The Braided River

THE BRAIDED RIVER

… And beneath it all the river sang. It sang with the insistent clatter of gravel and the protesting pummel of stones and the fierce resounding resistance of boulders, all rolling forward in the water’s force. Surfing through the foam, we could hear it all. And we could also hear the dip and rise of women’s songs being threaded through the water. They sang with the gathering gravels of hope and the transforming stones of justice and the great unstoppable boulders of truth… Over and again and maybe forever we will make our river rebellion, until the solidity of water and women has changed the shape of the ocean, until the force of our songs has cleared the silt from the estuaries, until the power of our gravel and boulders has swept away the banks that contain us, then we will all ride the tides that are equal and free… (from Rebellion at the House of Rivers, Book of Hag)

WORKSHOPS WITH CAROLYN 2026

There will be no residential workshops with Carolyn on Dartmoor during 2026 as she is working all year with her new Weavers’ Trail journey, the Cloister, and writing a new book. For information about her concerts and other events this year please follow this link. If you live in central Europe, in October Carolyn will be travelling to give women’s workshops and concerts in Slovakia and Czech Republic. Please see the Seventh Wave Music website for details.

BRAIDED RIVER WORKSHOPS

Carolyn has been creating and guiding workshop journeys for women, on Dartmoor and beyond, for thirty years. Her workshops, circles and gatherings at Lower Merripit Farm are part of the tending, sustaining, protecting and sharing that have been offered since 1995 in this place of wild sanctuary. Her workshops and teachings in the wider world have woven powerful and empowering threads of sisterhood and connection between many women, and the source of the work that we share is anchored into our many experiences of sacred land and ancestral remembering. Sometimes she creates and hosts larger events for women, including the Thirteen Moons Festival and the Braided River Confluence. Most workshops take place on Dartmoor but she has also taught in Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, Russia, and the USA. Over the years, many thousands of women have participated in her workshop journeys. The residential workshop experiences are fed by all the strands of Carolyn’s creative work: words, paint, song, drum, craft, ritual and relationship with wild and ancient land.

STEPPING INTO THE RIVER

The first step into experiencing this Braided River is to start travelling with Carolyn in her online programme. With the opening of the Weavers’ Trail online programme in 2022, a new route was created by which to dive into the work she shares and connect with the community of sisters that has evolved around this Dartmoor wild sanctuary during the last thirty years. Please email Carolyn if you have any questions about joining the Weavers’ Trail. There are various ways to enter the trail, including low cost bursary options and monthly subscriptions. Full details may be found on the page unlock a journey.

THIS WILD SANCTUARY

Lower Merripit Farm is a secluded 1000-year-old farmstead located high up in heart of Dartmoor, in a quiet valley that offers wild sanctuary and a beautiful place in which to be nourished by nature, supported by sisters and inspired by ancient spirit. It is a small organic hill farm, with species-rich flower meadows, rare protected peat bog habitat and native woodland that has been planted in the last 30 years as well as some ancient grandmother trees. The land is rich in water with a network of small streams (one of which becomes a river during winter months), ponds, springs and two ancient wells. Our focus has been on protecting the diverse ecology of the land to the benefit of red deer, roe deer, badger, fox, buzzard, heron, snipe, curlew, tawny owl, water vole, salmon, otter, newt, dragonfly, the endangered marsh fritillary butterfly and many other moorland creatures. Fox hunting has been banned on this land since 1995. The farm has the care of a small herd of wild ponies grazing the open moors, and beehives which are filled with heather honey by September. The workshops are based in our large guest cottage, surrounded by 14 acres of meadows, marshes, streams, woodland and gardens. The ceremonial roundhouse, built in neolithic style with oak trees, granite stones & water reed thatch, sits within a ritual landscape of wild shrines and sacred trails.

DAWEYO KERDÂ: Hearth Woman Initiation

This is the workshop to attend if you are stepping into Carolyn’s workshops for the first time. In the ancient mother tongue daweyo means the woman who kindles the hearth fire, the keeper of flames, the guardian of embers and ashes. Kerdâ is the Proto-Celtic Bronze Age word for skill or craft, journey or trail. This kerdâ is designed as a welcoming, inspiring and empowering circle for women who are arriving newly to this wild sanctuary land and roundhouse hearth, for women who have been exploring the daweyo work through the WEAVERS’ TRAIL and for those who wish to deepen their work by kindling sacred fire and sharing sister circles. We will explore the four ancient ingredients of the daweyo initiation: kruttâ (drum), fflinnâ (coat), dabâkâ (vessel) and oibelo (fire), and anchoring that work into the ritual landscape and the ceremony house. We will be shaping our circle in ancient and newly-envisioned ways with the ingredients of drum and song, prayer and ritual, ceremonial dance and sacred land, creating totemic items and the magical tending of women’s wild, wise and ancient fires. There is currently no date planned for the next Daweyo workshop.