A big pile of soil, some glitter, some photos, various gems, various textual gems that we have shared and some coloured feathers all put together on a world map. … What on Earth?

This week we said goodbye in the nicest possible way to our first group's devised character Eddie who came into being in week five as an excellent example of a 'life well lived'. We saw him off with a fond wave after asking each other what we would like to ask him and composing our answers on his behalf.

We can’t believe we are on week five already. We have met some amazing people and been privileged to hear some of their incredible stories. We’ve been around the world many times in these sessions which have naturally had a theme of Wanderlust.

Today was no exception; today we created a map of a Life Well Lived and transposed it onto a stranger’s face! From studying the lines, creases and contours of a face we mapped a journey with troughs, peaks and plateaus. We marveled at how tiny pieces of visual information could change our perception entirely. 

This week we asked our groups to make further explorations of storytelling and to share 'significant journeys' with us without words. We used our bodies to exchange emotions and then - sitting on our hands - we conveyed everything from moments of 'letting go' to real tears in order to transport other group members on our personal journeys.

We also made a physical map of the emotions in the room, allowing participants to create an expression of themselves from whichever media to hand they chose.

A woman in red sits reading on a picnic rug.

Will she have to eat all the cakes herself?

What does she keep in her handbag?

What are her secrets?

From small visual cues our imaginations ran riot. Stories, travels, relations. We sent her round the world and back again, writing postcards as she went. I think she is in Australia at the moment; she went on a whim. She’s that type of woman.

Her story flowed like a river and we had a go at getting to the essence. We retold her life in 100,50, 20 words….

'When delightful rain falls always use the amazing umbrella'....

A useful piece of advice indeed! How else to begin our very first session than to share a nice cup of tea? We sampled tea from around the world, swapped stories about our Nanna's china and created tongue in cheek, sanguine and sublime sayings to put on  the tags of tea bags using our random text generator.