Journeyland presents

The Living
Village

A two-day gathering for land-based living

August 15 – 16, 2026  |  The Living Centre, London ON

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This isn't a festival you attend.
It's a village you help create.

Everyone who comes holds a piece of what makes this place alive. We're calling them roles — but really they're ways of belonging.

We all have a role to play in participating, bringing practical skills, sharing cultural knowledge, and offering lived experience, so we may learn together.

A two-day gathering

A gathering to convene and explore the practical, cultural, and ecological foundations of building a local ecovillage in the London region.

The program blends workshops, storytelling, hands-on learning, and community dialogue. The event will attract people interested in living closer to the land, local leaders, community organizers, growers, builders, creatives, and others who value cooperation and shared stewardship.

A participatory immersion that blends connecting with the land and each other, storytelling, and practical skill-building. Hear from ecovillage leaders, join workshops on ecovillage design, and participate in hands-on demos like natural building and permaculture.

There will be opportunities to join leadership circles, so we can take our learnings and start to take action towards our collective vision.

Trauma can be experienced at any age and across generations. A healing-centred approach offers a more holistic path to fostering well-being. Our goal is to bring together collective healing practices found throughout history and across the land.

Inspired by and in service to nature. Land as a teacher has many layers: language, geography of stories, cosmologies, relationality, and a connection to reconciliation.

What emerges

A living experience. Workshops, circles, and hands-on learning woven throughout two days.

Learning
Community Leadership & Governance
Design
Permaculture Design
Building
Natural Building & Construction
Stewardship
Land Stewardship
Economics
Business Models
Culture
Cultural Integration
Planning
Zoning & Regulations
Practice
Workshops
Sharing
Circles & Storytelling
Family
Multigenerational Families
Joy
Music & Dance
Nature
Connections to the Elements
Stay
Overnight Camping & Cabins
Explore
Forest Walks & Campfires
Together
Community Gathering

Pollinating the future

Pollination is one of the most important ecological services. Bees, butterflies, birds, and bats help plants reproduce, supporting the food supply and plant diversity.

Let us learn from our relatives, and join in the natural cycles of life. By planting our collective vision, we can ensure that the land and our community continues to bloom.

A delicate dance of nature.

Seven ways to belong

Every village needs people who tend different parts of the whole. These seven roles are the bones of The Living Village. Each one carries a specific kind of care. Together, they hold the container for everything else that wants to emerge.

Fire Keeper

Fire Keeper

Ceremony + Sacred Space

Tends to what is sacred — the energy of ritual, transition, and intentional coming together. Opens and closes spaces. Holds the threshold between ordinary time and village time.

For you if: You've held space before. You're comfortable with silence. You trust timing.

Story Weaver

Story Weaver

Memory + Documentation

The village memory — capturing moments, voices, fragments that would otherwise disappear. Not as a journalist, but as a witness. Builds the Memory Wall. Collects quotes and reflections.

For you if: You notice things others miss. You carry a notebook everywhere.

Nourishment Steward

Nourishment Steward

Food + Body Care

Makes sure no one goes hungry. Mealtime feels like communion, not logistics. Coordinates meals, labels food, facilitates communal kitchen moments.

For you if: You find joy in feeding people. Food is the most concrete form of love.

Root System

Root System

Infrastructure + Land Care

The invisible work that makes everything visible. Someone set up those chairs. Someone kept the compost sorted. Someone found the extension cord. Sets up, breaks down, trouble-shoots, tends the grounds.

For you if: You see what needs doing before anyone asks. Tending the container IS tending the community.

Threshold Keeper

Threshold Keeper

Welcome + Wayfinding

Holds the portal. The first face someone sees. The last energy they carry home. Welcomes arrivals, orients newcomers, holds departure check-ins.

For you if: You're warm without being overbearing. How someone arrives shapes everything that follows.

Living Ledger

Living Ledger

Coordination + Wayfinding

The bridge between concept and humans — making sure everyone knows what's happening, when, and where. Handles logistics, answers questions, and helps people find their way through the gathering.

For you if: You're the person who knows how things work. You explain clearly. You like holding the threads.

Weave Maker

Weave Maker

Connection + Integration

Bridges people, notices who's isolated, holds space for the awkward and the emergent. Introduces strangers, checks in mid-festival, creates skill/need boards.

For you if: Who meets whom matters more than what's on the schedule.

A collective effort

Our current economy treats money and time as the main units of exchange. Nature works differently: exchange is reciprocal, seasonal, and woven into place.

Let's work together, like nature does. Honouring reciprocity.

We all have a role to play in participating, bringing practical skills, sharing cultural knowledge, and offering lived experience, so we may learn together.

Save the date — add to your calendar

Add to Calendar

Join the village

We're keeping this first wave small. The ones who say yes will shape what this becomes — not just for August, but for whatever comes after.

What if every person felt they belonged to something —
and that something belonged to them?

Not charity. Not commerce. Belonging.
That's what we're building.
And it starts with you.