For each person ticket selected please provide the information requested. This needs to be done for each person ticket you add to your basket.
Led by: Ruth Love, Amaragita, Viryanaya and the Village Heart Team
Location: Frog Mill, nr. Throwleigh in Devon
Experience level: Open to all
Age Group: Adults and children
Prices
Adults & 17 year-olds: donation tier (includes the equivalent of the cost of one child ticket to support others)- £510, waged - £400, low waged-£325 , no wage- £250
Teen (13-16): waged- £190, low waged- £130 , no wage- £110
Child (3-12): waged- £140 , low waged- £110, no wage- £90
Baby (0-2): £30
Car pass: £15
Live in vehicle – large (6m+): £30
Live in vehicle – small (6m & under): £30
We gather to connect with the theme for the year. “Uncovering the Jewel” will provide us with material to create a positive community on our beautiful Dartmoor land.
There will be meditation for all, including the option for one-to-one meditation reviews, talks, yoga, daily kula groups, maybe hot tubs, games and play, creativity and green crafts. We will have rituals to connect us to the land and our highest ideals and the opportunity to connect in the lodges in separate binary-gender groups or mixed groups.
Food
This year’s village will be fully catered. Snacks will be provided and the urns and tea stuff will be available all day. We ask you to bring your own cutlery and crockery for this event, including mugs. We will provide you with a tote bag to put everything in and a hook to hang it on in the eating area to prevent you from having to carry it around a lot. Or you can bring your own tote bag if you want it to be more distinctive and perhaps easier to spot among all the others. We will provide plenty of hot, soapy water for washing up.
This is a catered event. Urns and tea-making facilities will be available all day. Please plan to bring your own mugs. We will provide other crockery and plenty of hot soapy water for washing up.
We can offer a restricted range of food to support medical dietary needs. The full list of food we will offer during a retreat (not at every meal) is here. Unfortunately, we may not be able to cater for all complex needs due to restrictions on our resources and the unique challenges of cooking for an outdoor retreat with no refrigeration and limited storage.
It is tricky to be on retreat or working in a field with dietary restrictions, and this can create a level of understandable stress. However, please check the list, plan to bring your supplies if the items on there are not enough and check with us via our contact form if you are unsure. We'd like to ask that any food you need to bring for yourself and plan to eat in public areas is vegan. If you need anything outside of this, please cater for yourself discreetly and outside of public areas. If this creates a big barrier for you, we welcome conversation around it via our contact form. We understand that feeding children in this environment can create some difficulties, and you may need to bring and provide food you know your child will eat. We ask that if you do need to do your own cooking and/or supplement with snacks, that you do this away from the main public area and out of sight; otherwise it can create a cascade effect with the other children wanting things that their parents have not brought
The kitchen team on site cannot make changes or offer anything outside of the given parameters.
We cannot cater for last-minute changes or any preferences outside of medical needs. If you can eat the general food, then please do so to reduce strain on the kitchen team.
Please note that most meals are gluten-free so apart from a few exceptions, anyone who follows this kind of diet will be able to eat the main meals. Ingredients of each meal are provided in the servery so you can check at each sitting if you can have the food.
Retreat Conditions
The retreat will also be closed. Therefore, we ask that you come for the whole time and plan not to move your vehicle after arrival until the departure day. We ask everyone to stay on site the whole time during the retreat. We have support if you need essential items during this time. Weather permitting, we will be offering an offsite walk or two in the local area during the retreat. We’ll also have a pleasantly full schedule of activities on-site for all ages.
Vehicles
We must look after our precious land and soil structure when it comes to vehicle capacity and movement. Therefore, please note the following:
FAQs
More retreat information
What is it like to be at Village?
This is a piece written by one of our long-term regulars who brought their child to Village for many years until they became an adult and then started joining the team and helping to run Village. It’s a great view of what it’s like to come to Village and why it’s important.
What are the kids' activities at Village 2?
This retreat offers a range of activities for different age ranges – toddlers, 5-10 year-olds, 11-12 year-olds (BOBs – between-ers of Buddhafield – not quite kids, not quite teenagers) and teens. These might include – art sessions, games, crafts, puppet shows, talks and so on.
Activities are always offered during the morning kula period to give parents a chance to attend the kula sessions while their children are occupied. For toddlers, kulas take place in the toddler area and a team supports the children during this time whilst also allowing them access to their parents whenever they need.
Other activities might take place at other times in the day – schedules are posted daily.
BOBs are offered the chance to go on the Independence day challenge during the retreat – a supervised, day-long walk on Dartmoor with wild swimming and treats at the end.
Teens have their own tepee and activities supported by the teen team.
What is the work period, and what work will need to be done?
Each retreat has a team who are working to create the experience. At various times, the work needs some input from retreatants – typical work might include veg chopping, washing up, wood chopping, taking care of certain spaces and so on.
On booking, you will be asked for two choices of work periods that might work for you. We try our best to get everyone into their first or second choice, but this isn't always possible.
Do I have to do the work period if I have young kids / my children need me / etc.?
We are very mindful that having your children on retreat already involves a certain amount of work. We ask you to choose work types that might work for you during the booking process and do our best to make sure you get your first or second choice. Ultimately, if you are unable to be at the work period, we completely understand, and it's ok. It would be great if you could let us know if you think this will be a retreat-long situation.
What is a kula group?
Village 2 is quite a large event and it's good to have smaller groups within that so people can practice, get to know one another and be supported in the community. Kula groups are held every day and, depending on the group, might contain some meditation, some Dharma input and/or a period of check-in where people either discuss Dharma and the theme of the day or share more generally about their experience.
Kula groups are not compulsory, and we know that people may not be able to make it every day - that's fine. Most people find that being part of a kula group enhances their experience of the retreat.
You are asked about Kula group preference on booking - we do our best to assign you to the group you have requested, but this isn't always possible if we are full or if we do not have enough people interested to run a certain group. Most of the group names are self-explanatory except for Samadhi kula - this is for people who have more than three years of meditation experience and wish to dive deeper into practice during the Village. It does not include a check-in element and we ask that people are certain that they will be able to attend every day before they sign up for this group.
What about kula groups and children?
Children are welcome to be near you when you are in kula groups and come and go during the groups. We provide children's activities during the kula time which gives many parents more flexibility to attend. If you have young children, there is the option of the toddler kula, which takes place in the toddler area where we have people to look after the children so they have supervision but still have immediate access to you.
I can no longer attend the Village. What is your refund policy?
For Village, we refund 100% of all children's tickets and 80% of adult tickets up until one month before the event. After that, we will refund the same if we are fully booked and can fill your place from the waitlist. If we cannot, then we will refund 50% of your total booking so that we can cover the costs involved.