Spirit Horse as it stands...
We have built a village of celtic roundhouses and yurts, sacred fires and Temples in the most stunningly beautiful valley in Wales, UK, at the foot of a waterfall. A revolving community of visitors come and go and often stay, to become a tribal presence that happens every summer. We are crowdfunding to repair and complete these ceremonial buildings & we are asking for your help to do so!
The project is vast, beautiful, and full of reverence. We are not just a bunch of dreamers, we have successfully built up something magnificent and have 27 years of work, careful research and self enquiry under our belt, and wildly extravagant and deep seated ritual that feeds the heart of all Life. We have the people, the enthusiasm, the honed architectural skill, but we don't have enough cash to complete the ceremonial village of 13 spectacular structures. Donate and let this village blossom into magnificence and fruition.
THE LIVING ANCIENT VILLAGE OF SPIRIT HORSE
It’s not a fairytale although we have many storytellers, it's a village to learn in, not to live in. It’s not a therapy centre although we have the whole world coming to be healed. It is a living, breathing dream of 200 acres of wild Welsh forest, clear streams, glittering rock face and moonlit waterfalls. A lively body of land with an even livelier body of people; 200 muddy boots and busy hands and singing hearts, attempting to remake a culture of forgotten beauty, pulling together shoulder to shoulder with style, grace and tribal panache.
Spirit Horse is a 27 year old renewal of ancient community; exuberant, musical, mystical, poetic, natural and somewhat wild. And open to all.
Spirit Horse is a model that
could be used anywhere in the world, to
recreate community, to rewild land and to make a
spiritual home, where the seeds for a new way of life
can be sown.
'We are creating a place made of our collective passion that resembles our most ancient home. A place of eloquence and ancient rooted values, shared both in deep exploratory courses and spiritual retreats and in the ordinary, daily hustle & bustle of building, cooking, living, laughing and the care of our children. It is an entirely unique vision, to remake from the lost roots of the past a culture worth being part of now, and worth passing on to the future generations.' - Shivam O'Brien, founder of Spirit Horse
The community at Spirit Horse set up a charity called The Forest of Dreams, which raised £450,000 seven years ago, to buy the land and give it back to Nature, every year rewilding and returning. The people too are encouraged to be their wild original natural selves through self inquiry, ritual, performance, art, tantra and buddhism and a shared vision of ecstatic work, prayer and collective creation. Through our annual coming together in ritual at Sacred Man Sacred Woman, in celebration at The Cauldron of Plenty, and through many community camps in between; Spirit Horse is an architectural psychic magnificence, in both in building and in Being.
There are deep rooted spiritual values here, honouring the natural world, fire and water and the flowering land.
Amongst the land we have Men’s and Women’s Sacred Houses, a Sweat Lodge, a Dakini Temple and Sauna, and it is home to one of the biggest roundhouses in Britain. Some projects such as the Dakini Temple are complete, other projects are well underway, but we have arrived at an impasse and we just cannot go any further without a cash injection. These buildings have sprung up over the decades from the bones of an original encampment of tipis and yurts. All labour on every project happens with no pay at all - All nails are hammered home with good will, with a fresh, exciting ethic of 'ecstatic building', in the joy of communal effort; a well established tradition here at Spirit Horse.
Photograph taken at the inauguration of the Dakini Temple, Summer 2017
'These buildings are not monuments, they shelter the tears and ecstasies, the joys and griefs, the beautiful surrender of people willing to face themselves in radical truth, to be hardworking and real and committed to creating something bigger than themselves.' - Shivam O'Brien
How did Spirit Horse begin?
The dream began with storyteller, poet and carpenter Shivam O’Brien, unwilling to accept society in the 'civilised' form in which he encountered it, resolutely determined to make something else happen - offering a vision, a fleeting glimpse, of a more wild, natural, ecstatic life of the spirit that the body longs for. With the nurturance of the delicate and wild feminine belly of the medicine woman, Erika Indra, this vision found a root.A perfect secluded Welsh valley was discovered through some kind of a miracle. A small band of helpers pioneered the first camp that swelled into a diverse community of all ages and walks of life. Tipis and yurts became a village of Temples and Sacred Houses, from temporarily renting the land to miraculously coming together to buy it. A village appeared that passed the planning laws (another miracle). We are one generation in to young ones growing up into this community, and it can only grow and move forward. (For the longer, magical version of this tale, come down and talk to us, share our fire, do the workshops, or lend a hand!)
And Now... We Ask for Help
The village was never going to be a profit making business, but the project is huge. Shivam and the original founders are 27 years older, the long hours are getting too long, and the young are still learning. We need to put a proper roof on these gorgeous and ambitious structures. It's time to rein in and consolidate this unique settlement and throw the Welsh rain off.
Most of the work is done - in that we have skilled people, we have enthusiastic helpers, our welcome goes out to the world, all donating their time entirely free, but we need more nails, timbers, slates, canvas, bread, tea, rice and a bit of fuel to bring this stage to completion.
The buildings themselves are next to zero impact, neolithic in style, posts simply driven into the ground. We are reclaiming creative sovereignity, empowering people to build beautifully, magically, sustainably, collectively and in ecstasy.There is an open invite to people to come and experience this, enjoy these experiments and become a part of what we are here. We are not belonging to any particular religion, but we are making a common spiritual ground, including anybody and everybody, wishing to regreen, to adore, to guard, praise and protect this beautiful world.
THE ANCIENT VILLAGE NUMBERS
In order of urgency!
The Celtic Roundhouse:
This structure elegantly echoes and more or less replicates the traditional ancient gathering and living space of these lands. Recreated for real, in thunderous magnitude and grace. Vast timbers soaring to a stunning natural larch ceiling. Room for 200 lovers, poets, fools, dreaming youth, weeping elders, wise dreamers, and even the gods to rampage on occasion! Resonating to the sound of razor precision drums, high bold speech and the “dance that heeds niether night nor day.”
Photograph taken in Summer 2016
Photograph taken in Autumn 2017
We’ve built most of it; oak posts driven into the earth and local forty foot larch rafters soaring up from there, with hundreds of finishing touches and tiles still to go.
Photographs taken in May 2016
Photograph taken in Autumn 2017
This is building is a statement: The old ways are alive! A place with a prayer and a hope; where the next generation of young determined people seeking to evolve a new/ancient way of living, might just send down a root and remake the ancient home.
Celtic Roundhouse needs: £28,000. Most urgently - (£10,000 to cover the vast roof - 330 sq metres! - in recycled rubber tiles)
The Painted Lodge:
Photographed: The Painted Lodge at different stages throughout the month of May 2017
Rebuilt three times, almost complete, in this final form it needs a good roof. It is (or will be very soon) a delightful warm and cosy space. It will have murals (like our Dakini Temple), this time celebrating indigenous ways of life and the beauty of the world before towns. We would like to sponsor two of our painters to stay at the frescoes until they are done. The Dakini Temple took four years to paint and is amazing, but we’d like to use this space sooner rather than later - so we need to chain the artists to the wall and look after them ‘till it’s done! A good artist is starving, a great one gets fed!Photographed: Christor painting the inside of the Temple, Summer 2015
Photographed: Tea time during building time in May 2017
Photographed: Building work in May 2017
The Painted Lodge needs: £6,000
The Murals Sponsorship: £4,000 minimum. (More money means more murals! If you would like to contact us about the sponsorship of our artists personally, and see their amazing work, get in touch via email.)
The Women’s Lodge:
The roof and round that gives home to the divine feminine, a sacred space where all women are invited to rediscover, celebrate and to embody Her Wildness.
Photographed: The Women's Lodge, taken by Erika Indra in the Summer of 2017
Photographed: The Women's Lodge, taken by Annabelle in Spring 2017
Long standing since the early days of Spirit Horse, a simple elegant ritual space; a celtic roundhouse with an open fire. It now needs a new canvas roof.
The Women’s Lodge needs: £2,500
The Men’s Lodge:
Honouring the adventure and Sacred Dreaming of Men. "This one is just about ok for now!" Said all the men apart from the one who got the spot everyone else avoids, aka, the drip. A new roof canvas would serve the lodge well.
Photographed: The Men's Lodge in the snow and frost, Winter 2017
Photographed: The Mens Lodge & Kitchen Clanger, Summer 2017
The Men’s Lodge needs: £2,500
The Kitchen Lodge: The Heart of any Village
Simply put: A new roof and better kitchen storage. Water filtration system repaired (from our own spring!)
Photographed: The kitchen tent and small herb garden, taken in Summer 2015
Photographs taken in Autumn 2017
Photograph taken in Autumn 2016
Photographed: The Spring Well, taken by Erika Indra, Summer 2017
The Kitchen Lodge needs: £4,500
The Spiral Yurt:
Photographed: The Spiral Lodge taken by Annabelle in Autumn 2016
Our best and oldest cosy meeting space. Inside it's warm and dry and stunningly handsome. Outside it desperately needs a good roof to throw off the Welsh rain.
The Spiral Yurt needs: £2,500
Permanent Sweat Lodge:
Photographed: the Sweat Lodge being put together for use in Autumn 2017
Photographed: in the direction of the very tucked away Sweat Lodge, sitting beside the stream. Summer 2017
Nothing more than a new All Weather Cover: £750
The not so stunning Storage Shed needs Attention!
It’s not glamorous but our big old shed needs love too! It is here that we store whatever tools, extra pots and pans, nails, axes, hammers and 15,000 other things we need to make the whole thing happen, but most importantly wood to keep the fire burning and the water hot for 200 plates of washing up!
The Storage Shed needs: £5,000
Dreaming into the future...when all time is Now
Warm Guest Yurt
Photographed: A yurt built by some of the SH crew as an example of what this might look like, Autumn 2017
We really don’t have anywhere honourable to host visiting guests, medicine men and women and tribal elders etc. Our original yurts all turned to compost long ago in this unforgiving climate - so we’ve reinvented them, able to withstand anything the Welsh climate can do. But this one has to be strong, wind sturdy, insulated and magnificent.
£8,000 materials only
The Children's Lodge
Every year, during the August bank holiday weekend, the whole tribe comes together in celebration of life, play, togetherness and wildness, at our festival known as The Cauldron of Plenty (to which you are invited!) During this time, we welcome all; elders, youngs ones, babies, toddlers, teenagers... everyone. We have a Children's Space, held and passed on through the generations of the teachers and storytellers of Spirit Horse. The children's tipi needs replacing urgently, to hold space for the most treasured vitality of the community.
Photographed: The children together at Spirit Horse, The Cauldron of Plenty
The Children's Lodge needs: £2,500
For all things forgotten and not forgotten:
For the pot that pays for everything that is unforeseen, for the costs of the churning wheel, for the extra bag of chapatti flour and the firewood burnt as we welcome new visitors. May there somehow be enough. All things forgotten, unable to plan for but rightfully considered. Our track record is one of making a little go a very very long way. We have manifested a huge dream on a tiny shoestring budget. We are building a village, not one grey boxed meeting room. And to do that we are bringing our humble human hands together to offer places to gather people, places of beauty, that adorn the land, and we offer our blessings to it with sweat, song and love. May it be enough. May it be enough. May it be enough.
HOW THIS MONEY WILL BE SPENT
These figures do not include any labour. That is freely given by the tribe, new and old volunteers and maybe even you! They do include materials, a few tools, food and treats for the crew, petrol for the generator, and the absolute essentials to make it all work. This is a vast project. It’s a village and not just a building. It’s a dream, a vision, and it’s already happening. It lives, has put down deep roots, and needs your help to consolidate, grow, take pressure away and replace it with fuel for grace. Your donations will bring the whole Spirit Horse dream to the next level.
For the Completion of the Spirit Horse Tribal Ancient Village, a cultural light for the world - to honour the wild, the tears and laughter of forgotten and ecstatic culture. What we need and what we ask for is a total of £103,250
If you like what you see, visit, spread the word or donate.
All sponsors are welcome to contact us and visit in early summer to see what is happening and what we are able to create with financial backing.
You can carry a few timbers up the mountain too!
Please see our short film, see the elegance of our structures, the possibility of a real ancient lived in, vibrant, alive, experimenting, Sacred Village finding and keeping alive an impossible beautiful dream from the past, to guard and inform our future, in this time of cultural, ecological and spiritual crisis. We don’t have all the answers but we have an attempt bursting with vitality to address where we are at that is both deeply personal and universal. And our attempt is a rebellion of the most lavish and extravagant order. Take a look at our film, come inside, you are welcome.
Photographed: The entrance to Shivam's Lodge in the Valley at Spirit Horse, Summer 2017
Photographed: Zero Impact, the view of the village upon entering, May 2018
"For many, a sense of being part of something beautiful, something greater than any one of us, becomes more precious than any personal gain or benefit. Our longing to truly participate in life and mystery with others yearns to find a home. Gratitude and gestures of nobility flow from that foundation."
Photographed: The Men's Lodge & The Kitchen Tent taken from the tiny pathway that leads to the Temple, Summer 2017
Dream it. Build it. Bless it. Pass it on.
In giving your money, your life force and your energy into this valley, you are giving to a lived and rooted vision of how people can be together, in a broad, natural, honoured and harmonious way. You are contributing to the rediscovery of sharing, in community and tribe, to the reconnecting with true natures and Nature Herself.
Come, visit, see with your own eyes, the valley, the wildness, the invitation is always open. Share, donate, get your own boots dirty and your hearts full. Let's bring the naturalness back into Life.
Photographed: Shivam sitting on the 'postman's path' overlooking the fertile and rich land that is year by year, returning. Autumn 2015
"Out beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doing,
there is a green field
I'll meet you there.
When you lie down in that grass,
Life is too full to talk about" - Rumi
We'll see you in that field!
Rewards
The list of rewards is available for you to see to the right & below! If you request more information on any particular reward, please email us at [email protected]
As the campaign continues, we will be adding new rewards! Please check these on the list to the left!
NEW REWARDS HAVE BEEN ADDED!
Pledge £5: We will give thanks by speaking your name into the smoke at one of our gratitude fire rituals
Pledge £10: A notch made into the roundhouse, with your name recited in thanks and blessings for your kind giving to the remaking of culture
Pledge £15: Receive a guided meditation from Shivam O'Brien, sent to you as an MP3. Dive into the stillness of your Being.
Pledge £25: 20% off our Surrender Tantra course, happening this May! The Giving and Receiving of Healing Pleasure, 18th - 20th of May. Look it up!(You'll even get to meet some of the crew and see the beginnings and birthings of the village as it grows. Held in the Spiral Lodge.)
Pledge £100: 20% off ANY COURSE! From deep self-enquiry with the Enlightenment Intensives held here, to Tantra, to Ritual. Take a look, come away, be here and be welcomed!
Sacred Man Sacred Woman Ritual, 9th - 13th August
Pledge: £350
We invite you to come to our Sacred Man Sacred Woman ritual, on the 9th - 13th of August. At the end of this 4 day ritual there is always a group of men and women smiling and laughing fulfilled in every cell of their body, thanking and praising each other for being so raw and real. It feels as if we could create a new world where men and women, with tears running down their cheeks, speak of their love for one and other. A proper initiation into ritual. You are welcome. For more on this, click here. Be welcomed to stay for a few days and let this sink into every cell. We'd love to have you.
Building in Ecstacy - 10 Day Course, available May & June 2018
Pledge: £1000
Come & join us, learn, be ready to get your boots muddy in the making. This course will involve shoulder to shoulder instruction covering the following: Details on the tried and tested structures, calculating costs and spending well, time frames, community building, leadership, building techniques, drawings, Spirit Horse secrets, planning issues & question time. We will build together and Shivam will hold circles of teaching along the way. Perfect if you are about to undertake a venture of your own, be it building your own home, the creation of yurts or lodges, or a beautiful and careful addition to your own community! Come & learn from the tribe, from Shivam, from the living structures themselves!
** Priestess Lodge Blessing **
Pledge: £1000
Priestess Lodge Blessing in honour of the male adventure and your masculine energy. A lodge of healing women offer you ancient Temple Ritual, a once in a lifetime space where you surrender and find yourself received into the softness of Woman and Her love and healing touch. (Also open as a space for Women to receive blessing.)
** Priest Lodge Blessing **
Pledge: £1000
Priest Lodge blessing for you, your wild feminine, your little girl, your natural Woman.
Held by the Lodge of Men who have mastered the art of holding with presence and honour, for you to be absolutely as you are. An experience of beauty, healing, once in a lifetime! Fall down deep to ancient Temple healing.
(Also open to as a space for Men to receive blessing.)
Familes! Baby Blessing & Story Time
Pledge: £1000
An invitation for you and your family to come down for a nights stay with us and be blessed.
A baby blessing for you and your little one. Held by the Women's Lodge.
For families with older children, we offer you an evening in the lodge with exquisite storytelling.
A night's stay at Spirit Horse for a Group of 5, Sauna, Massage & More! Pledge: £2,500Included is a luxury breakfast, warm cosy lodge accommodation, a walk to the cave and the stunning Emerald Pool Waterfall. Includes a hot sauna, massage and healing session for all. Specific dates available in May/June/July, do contact us!
One Year of Counsel & Guidance with Shivam O'Brien
Pledge: £18,000
Shivam will be available to you for guidance in meditation, ritual, prayer, community, poetic histoy, ecstatic building, vision quests, and deep enquiry for one whole year! Includes Spirit Horse: one year course - check the websitefor details!
For those of you in love with Art and astounding majesty of Mural Paintings
Pledge: 2500 - 1 A3 print of a mural painting done by the Spirit Horse painters, framed and delivered. Limited number available!
Pledge: £5000 - Full sized A1 print of a mural painting, done by our artists at Spirit Horse. Framed and delivered to you! Limited number available!
Pledge £30,000 - Personal Mural Painting by our Spirit Horse Artist, delivered to you!
Pledge: £45,000 - Personal Mural Painting by our Spirit Horse artists, delivered to you!
& A Priest or Priestess lodge blessing
& A seat at the High Table at our Cauldron of Plenty in August
& 3 rewards of your choice!
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~ Everyone who pledges £500 and over will be invited to a private purification Sweat Lodge on the land!
Held by Shivam O'Brien. Let's sweat and prayer together. ~
~ Everone who pledges £1000 and over will be sent an invitation to a Secret party!
Details will be emailed to you! Bring your most wild and natural self! ~
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For the rewilding of our land, to the return to ourselves, and to the coming together of people,
in this crazy wild and beautiful world. We ask you to help us, we thank you, you are welcome here.