Saturday 8th November 10.30am to 4.30pm (Registration 10am)
The Uninvited Guest
A workshop with Simon Davison and Dr Ruth Purtilo
The uninvited guest refers to that which is unknown and yet ever present. We need to establish a healthy relationship to the unknown, allow it to participate in our learning and decision making processes, if we are to realise our potential as human beings. This workshop draws on material taught in a post graduate course at Yale University last year. This day is designed to equip participants with tools that encourage greater discernment and insight. It is an invitation to engage in a living process that cultivates the ground of being and gives birth to intelligent becoming. Simon Davison is the Director of the Bleddfa Centre and was a guest Professor at Yale University in 2007. Dr Ruth Purtilo is a Trustee of the Bleddfa Trust, visiting Professor of Ethics at Yale University and the author of many articles and books on the subject.
Cost: £30 (concession available) Please bring a packed lunch. Soup, tea and coffee will be provided.
Venue: The Hall Barn


The Bleddfa Poetry Group
Led by Peter Conradi and Daphne Turner
English Romantic Poetry
Sunday 16th November 2.30pm to 4.30pm
Second of three autumn Sundays on English Romantic Poetry.
Keats (Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to Autumn, Sonnet on Opening Chapman’s Homer, Letters).
Cost: £5 per session
Venue: The Hall Barn

The Bleddfa Trust gratefully acknowledges generous support from the Welsh Academi.

Saturday 22nd November to Friday 19th December
Seeing the Wood for the Trees
An exhibition of photographs by Gareth Rees-Roberts
Opening: 3pm to 5pm on Saturday 22nd November
General opening times: Sunday 23rd November, 2pm to 5pm.
Thereafter, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 2pm to 5pm
until Friday 19th December
Gareth writes; ‘This exhibition of black and white photographs represents a coming together of various strands of my work, combining ideas which have formulated in a slow and organic fashion. My work includes studies of woodland, the transforming power of winter on the landscape and the ambiguities presented to the eye by closely observed detail of natural forms.’ Gareth Rees-Roberts studied art at St Martins College before pursuing a vocation in music, playing and teaching classical guitar. He moved to the Welsh borders in 1978 and has been very active in promoting border arts. Twenty-one years ago he gave an exhibition at Bleddfa, ‘A Year in a Herefordshire Cider Orchard’ which later went on tour and is now part of a permanent collection at the Cider Museum in Hereford. He has had a number of local exhibitions and continues to hand print traditional silver gelatine prints on fibre papers.
Venue: The Old School Room

Saturday 29th November 10.30am to 4.30pm (Registration 10.am)
The Joy and Fulfilment of the Golden Years
A workshop with Judith Pocock
The Founder and President of The Ruby Care Foundation, Judith Pocock, provides a rare opportunity to understand the natural processes of being alive and the crucial importance of the later years of the life journey in preparation for facing our inevitable departure. There is wisdom and wonder to be found in these later years when you at last discover who you really are, and is a time of deep inner understanding, self-balance, and settlement, all vital for being able to move towards a serene and accepting passing. Judith champions the vital function that the Golden Years represents in what it needs to pass onwards to new generations, and pioneers a new Template of dignity and respect for those journeying in the latter years of life. Join us as together we look to better understand the nature of the journey of a person from age fifty onwards. We use the language of the ‘Ebbing’ years to describe this phase in life.   ‘…I felt a lessening of the fear surrounding dying, as I began to understand that the quietening years are a time when the body weakens so that all that is of quality strengthens in the mind ….’ Judith Pocock, founded The Ruby Care Foundation from a wealth of experience in addressing end of life issues with particular focus on bringing death and dying out from behind the taboos and fears surrounding them, and into the natural arena of being alive.
Cost: £30 (concession available). Please bring a packed lunch. Soup, tea and coffee will be provided.   
Venue: The Hall Barn