Hello, I hope you’re able to step outside and just breathe during these many glorious and tumultuous rainstorms. I’ve been finishing the recording of the audiobook, The Madness of Sara Mansfield and can’t wait to share it with you this Sunday 31st October, originally a day for honouring the dead. The traditionally anarchic May Day saw the launch of the e-book and it feels fitting to begin publishing my work aligned with more meaningful cycles. The audiobook has grown in ways…
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…
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…
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…
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…
After waiting for what felt like an eternity, yesterday evening, along with torrential rain, arrived the softest wave in the sea, just enough to power a surfboard (or maybe not even that). We thundered out like children, arms splashing, legs kicking, to sit in a gently undulating, receding tide beneath a blue-grey meadow of cloud, board-tips pointing skyward like errant compass needles. At the farthest curve of the shore, a city skyscape etched itself charcoal grey against a soft rose…
A friend sent me these pics yesterday – memories of Switzerland last August. This hike was sublime! Up above Lac de Louvie, then a 2,500m descent in glorious sunshine. My heart felt so big, and at this point my body felt so strong. 25km in about 11hrs and oh! this middle aged soul feels younger every year I take a step into myself and away from self-sabotaging behaviours. …
A bit of a mission to find a swim spot today. Usually we hunt on the map for bodies of water & can navigate our way into the deliciousness of a wild swim BUT Bristol Water PLC had other ideas. First-off we headed over to Chew Valley Lake, which on a map looks as perfect a swim spot as you would ever wish to encounter. A large part of the lake is a nature reserve & (rightly so) fenced off…
A friend said to me recently, ‘You don’t have to grieve standing still’ and oh my I felt that deep in my bones. I’ve been focusing on building an internal success paradigm that doesn’t rely on external validation. It’s one where I give myself credit for overcoming smaller fears, where I celebrate every time I genuinely strengthen a connection instead of shutting it down, when I step into my power instead of giving it away.None of these things are particularly…
