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dailyconnectionwithnature

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Shape shifting

July 26, 2021

I’ve spent the last few days dreaming near ancient rock. It can change you, you know? Or can solidify a position within that was hiding beneath the waters of consciousness. A friend said a while ago, ‘Instagram isn’t an airport, you don’t need to announce your departure’ ? and I love that because it’s so true. But I feel I wanted to write something this morning before deleting the app from my phone this evening. I love Instagram, its blend…

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creating dailyconnectionwithnature feature Mental Health nature poetry

Awakened by the mountain

July 25, 2021

It’s the strangest thing, to look back on events years after they’ve happened with new eyes. To see the woman I was from the perspective of this woman I’m becoming. Once the mountain speaks to you nothing can ever be the same, and yet I tried, I really tried so hard to keep everything the same. Until eventually I had to understand that it’s all the same. Do you believe in predetermination? That our outcomes are already set?  Have you…

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dailyconnectionwithnature feature Mental Health nature water

Searching for joy

July 18, 2021

I had thought to write an inspiring caption for this short film of yesterday’s beautiful wild encounter (swipe left). I took off clothes, swam naked and free, but sometimes I find it hard to write with joy when there’s so much misery in the world. I read the words of a man who worked in an industrial pig farm and the disgusting ways he abused innocent animals just because he could exercise some power. I then felt overwhelmed by the…

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For the trees

July 13, 2021

It’s occurring to me why Suzanne Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree has struck such a chord in my heart. Yesterday I remembered this poem written over a decade ago (first poem in the Prophecy: conversations with my Self pamphlet, from 2010, available as free download from my webshop, link in bio). What Simard is writing about, I knew all those years ago. Well, I didn’t have the understanding that Simard writes of because I’m not a scientist, I’m a poet,…

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dailyconnectionwithnature nature Outdoors

Felling trees

July 12, 2021

Continuing from yesterday’s blog about Finding the Mother Tree, I was reminded of this photo I took a few days ago when we were riding the mtb trails at Drumlanrig Castle (as an aside there’s a cheeky little old-skool 8-ball black run there that’s a lot of fun when added to the red route with challenging off-camber rooty descents and super-skinny trail, but it’s also totally knackering for exactly those same reasons and I needed a couple of days off…

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dailyconnectionwithnature feature nature Outdoors slowlivingactivism

Learning to know the trees

July 8, 2021

Long summer evenings are light as butterfly wings. Even late in the day, the sun rides high in an impossibly blue sky. The trees here do not know me, but there is time, and the will to bring my open heart so that a dialogue might begin. I’ve had difficult first meetings with some trees (Ae forest) but then in later days had some of the most spiritual experiences of my life in those very same places. Those of us…

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dailyconnectionwithnature feature nature Outdoors slowlivingactivism travel

Keeping the trees alive

July 7, 2021

Visiting some forests is the most difficult thing. Over a decade ago we rode through Ae forest and it was the first time I felt a genuine hatred from the trees towards humans. It’s not something I’d experienced before and it horrified me, that we’d farmed these beautiful beings to the point that they felt this way towards us. Part of the promise I made to myself with this OUTSIDER blog was that I’d speak honestly about my experiences. Part…

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dailyconnectionwithnature feature Mental Health nature

On quitting yoga

June 29, 2021

It’s the strangest thing, finding your way in the world, and I’ve written before about the many circular or dead-end paths encountered on this journey of self-discovery. During early sessions of studying Kung Fu (in my late 20s), I couldn’t get my head around the feeling I was a blackboard being wiped clean in order for a new text to be written across me. I didn’t then have the self-knowing to understand this was not the kind of teaching I…

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dailyconnectionwithnature nature Outdoors Wales

On technology and stuff

June 26, 2021

I felt thoroughly sick riding past this yesterday. Listening to that machine chew through all this life just so we can devour more stuff. It forced me to think about a couple of things – firstly the technology that allows our massive consumption as a species. I’m not saying we shouldn’t use wood-based products, that is part of the cycle of life, but what really struck me is how much wood ends up in recycling or landfill when what we…

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Why I don’t love a pruned hedge

June 16, 2021

Hello friends,I’m aware that some people get a bit upset about my original use of grammar and punctuation. This is absolutely okay. I’m not the writer for everybody and I fully embrace that. However, instead of presuming that my writing is inferior because I don’t follow the rules, I wonder if they might consider the fact that writing this way is an act of rebellion – a way for me to fully embody this wild and natural world that inspires…

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