The icon of October is a grinning orange pumpkin, emblematic of the fun and festivities of Halloween. This festival encourages us to confront death with levity, and in the Northern Hemisphere, late October and early November has long been understood as an auspicious time to explore our various connections with worlds beyond the living; to commune with our ancestors and to understand what lies beyond the veil between the worlds.

The ancient Celtic festival of Samhain is one of the most significant influences on Halloween. From sunset on October 31st to sunset on November 1st, people celebrated by lighting bonfires and wearing costumes, as Samhain was when the 'doorways' to the Otherworld opened, allowing supernatural beings and the souls of the dead to come to Earth. Many Neolithic tombs in Ireland and Britain are aligned with the sunrise at the time of Samhain.

On the other side of the world, Mexico’s Día de los Muerto, the ‘Day of the Dead’, combines indigenous beliefs with Catholicism and Mexican culture. Celebrated on 1st and 2nd November, the tradition originated thousands of years ago with the Aztec and Nahua people as a time when the dead temporarily return to Earth to be by our sides. Día de los Muertos is not a sad or morbid occasion, it’s a joyful, colourful commemoration of loved ones and a vibrant affirmation of the cycles of life and death.

Journey to the radical frontiers of philanthropy

☀️ Join our free webinars 🌈

All of our work at Be The Earth centres relationships, trust, and collaboration.

Two of our flagship programmes are Flow Funding and Giving Circle, both taking an approach to philanthropy that prioritizes nurturing, inclusivity, and relationship-building to democratise the redistribution of wealth, minimise bureaucracy, and allow funds to reach people and projects beyond the scope of traditional philanthropy.

These programmes share power with experienced activists and visionary leaders, who receive and allocate philanthropic funds based on trust, intuition, and their intimate understanding of grassroots work in their communities.

We are showcasing this work in two upcoming webinars, created and led by our Fellows. We warmly invite you to come along and experience the power of a wholly trust-based approach to grant-making, led by pioneering women.

🌸 Transformative learning with Advaya 🌸

With 50% off for our subscribers

advaya is a leading transformative learning platform exploring ecology and consciousness to reframe how we see the world and our role within it. It offers learning journeys and experiences that nurture purpose and belonging to navigate pathways towards lives of more meaning, connection and presence. 

You’ll find courses, events, podcasts and blogs on topics such as animism, mycology, mythology, psychedelics, artificial intelligence, regenerative economics, spiritual ecology, and much more. Their faculty of 400 teachers includes some of the leading hearts and minds of our time including Iain McGilchrist, Vandana Shiva, Satish Kumar, Bayo Akomolafe, Pat McCabe and Rupert Sheldrake, 

You can either register for a single course or become a member. Readers of this newsletter save £240 on Thrive+ Membership with our special discount code!

Thrive+ Membership includes access to unlimited content, the entire advaya library, including upcoming and on-demand courses and monthly member events.

Get a 50% discount by using the code BTE-50 at checkout.

...psssst! You can find another very special advaya discount here, and follow us on Instagram for more!

🌿 (re)Treat yourself 🌱

Self-guided retreats at 42 Acres

Take yourself off for a nourishing self-retreat at the beautiful 42 Acres. Reconnect with nature, with yourself, and with other people… at your own pace.

Immerse yourself in calm, beautiful spaces and regenerative landscapes.

Eat wholesome, organically-grown food, freshly prepared by retreat chefs to nourish you from the inside out. Participate in transformational experiences designed to support healing and growth, or simply rest and restore in nature.

Self-guided retreats include:

All Meals from a Soil-to-Gut Menu

Daily 42 Acres Experiences

'Deep Dive' Workshops

1-2-1 Support to Design your Schedule

Wild Swimming, Paddleboards & Canoes

...and more!

Retreat hosts will support you to create an experience bespoke to you.

Find out more and book your stay using the link below.

🦋 Haiku Futures

Submit your haiku for COP28 🐝

The award-winning Hot Poets are working with the UNFCCC’s Resilience Frontiers to creatively re-imagine a better future, by bringing to life their 8 Pathways to a more desirable world.

On the lead up to COP28 in Dubai, Hot Poets are running their global Haiku Futures project, a crowd-sourcing haiku and photography project aimed at bringing the pathways to life through moving participatory films, engaging thousands of people from around the world to take part in sharing their creative ideas on how these future pathways might unfold.

Hot Poets will present all the crowd-sourced Haiku Futures films at the UNFCCC’s Resilience Frontiers Pavilion ​​at COP28 where they will be championing the power of the arts to explain the unexplainable, to not only change mindsets but to elevate imaginations and to give the planet what it needs most.

🍄 A place where mushrooms can sprout 🪸

Brazil Regional Gathering 2023

At the beautiful Terra Luminous, we found deep nourishment, inspiration and community at our 2023 Annual Regional Gathering in Brazil. A celebration of the people in our network and the incredible work they do, this was a place to forge new connections and ignite creativity towards manifesting the changes we want to see in the world.

Be The Earth's role in the ecosystem, in this change that we want to generate, is to be the mycelium: the underground fungal network which is essential for the balance of any biome. Our Regional Gatherings are a meeting place where the mycelium network strengthens and mushrooms can sprout. 

 ✨ Lunar Eclipse in Taurus ✨

Balancing co-operation and individuality

We're days away from the Lunar Eclipse in Taurus that will be occurring on Saturday, October 28th. The energy of the eclipse is known to be a portal full of surprises, opportunities, and heightened intensity.

Astronomically speaking, the Lunar Eclipse occurs when the Earth travels between the Sun and the Moon, casting a shadow on the Moon. This opposition between the Sun and the Moon pushes us to open new doorways by closing significant cycles and chapters in our lives. What cycle are you completing at this time?

Since the Moon is located in Taurus and the Sun in Scorpio, this is a time for collective transitions and realignment around our values. The Full Moon illuminates themes around our resources, wealth, investments, and most importantly our self-worth. Where do you wish to invest your time and energy for the next 6 months?

Look in your Natal Chart...what planets are located in Taurus and Scorpio? You have been working with these energies since November of 2021!

 For more info on this month's cycles, follow @bru_maia on IG!