For over ten yerars, the Network of Wellbeing has been a proud sponsor of the Resurgence Trust’s Festival of Wellbeing. This year’s Festival takes place on Saturday, 4th October 2025 and promises to be a day ‘of great wisdom and generosity’! Hosted online via Zoom, the Festival will ask: what does it mean to be well in an ailing world? And how can our personal journeys of healing and growth contribute to the regeneration of our planet? Manon Martini from the Resurgence Trust explains what’s on offer.
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The Resurgence Festival of Wellbeing is back again for 2025 and this year we’re asking: what does it mean to be well in an ailing world? And how can our personal journeys of healing and growth contribute to the regeneration of our planet?
Each speaker offers a different window into the web of life, be it systems science, storytelling, peace pilgrimages or political activism. Together, they will form a holistic vision for planetary protection rooted in inner change and wellbeing. Hosted by The Resurgence Trust, this day-long online gathering always brings together a powerful mix of thinkers, activists, artists and educators.
The day will begin with Tony Juniper, Former Vice Chair of Friends of the Earth International and one of the UK’s most respected environmental advocates. With more than four decades of experience in campaigning, leadership and policy, Tony has spent his life fighting for the natural world. His talk, Just Earth, will explore the inseparable intersection of environmental health and social justice. To heal the planet, we must first heal our divisions and reconnect with empathy and care. His talk will explore the inner work of compassion and justice required so that our policies and practices reflect a true respect for all life.
From there, we’ll move into the poetic and personal with Craig Jordan-Baker, whose 2021 pilgrimage along the River Bann in Northern Ireland inspired his reflective book If the River is Hidden. As a nature-writer and creative writing lecturer at the University of Brighton, Craig will explore how walking becomes a way of mapping memory, meaning and belonging, as well as the power of maps themselves as an imaginative tool.
While Craig explores the meaning of personal journeys, Solène Wolff’s talk will ask us to embark on a collective one: a rewilding of our future. A digital entrepreneur and systems thinker with 15 years of experience leading purpose-driven initiatives across tech, ecology and culture, Jolène helps reimagine society’s path through bold, Earth-centred narratives. She argues that we must move beyond the language of dystopian despair and instead design intentional futures that inspire action. Through stories and systems change, Solene’s work offers a toolkit for turning ecological vision into tangible transformation.
That same regenerative spirit runs through the work of Sophie Wisbrun-Overakker, who believes we must not only protect nature, but recognise its sacredness. As founder of We Are Nature and Doing Business Doing Good, Sophie empowers people and organisations to become regenerative forces for good. Her Festival of Wellbeing talk will explore the conscious intelligence of nature: self-balancing, purposeful, and alive and how aligning ourselves with this truth can lead to thriving lives, workplaces and ecosystems.
The afternoon will bring a moment of calm, reflection and inspiration with Satish Kumar, former monk and founder of The Resurgence Trust. A lifelong advocate for peace and simplicity, Satish speaks from firsthand experience of walking across continents and cultures in the name of love. His talk, Love First, invites us to see love not as sentiment, but as the radical foundation of unity. In a divided world, Satish’s talk will demonstrate that when we prioritise love – before politics or belief – we can stay connected across difference, and prioritise planetary and self-healing.
Love also takes the form of rest. A radical, healing act explored by British-Uzbek journalist and climate communicator Diyora Shadijanova. Through her talk The Right to Rest, Diyora will share her personal journey through burnout, illness and the slow learning curve of gardening. Diyora’s insight is nuanced: rest is not a luxury, but a human right. Tending to ourselves and our land slowly, she suggests, is itself an act of resistance in a culture of constant productivity.
Next, poet and teacher Nadia Colburn bridges the world of language and embodiment, asking: what does the body have to teach us about the Earth? Drawing on her book I Say the Sky, Nadia will lead an interactive session on listening to the Earth through the body and vice versa. Her poetry holds space for trauma and resilience, sorrow and joy, inviting us to write and reflect from a place of deep connection between the Earth and the body. In doing so, Nadia will demonstrate that wellbeing is not about avoidance, but about attention.
This attention to the old and overlooked continues with British broadcaster, anthropologist and fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Mary-Ann Ochota. Her talk will reveal how prehistoric artefacts, from spindle whorls to porridge bowls, show that humans have always been messy, imaginative and adaptable. Looking backwards can reveal unexpected lessons for moving forward. Mary-Ann’s talk will urge us to rediscover continuity, humour and hope in our long and tangled human story.
To round up the day, Fritjof Capra-physicist, systems theorist and author of The Web of Life offers a culminating vision of wholeness. Fritjof will present a systems view of wellbeing, one grounded in the science of living networks. If all biological, social, and ecological life is dynamic and interconnected, true wellbeing, then, isn’t a solitary goal, but a state of flow within a larger web of life. It’s a powerful close to a day of expansive thinking, one that will leave us with a vision of health for ourselves, our earth and one another.
We hope you will join us online on Saturday 4 October for a day of growth learning, and connection. Be part of the conversation and help shape a future that prioritises the wellbeing of both people and planet.
Tickets for the festival are £25 per person, or £15 for concessions. Don’t worry if you can’t attend the whole day – ticket holders will have access to recordings of the talks
after the event.
With thanks to our supporters: the Network of Wellbeing and Weleda.
Click here to book your place.