built. Five hours work in three minutes...enjoy.

A footnote

Since 2020 the Peacebuildings Yurt has been a home for this deep and challenging work. Recently a member of the current year group stated in the opening round, that coming into in this place is like coming home to family.      

The Reciprocal Frame reminds us that no matter what our colour, creed or culture, we, the people of earth, and all life on this planet, are earth’s greater family.

Families take care of each other, as we must if life on earth is to survive and thrive.

This is the Peacebuildings project....and you're invited.

Funding method

All or nothing – this project will only receive pledges if it reaches its target of £33,000 by 31st August 2026 at 11:59pm