HELIOŚ Summer Solstice Gathering

As the ceremonial culmination of Desert Lab 5.0, the LIOS community co-created HELIOŚ — a three-day Summer Solstice gathering that wove together field research, ancestral wisdom, and contemporary ritual practice. Desert Lab’s work of ecological inquiry, collective building, and somatic attunement naturally evolved into a shared act of honouring the land and its community. One of Desert Lab’s core intentions is to learn how to build together: to shape space, tend relations, and create shared meaning. HELIOŚ became the living expression of this learning.

For this edition, we traced a ceremonial path through the desert ecosystem, connecting the outposts that have nourished our research over the past years. The gathering invited guests into an open, participatory celebration guided by the life-giving forces — Earth, Air, Water, and Fire — culminating in the honouring of Ether, the life force of the desert.

Dancing the Walk

The word ritual shares a root with rta—meaning “root,” “order,” or “that which sustains.” Across cultures, rituals have long helped people stay connected to what gives life: land, seasons, ancestors, and each other. They remind us that we are part of the Earth’s living systems, not separate from them. A ritual can be a moment of attention, a gesture of gratitude, or a shared act that brings our awareness back to the relationships that sustain us.

Dancing the Walk was created in this spirit: as a gentle, collective way to remember our kinship with the more-than-human world. It invited everyone present into a shared journey through the desert landscape. Over three days, the group moved together through five elemental chapters, each celebrating a life-giving force and guided by one of the ritual teams. The ceremony was both simple and profound: walking, listening, eating together, offering gratitude, and honouring the land that held us.

EARTH

The pilgrimage opened with Earth, guided by Hiromi Castañeda and Shanhuan Manton. A communal meal—prepared and shared by hand—became the first gesture of grounding. Hiromi offered teachings from Turtle Island and her lineage from the lands now called Mexico. Eating with our hands, we honoured the abundance beneath us, remembering the ethic of reciprocity.

AIR

The Air element, guided by Jo Vávra, invited the group into a blindfolded sensorial walk toward the eastern outpost. Through meditation and soft humming, participants tuned into breath, wind, and subtle sound—an exercise in Deep Listening to the movements of the atmosphere around us.

WATER

Led by Xtina Ariaz, the Water team guided everyone to the local pond, Staw Zielony. There, the group stepped into the Slavic midsummer tradition of Noc Kupały, releasing wianki (woven crowns) onto the water as symbols of passage and possibility. A ritual bathing connected Water with Fire, carrying prayers of cleansing and renewal.

FIRE

Back at camp, Planeta Yevgienia and Gyanmitra hosted a havan, a Vedic fire ceremony in which offerings and mantras are given to Agni—the transformative fire. Together, the group fed the flames with intention, devotion, and gratitude.

ETHER / SPIRIT

On the final day of the pilgrimage, the group walked west to the "Tree of Life", a solitary pine elder who survived the clearings that happened in the desert. Here, they honoured Ether through Anna Halprin’s Planetary Dance, a collective choreography for healing of land, body, and community.

Evenings opened into celebration: a concert by Settevoci Social Club from Sicily, followed by sets from LIOS community djs. The gathering concluded with BURN, an activist circus performance by Las Corpa, staged in the trees of the surrounding forest, which now is under a threat of being cut down. BURN showcase was s part of the Perform Europe programme.