SATURDAY 21ST & SUNDAY 22ND SEPTEMBER

We invite you to come and find your balance, share the harvest and to grow more hope over the Autumn Equinox weekend, a time of almost equal day and night. 

Come and play out with us on and around our Windsor Street home alongside artists, gardeners, cooks & neighbours. There’ll be a raucous Harvest Auction Fundraiser sharing the precious produce of gardeners from across the city, a ritual walk along the 100-Year Street from local spring to oldest oak, ‘Trustfrastructure’ hope-building street sessions, street sofa chats & snacks, seed-saving for next years growth & Communal DJ-ing to get us all moving!

The Equinox Weekender is part of ‘Seeds of Hope’: a series of hopeful happenings taking place all across the UK this autumn, with community growing and nature connection at their heart.

Inspiring community-led events are taking place all across the UK with support from Joseph Rowntree Foundation – from Inverness to Hastings via Liverpool, Powys, Bristol and beyond – reflecting the hope and solidarity we know exists in communities everywhere, and inviting all of us to get behind it.

Amid concern about the rise of far-right populism and widespread feelings of fatalism, these celebrations of amazing people and communities growing hope and building belief in better futures are exactly what we need right now.

SATURDAY 21ST SEPTEMBER 10AM-4PM & 6-9PM

GROUNDING CEREMONY 10-11am 

Let’s tune into the Equinox with meditation, movement & altar making.

DIGESTING POLITICS 11.30-1PM BOOKING ESSENTIAL FREE/ BY DONATION

Enjoy a bowl of soup and a chat about the politics of food. More info here

COMMUNITY DJ-ING 12-2PM

Bring your own vinyl to get us all moving!

IMMUNE-BOOSTING FOR ACTIVISTS 2-4PM  BOOKING ESSENTIAL FREE/ BY DONATION

Activists & allies; help make immune-strengthening elixirs to get us through autumn/winter.

HARVEST AUCTION FUNDRAISER 6PM-9PM BOOKING ESSENTIAL £10

A magical evening of food and comedy raising funds for Habibti Liverpool & Squash’s own ‘Soup it Forward’, co-hosted by our patron Andi Oliver! More info here.

SUNDAY 22ND SEPTEMBER 10-4PM

THE ART OF SEED SAVING 10AM – 12 NOON

Help to sort, clean & pack seeds collected from our gardens to replenish the Toxteth Seed Library. More info here.

MINDFUL CRAFTING 10AM – 12 NOON

Enjoy gentle crafting with natural & recycled materials.

COMMUNITY DJ-ING 12-3PM

Bring your own vinyl and help make a chilled equinox afternoon

HEALING GARDEN 1-4pm

Come and relax in the garden with fire, meditation, crafting & music.

WINDSOR STREET RITUAL WALK 1-4PM BOOKING ESSENTIAL FREE/ BY DONATION

A balancing walk together along the 100-Year Street from spring to oak. More info here.

FRIDAY 2ND AUGUST 12 NOON – 2PM

GRAPES COMMUNITY FOOD GARDEN

Come celebrate Lughnasadh / Lammas; the Gaelic fire festival marking the first grain harvest. We’ll be firing up the earth oven and breaking bread together in the Grapes Community Food Garden. Join us for music, chats round the fire and delicious tastes from the garden. Bring your own harvest offerings for the Lughnasadh altar and your own rituals of the season to share.

FREE/BY DONATION

THURSDAY 20TH JUNE 2024

4AM – 12 NOON

Princes Park, L8

From dawn on the day of most light hours in the year, come for a community solidarity gathering honouring Gaza & Yemen. Let’s welcome in the dawn & longest day together, supporting each other. Please bring something to add to the communal altar.

Come by for: COMMUNITY  SOLIDARITY RITUAL FIRE FOOD REST SONG LISTENING WALKS ART STRETCHING CONTEMPLATION

Everyone is welcome.

Meet under the big oak tree near Woodhenge, Devonshire Rd/ Belvedere gate.

We’ll be raising funds for Habibti Liverpool & Medical Aid for Palestinians

Schedule:

• 4am | Community Set-up, come help us set up this special space for gathering 
• 4:40am | Gong at Sunrise and Solidarity Circle of Peace
• 5am Onwards | Breakfast 
• 5.30 am Onwards |Solstice Altar making with Clare
• 6am Onwards | Solidarity paper chain making
• 6:30am | Solidarity Circle of Peace
• 7am | Elderflower tea walk with Jackie
• 8:30-9am | Movement with Maxine
• 9:30am | Qi Gong with Liz
• 10:30am | Tree Walk with Dave
• 11am | Solidarity Circle of Peace
• 11am – 12 Noon | Making with Nature with Angelica
• 11:30am | Circle Stretch with Anita
• 12 Noon | Solidarity Circle of Peace and Closing Gong 

WEDNESDAY 20TH MARCH 12 NOON – 2PM

GRAPES COMMUNITY FOOD GARDEN

ON THIS DAY OF ALMOST EQUAL DAY AND NIGHT, JOIN US TO FIND YOUR SPRING BALANCE.

At the garden; meet gardeners, cooks & artists, sow seeds, have a gentle stretch, help build a moveable altar, set spring intentions and enjoy wild garlic & nettle soup around the fire.

The spring equinox is also known as Ostara, from the Anglo-Saxon Ostara/Eostre, the goddess of spring. She is the divine maiden that brings forth the first light of springtime after the winter. Come and listen to stories of Ostara & spring folklore, and bring yours to share.

Poster by Corbin LaMont / Alternative Infrastructure. Photos by Jude MacLochlainn & Jon Barraclough

Friday 22nd December

Join us on Windsor Street on the shortest day for calm, fire and community. 

SOLSTICE ALTAR 8am-4pm FRONT ROOM 

Gather around the Solstice Altar to reflect on the year with rituals, readings, drawing, conversations, and rest. With L8 pop-up apothecary. And maybe an early fire on the street, you never know…

SOLSTICE WINTER GARDEN 12-2pm  GARDEN

Celebrate the garden in winter and welcome in the longer days with music & food around the Solstice fire!

SOLSTICE WINTER WARMER  5-8pm SQUASH 

Come along for this cosy evening of seasonal cheer, festive songs from Hope Street Harmonies choir, mulled apple punch round the fire and a chance to do a bit of ethical, tasty Christmas shopping!

The cafe will be open 8am-8pm (except 4-5pm) for delicious solstice breakfast, soup & supper.

WEDNESDAY 1ST NOVEMBER

SAMHAIN CELEBRATION 12-2 IN THE GARDEN

Celebrate Samhain; the end and beginning of the Celtic New Year, with food, music & rituals in community in the Grapes Community Food Garden. Bring something for the altar and something to burn.

SAMHAIN SALON 5-7PM AT SQUASH

Join us for a warming social and join in conversations reflecting on this important time of beginnings & endings around the Samhain fire. Book via becky@squashliverpool.co.uk

+ AUTUMN ALCHEMY EXHIBITION 12-4pm in the Front Room at SQUASH

ANGELICA VANASSE & SQUASH CREATIVES

11AM – 3PM SATURDAY 28TH & SUNDAY 29TH OCTOBER & 12-4 PM WEDNESDAY 1ST NOVEMBER (SAMHAIN)

You are welcome to this nurturing space and exhibition that weaves together 8-fold land-based rituals, creative processes and practices rooted in the Squash community of gardeners, cooks & artists. At this annual point of endings and beginnings in the Celtic tradition, Autumn Alchemy celebrates what has been planted, grown, gathered, crafted & discovered over the seasonal cycles of sharing life together, on Windsor Street.

Autumn Alchemy is a collaboration with artist Angelica Vanasse who from the autumn of 2022 has worked with community gardeners to develop and deepen creative, nature-based, ritual practices in Squash’s community garden. The exhibition builds on this playful series of art-making sessions that explored human identity and our place in urban nature.

This site-specific installation will evolve through activation, with the contributing artists responding to the space through their own creative processes. It is also a contemplative space of welcome, creativity, wellbeing and participation; Alchemy in Action.

Alchemy in Action will be taking place throughout the exhibition opening hours and will take different forms.  This will include artists exploring through drawing, painting with natural inks & working with fire, plants & the weather. Come along to witness and take part in this unfolding creative gathering.

When you visit you can get involved in conversations, tastings, intention-setting and connecting with ancestors as we honour the end of the 8-Fold Year and welcome in Samhain, the darker, more wintery half of the year. This is a calm place for stillness, reflection & nurture of the self, within community.

At Squash we embrace the 8-fold year; a celebration of the Earth’s yearly cycle of change – life, death, growth and transformation. We have annually celebrated the 8-fold year as an activating force & reflective tool supporting the evolution of our 100-Year plan since its inception in 2010, through marking the Quarter points – Winter and Summer Solstices & Spring and Autumn Equinoxes and the Cross Quarter Points that fall at seasonal peaks (the Four Great Fire Festivals) of Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain. These 8 chapters create the Wheel of the Year that connects us to the continuous cycles and changes in nature and ourselves.

CREATIVE LEADS:

ANGELICA VANASSE – LEAD ARTIST / CREATIVE PRODUCER

BECKY VIPOND – CO-DIRECTOR / CREATIVE PRODUCER

CLARE OWENS – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR / SOCIAL ARTIST

HELLEN SONGA – HORTICULTURAL WORKER / CREATIVE PRACITIONER

JACKIE SWANSON – HORTICULTURAL LEAD / CREATIVE PRODUCER

JASON HUGHES – HORTICULTURAL TEAM / CREATIVE PRACTITIONER

With the Grapes Community Gardeners & SQUASH TEAM

‘The old Celtic festivals fall at eight points during the year, and are a means by which we can connect to the Earth’s passing seasons and acknowledge the way this resonates within ourselves, as part of the natural world.’ – Glennie Kindred, Sacred Earth Celebration

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22ND-24TH SEPTEMBER

JOIN IN OUR ANNUAL CELEBRATIONS ON AND AROUND THIS GENTLE TIME OF BALANCE, HARVEST & REFLECTION

HARVEST AUCTION FRIDAY 22ND 6-9PM 

Join in our annual harvest auction where great Liverpool-grown fruit & veg and homemade treats will be up for grabs!  Come along for a magical eve of comedy & fun, and help raise funds for great local good causes: More info here. Free/ Suggested donation £3.75

AUTUMN EQUINOX DISCO FEAST Saturday 23rd 11am-3pm

On this Autumn Equinox day, come and find your equinox balance! Join in by dancing while cooking up a big feast to share! Add your autumn offering to the altar, sip a fresh herbal tea, and enjoy a gentle chat around the fire. Come to cook from 11am-1pm. Feast from 2pm Book your free spot via clare@squashliverpool.co.uk

SEED-SAVE SUNDAY 24TH 10AM-1PM 

Learn about the important work of seed saving by joining in our annual Seed Save – a key part of the food growing cycle – saving seeds from food crops grown this year to sow next year. Join Squash gardeners to sort, clean & pack seeds to replenish the Toxteth Seed Library, established 10 years ago to keep a vital seed store & exchange alive in L8. Drop by and say hi or stay for a while and help in this gentle process.

EQUINOX FERMENT MAKING SESSION Sunday 24th 1.30-4pm

Join Squash cooks to make seasonal ferments & preserves using vegetables that would otherwise go to waste. Booking essential via clare@squashliverpool.co.uk  Suggested donation £10/£6. Some free spaces for Squash members/L8 residents who’re currently unemployed/on low incomes

FRIDAY 4TH AUGUST 12 NOON – 2PM

GRAPES COMMUNITY FOOD GARDEN & FRONT ROOM AT SQUASH

Come celebrate Lughnasadh / Lammas; the Gaelic fire festival marking the first harvest. We’ll be picking the wheat we planted in spring, making dough to cook in the earth oven and breaking bread together in the Grapes Community Food Garden. Join us for music, chats round the fire and delicious tastes from the garden. Bring your own harvest offerings for the Lughnasadh altar and your own rituals of the season to share.

Also, gather around the Solidarity Tablecloth, sewn by many stitchers lead by artist Tabitha Moses on view for the first time, culminating our Solidarity Banquets project for Eurostreets, the community programme for Eurovision.

Squash’s artistic director Clare Owens said; ‘We’re excited to be working on the legacy solidarity tablecloth this summer, which will be an enduring demonstration of the welcome and support that Liverpudulians have shown Ukrainians arriving to the region and will also share a universal message of solidarity. Beautifully crafted by many hands, it will be an illustration of people working together and standing side by side with those facing oppression.’

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WEDNESDAY 21ST JUNE

JOIN IN OUR ANNUAL CELEBRATION ON THIS LIGHTEST OF DAYS!  EVERYONE IS WELCOME!

Gather with artists, gardeners, cooks and healing practitioners for ritual-making, self-nurture and merriment. 

SUMMER SOLSTICE HIGH NOON PARTY Wednesday 21st  12-2pm

COME TAKE SOME REST IN THE GARDEN AT THIS GREAT TRANSITION POINT OF THE YEAR. JOIN IN WITH:

• Water-colouring
• Tea ceremony
• Solstice canapes
• L8 pop-up Apothecary
• High summer altar

SUMMER SOLSTICE SOCIAL  Wednesday 21st  5-7pm 

COME JOIN US BY THE SOLSTICE EVENING FIRE FOR REFLECTION, CONTEMPLATION & DEEP RELAXATION.

PLUS GREAT SUMMER MENU IN THE SQUASH CAFE INC. L8 STRAWBERRY & LAVENDER CREAM TEAS!

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