Projects

Deep Roots Community

Alan is currently involved in exploring an early-stage vision for a place to help people find fellowship, direction, and soul resilience in a world of rising turbulence. Working title: the Deep Roots Community.

Imagine a core community of 6-8 people, living and growing food at a rural location in mid-Wales, with a shared, inclusive approach to integrate spirit with land and everyday life. The core community would be joined by small residential groups staying for a weekend to a week, and by a few apprentices staying for a few weeks to a few months. The underlying aim would be for the place, the community, and connection with the land to enable people to find their meaning, purpose, and soul resilience. Celtic Christianity has deep, old roots in mid-Wales, and this community would draw on these roots to nourish heart and soul amid the confusion of our times.

Seeding our Future

The two main current projects for Seeding Our Future are food security and community places. On food security, Alan is working with the Our Food Trust and others to strengthen local food production and community resilience in Wales, where both national and local governments are engaging actively with the issue; this includes practical work such as the development of Sarn Farm, alongside early-stage exploration with local stakeholders around communal approaches to food security. Alan is also exploring early visions for community places that support fellowship, direction, and resilience in a time of growing turbulence, including the Deep Roots Community above, and eco-hamlets.

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Soul Resilience

Spiritual purpose to grow through crisis times

Amid widespread disruption and change, many of us are feeling the need to reconnect with a deeper sense of purpose and direction. This website aims to help people and groups who are searching at the level of soul or spirit for a higher purpose beyond personal and material concerns.

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Natural Happiness

Natural Happiness is not just a book: it’s a body of wisdom, a set of skills and practical insights, available in various forms, including workshops (an hour to a weekend), webinars, videos, blogs and resource guides. You’ll find more about these elsewhere on this website. Alan’s book, Natural Happiness, is intended as a focal point to share this approach more widely. Here are two ways you could be involved:

As an organisation or network: we can offer talks or workshops, online or in person, tailored to a wide range of groups, including:
– community groups wanting to raise resilience skills, or explore climate change responses
– public service teams (NHS and others) wanting to reduce burnout and handle stress better
– work teams (business and non-profit) keen to raise their human sustainability.
– horticultural societies and other gardening groups interested in using gardening skills to cultivate personal wellbeing.

If you’d like to explore a tailored event, please contact Alan.

As an individual: you can book a tailored retreat for yourself or a small group: see more here.

Hazel Hill Wood

Hazel Hill Wood is a beautiful, secluded 70-acre wood and sustainable retreat/education centre, seven miles from Salisbury, which offers unique scope for people to deepen their connection with nature and learn about living renewably. The wood hosts a range of workshops, retreats, and conservation events, including many drawing on Alan’s Natural Happiness model. It has off-grid residential accommodation for up to 34 people, and is available for group bookings.

Hazel Hill was owned and stewarded by Alan Heeks from 1987. He led the creation of education facilities and programmes there since 1993, and has co-led many groups there, especially about learning from Nature about resilience and wellbeing. In June 2015, Alan gifted ownership of the wood to a new registered charity, the Hazel Hill Trust.

For a fuller overview of the project, and information about how to make a booking, click below.

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