Wed 26 Aug 2026
Darwin's Den: the campfire for collective action
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Darwin's Den: the campfire for collective action
Somewhere between the yoga mats and the dance floor, there’s a space where the conversation takes a different turn. A place to explore how feeling good ourselves might help us create something better for the world around us — long after the weekend is over.
That's Darwin's Den.
A different kind of wellbeing - the "what next?"
The Big Retreat is full of brilliant ways to reconnect with yourself and others: breathwork, sound baths, movement, craft and conversations. Darwin's Den sits right alongside all of that, but it's asking a different question. If the rest of the festival is about finding yourself, Darwin's Den is about what you do once you have.
What does it look like to take that clearer head, that fuller heart, back out into a world that badly needs both? Darwin's Den is where self-exploration meets citizenship, where "life is good" becomes "life is better when we do it together."
Our roots
Darwin's Den has been part of The Big Retreat since the beginning.
Why Darwin? Well, this is where it gets personal. Of course, he was the ultimate explorer, the one whose discoveries changed the way we see the world. But also because his cabin-mate on that journey lived on the very site in Wales where the Big Retreat was born. So, he's practically family, philosophically speaking... The Den is curated by Liza Lort-Phillips, festival family and founder of Cymbrogi Futures, a green skills enterprise built on one core belief: that the future isn't something that happens to us, it's something we get to help shape, if we're willing to learn how.
Every year in Pembrokeshire the Den hosts workshops, conversations and creative storytelling from changemakers in education, enterprise, food and fashion - people cleaning up our oceans, swimming with sharks, getting batty over bats, rewriting the rules of an old outdated operating system... It's always been curated with love and a deep connection to nature. This September, for the very first time, that spirit travels east to the first-ever Big Retreat Cambridgeshire.
What do we care about?
Four threads run through everything in the Den: Changemaking - and the belief that anyone can be a Changemaker, not just the people already in charge. Futures thinking - the practical, learnable skill of imagining better futures for ourselves. Nature - as teacher, ally and, frankly.. the reason we exist. And creative, collaborative storytelling - the conviction that in a climate-changed world, the best ideas rarely arrive alone; they're made round a fire, through stories, in a tent, with people who were strangers an hour ago.
Who's our tribe?
If you're the kind of person who reads the news and feels both anxious and hopeful in the same breath - who wants practical ways to act, not just more reasons to worry - you'll feel right at home here. Darwin's Den draws adventurers, educators, poets, ecologists, entrepreneurs and everyday people who are done quietly waiting for someone else to fix things. Expect to leave with at least one idea you didn't have when you arrived - and quite possibly a new friend or two who shares it.
This year's Cambridgeshire sizzling line-up
For our first outing in Cambridgeshire, we've pulled together a line-up that's set to inspire... Thomas Crowther, ecologist and UN Chair of Ecosystem Restoration, makes the case that hope in the climate crisis is a matter of science, not sentiment, in Nature Talks Back. Dr Ash Brockwell of LIS brings the Mindshifts framework for thinking differently in a messy world, and Jillian Reilly, author of The Ten Permissions, makes the case that adaptability is a skill, not a personality trait. Ben Rawlence, award-winning author and activist, shares letters to his children from a changing planet in Think Like a Forest. Adventure also runs right through the Den this year: Harrison Ward, aka Fell Foodie, cooks top notch grub on a mountainside and speaks candidly about the addiction and depression that got him there; Siobhan Daniels, author of Retirement Rebel, proves that adventure doesn't stop at 60 - she sold her flat and bought a motorhome to find out; Jo Moseley, paddle-boarder, author and filmmaker tells her story of going From Overwhelmed to Outdoors.
If you want inspiration for how to be part of something bigger than yourself, Tamasine & Olivia of the ReAction Collective will help you Find the Others, or join Beccy for a StitchHike - a small act of rebellion that starts with a stitch (so much more than just mending...).
Louise Hill, Founder of GoHenry, will give you top tips on how to raise financially literate kids, or join our own Liza Lort-Phillips on Futures Literacy and Reimagining Education, or Find time to Rhyme with poet Al Brunker...
And if this summer’s news of droughts, wildfires and struggling harvests has left you wondering what it all means — and what any of us can actually do — drop in to watch The People’s Emergency Briefing. This widely acclaimed short film explores climate change here in the UK, bringing together the facts, the challenges and, importantly, reasons for hope. It’s an invitation to think about how we adapt, what comes next and the part each of us might play.
Darwin’s Den. Ideas. Inspiration. Impact.
We might be the festival’s best-kept secret — but perhaps not for much longer.
Come and find us
