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…
I’m not sure any of us knows what true freedom is. A friend said to me recently that we experience our first personal violation when schooling begins & I felt that ring true in my bones. More of us question the systems that have nurtured & dismantled us in equal measure & we’re trying to carve new ways of living out of the rockface of capitalism. Freedom is the freedom to be a total shit, & this is where people’s…
Learning to know the trees
July 8, 2021Long 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…
Keeping the trees alive
July 7, 2021Visiting 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…
An interesting conversation growing from my recently published novel, The Madness of Sara Mansfield (link in bio), is people wanting to discuss why I’ve put it out as Copyleft.I love this. I love that people are thinking about the implications, and want to talk to me about it. The main response I get is people worrying that I’ve spent six years writing a book only to leave it wide open to interpretation, that someone else could take the book and…
The first time I came across the word ‘autodidact’ was in Sartre’s Nausea. I fell in love with this word because it explained how I prefer to exist in the world. What I remember of this novel (last read about fifteen years ago so forgive me), is that this was a way of creating meaning in an otherwise chaotic and absurd world and oh! That sang to my heart. Any way of existing taken to the extreme is likely to…
Up against the guardians of land & water
June 10, 2021A 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…
Since we began travelling across Europe we’ve become much more aware of how hard British communities work to keep travellers out. Height restriction barriers, No Overnight Parking signs, even Flintshire’s recycling centres now demand proof that you have an address in Flintshire before they’ll let you take your rubbish and recycling there – what on Earth do they think people will do with it if refused entry? They can’t eat it. So you’ll end up with roadside dumps and another…
Wisdoms from the river and the trees
April 5, 2021Yesterday we hiked to the source of the Severn River. We stood at the small swampy bog that is the origins of this vast and tumbling body of water that becomes so large the Severn Bridge was constructed so that we might cross. A reminder that the humblest beginnings can grow into the most unexpected forces of nature. Later I spoke with the trees there, who do not think of humans as friends, and I apologised for the mess we’ve…
We’ve been incredibly lucky during this past lockdown year. The first half locked into Portugal then Switzerland, and even this winter in Cymru we’ve managed to park with family. There’s a certain amount of life that is shaped by our attitude, and positive thinking makes such a difference when, for example, getting through winter in a tiny home set up to travel but aren’t able to do so. Still, there’s a huge privilege in even being able to think positively.…