Autumn Season Rinwen

 All sessions come with replays in your module library

Oliver Lavery - Storycrow 

Session: The Hunt for the Otherworld Boar

8th October & Monday 26th October | 5-7pm BST

Anton Toem

From a Breton family of 15th generation, he grew up among the stones, the legends and the myths. A traveller since young age, Anton immersed himself in cultures around the world and the nature that inspired them.  It was that same nature that teach him about cycles, life, death and even music.

He bring a intuitive way of reclaiming our sovereignty as well has our ancestral heritage.

The Golden Apple of Avalon & Brittany

14th September | 5-7pm BST

In this 2-hour workshop, we'll wander into the orchards of Brittany, where the apple has long been kept as sacred — its story entwined with Samhain, All Hallows' Eve, Calan Gaeaf, and the thinning of the veil. Together, we'll explore the golden apple's role in spiritual ascension and consciousness expansion, in Celtic mythology and beyond. I'll be sharing Breton song, storytelling, poetry, and a guided meditation to help us reach the core of the apple's energy and memory.

Decomposing Whiteness with Kimber Simpkins

18th September | 5-7pm BST 

How does understanding our ancestral practices help us show up differently in a world divided along racial and class lines? How can grounding ourselves in an embodied relationship to nature and spirit help us relate to the diverse human world with more wisdom and ease? By Decomposing Whiteness, we can continue the process of letting colonial and imperial systems decay, both in the world and how we’ve internalized them within ourselves, allowing a renewed connection to the earth and each other to grow in its place.

Kimber is part of Braided Wisdom in the US, and has spent years walking alongside this work.

Stella Marie

Stella is the founder of Rinwen, aside from leading the centre, she weaves story and embodiment to guide people into deeper relationship with landscape, imagination, voice and creative potential. A Welsh artist, storyteller and ritualist, she draws from the wisdom traditions of Wales and Britain and is currently completing a Master’s in Illustration, deep-mapping her local river through animistic visual storytelling.

Stella is currently completing an MA in Illustration, where she's deep-mapping her local river valley, as a multidiciplinary artist braiding visual art, performance, music and more.

To Come

 22nd October | 5-7pm BST 

The Mythic Descent into Autumn

A journey through Britain's mythic realm of animism and ancestral reverence, through storytelling, song & folk history.

Celebrating and honoring All Hallows Eve, Nos Calan Gaeaf, and the Ancestors.

Previously

Ancient Song, Folksong & Treelore  

Tree Lore, Sacred Sounds of Britain & Oral Histories, Folk Song & Ancient Language

A workshop exploring the trees, songs, and oral traditions of Britain, weaving folk song, ancient language, and treelore together. Between now and the next Bardic Circle, you're invited (not required) to spend time getting to know an other-than-human being in your local ecology, bring a familiar one into your home, explore your own voice through sound-making, learn a traditional oak song ready to sing together live, and listen to a piece of Welsh folk song from the living library.

The Oldest Animals of Britain: An Ancient Welsh Storytelling of Animism and Animal Guidance 

A storytelling session led by Stella, drawing on the tale of Culhwch and Olwen and its journey through the oldest animals of Britain, following the search for Mabon ap Modron through the memory of creatures older than time itself.

Ra de SOL

Originally from the Iberian Peninsula, raised in a family of witches. A passionate herbalist, traveler, and researcher, she draws inspiration from her deep connection to the earth and the wisdom it offers.

Ritualising is her way of celebrating life, through being present in the moment, appreciating the small details, and weaving a bridge between the ancestral traditions and the modern times.

The Autumn Flame - Candles, Herbs & the Wisdom of Samhain

Thursday 5th November | 5-7pm BST

How do plants change their symbolism when united with flame? Here, you are invited to decorate a candle with dried herbs while setting an intention.

In this session with Ra, we will explore:

Harvest, transition from abundance into stillness, and the beginning of the death into Winter while keeping the light, from the last summer.

• Entering the Autumn threshold
• ⁠Fire and the sacred light
• Storytelling
• Herbal Teaching: Plants remember the sun
• The beeswax journey.
• Smoke, cleansing and blessing.
• Creating our own Autumn Candle Flame.

Gwilym Morus-Baird

Joining for Springtime

Dr Gwilym Morus-Baird is a native Welsh speaker, scholar, musician and storyteller who has studied the Welsh bardic tradition from the inside. He runs Celtic Source, sharing scholarly research and personal insight into Celtic myth, and is the author of Taliesin Origins: Exploring the Myth of the Greatest Celtic Bard. His work brings together academic depth and lived understanding of Wales's landscape, language and literature, illuminating figures like Taliesin and Ceridwen and the mystical relationship between awen and Annwfn.

Charlotte Pulver

Joining for Springtime

Charlotte Pulver is a modern-day alchemist and lover of the waters, born into a lineage of apothecarians. With over 20 years' experience in natural healthcare, she makes medicines through Pulver's Apothecary and has spent many years hosting water ceremonies and pilgrimages across London and beyond. She is co-founder of The Fellowship of the Spring, a group championing water guardianship in the British Isles, and is currently writing a book mapping the springs and wells of London and the U.K. Her path is rooted in the yew mysteries and the sacred waters of these isles.

Already Inside

Victoria Folkheart

Victoria is a seasoned practitioner who has held over 200 ceremonies and rituals, developing a deep understanding of spiritual science and the evolution of the human soul. With extensive knowledge of how bardic stories and sound healing work together to unlock soul memories buried beneath many lifetimes, she specialises in safely reconnecting people with their subconscious mind and ancestral wisdom.

Through her unique approach combining Welsh traditions with modern sound therapy, hypnosis, and ritual, Victoria guides participants to access these deeper layers of consciousness, facilitating profound soul growth and expanded awareness of self in a nurturing, supportive environment.

Session: Can o'r Coed - "Songs of the Trees"

Ken Shapley

Ken is a 61-year-old elder bard and Awenydd who has partaken of Ceridwen's cauldron for over 30 years. Since childhood, the world of lucid dreaming was stronger than waking life, a gift that fueled his lifelong exploration of how consciousness, sound, and magical intent work together.

An initiated bard through OBOD, Ken has studied with shamans, monks, and master storytellers across Japan, Canada, India, and Scotland, weaving together the threads of First Nations ceremony, Tibetan Buddhist practice, and ancient sound healing. After decades walking the paths of other traditions, he discovered that returning to his Welsh Celtic roots felt like finding "his bunch of nutters", a people cozy with one foot in each world, where humour dances with ceremony and creativity flows like the sacred rivers of the land.

Born in Llantwit Major, Wales, ancient home of eternal choirs, Ken bridges generations as a healer, musician, poet, and maker of wands and staffs. The Awen has called him home, and he brings the wisdom of an elder who knows the Bardic path from deep, lived experience.

On Becoming a Tree

Learning from the Trees with Ken Shapley

Ken Shapley has spent a lifetime in relationship with forests, travelling from Wales to Scotland to Tibet, learning story-craft from elders along the way, and carrying that knowledge back into the woodlands of these islands. A poet, staff maker, and traveling storyteller, Ken doesn't teach about trees so much as speak from his years of sitting with them, listening to what they've taught him.

In this session, Ken guides you into that same relationship, as an elder passing on a way of being with the forest that he's earned over decades.