I lift my leaden legs from a stupor they’ve lingered in for far too long, reminding myself: action over stasis. But of course, after only a step or two the rain begins to fall in fat heavy drops. An easterly wind blows in from the North Sea and slices my bones, stops me dead before I’ve really even begun. You can do this: move, don’t think. I shoulder the discomfort and take a step, then another, my frayed walking boots (the ones that I’ve had since I was eleven) sinking deep into a gelatinous muddy dip in the track. My route is fragmented as it (and I) unravel.

Though the journey is my own, I’m reminded of those who have travelled before me seeking faith, peace, joy, acceptance. Did they too stubbornly resist help for a time? Were they confident they could traverse these paths alone? Did they ever find their truth?

I turn back to my guiding compass and read aloud Blackie’s words*: “Don’t be proud: even if your path is a solitary one right now, the Eco-Heroine’s Journey is co-creational at heart, focused on building relationships - with other humans, with plants and animals, with the land itself. Accept the help which is offered; make friends and allies wherever you can.”

Cultivating connections, though, is not easy if your mind is clawing to retreat back into the darkness. Even though I can see how far I’ve come, how the night no longer shrouds me as it once did, others still see me in those shadow-places and are uncertain if I will ever leave. Their faith and patience have waned over time, their frustration masking the powerlessness they feel, and they doubt me; I understand, of course I do, but I’m going to prove them wrong.

The unopened box of medication sits squat in the bathroom cupboard, ready for action. I made the phone call, picked up the prescription, paid the fee, but now I don’t want to take this final step. I resist.

My therapist’s unanswered texts flash and ping and dissipate. I made the appointments, talked, cried, reflected, but now I don’t want to follow this track. I resist.

I write a(nother) list. Things I need to do to get better, what I need to do to be well again, and then I scrunch the paper in my fist and thrust it into the recycling bin. I resist.

Instead.

At dawn I rise and take the baby monitor outside (he’s four now, but I’m still not ready to lose that piece of armour yet), stretch my arms to the sky, then sink to the earth. I crumple into the soil, body flat, feeling the damp tendrils of summer grass between my thumb and forefinger.

Later I open my laptop and begin to write, of nothing and everything.

Later still I open a book, one that has no relevance to work or parenting or gardening or anything. A novel I can fall asleep in.

It is everything I already know, everything that was already there biding its time beneath my skin, crawling to escape if only I had let it. I pick up my phone to message a friend and see I haven’t responded to their last text three weeks ago. But they’re still there waiting on the other side. I look up at my husband and see how he has become worn with this life, with holding me up each and every day as I have sunk into nothing. But he’s still there too, with faith that I can make it through. And finally I see my son carefully making a train track by my feet. I’ve tried to shield him from my pain, but sometimes it has seeped through, and I ache with this knowing. But he smiles so brightly, grabs my hand and drags me down to see what he has created with overflowing excitement.

I lift my feet and step away from the sofa to join him. One step at a time.

*from If Women Rose Rooted. See the introductory post for this journey here.

TW: this post mentions health anxiety and shares some details of a traumatic birth

I’ve wanted to write this post so many times. It’s been sitting in my drafts since the end of 2020, but somewhere inside I knew it wasn’t time, that I didn’t yet understand this stage of my eco-heroine’s story (first post here if you’re not sure what I’m talking about!). In If Women Rose Rooted, Blackie calls this third stage ‘The Cauldron of Transformation’ and writes:

“let yourself fall… Stay with the dark anyway. Don’t fight it; don’t try to manage your way out. You will simply postpone the inevitable, and it will come around again. Don’t fear the dark: it’s a natural part of the Journey… Be still. Listen. Let yourself disintegrate.”

And yet, despite this advice and my own logical knowing, I did see it as a fight to be won, a problem to be managed, because that’s how I’ve always handled whatever life has thrown at me. I have never allowed myself to truly feel into the darkness because I fear it. The idea of letting myself fall apart feels foolish: why would I willingly let go of the structures and support systems consciously put into place as a method of protection? Why would I walk out into the unknown without my backpack and supplies?

But of course when the journey changes, when you find yourself travelling in different terrain, that bag you packed is utterly worthless. You can keep throwing yoga and meditation and daily walks at it all you like, but what I’ve come to learn is that unless you know the reason for your fear of the darkness, unless you can truly understand what brings this about, none of your supplies or management techniques will work long-term. They will stem the bleed but never heal the wound.

Understanding our personal darkness is what this stage of the Journey is all about. Sometimes there are more questions than answers, but that’s ok. It’s a process of knowing and unknowing, of learning and unlearning. Blackie prompts, “What are your dysfunctional ways of being, your patterns?” For me there are so many, but here’s one.

My son loves to learn about hurricanes. He is fascinated by their impact, the level of destruction, and seeks to understand what it is that causes such extreme weather. Earlier in the spring we talked of the eye of the storm, how strangely this is the calmest place in a hurricane, even though you might imagine it would be the most intense, being in the centre. On the surface people often believe that I deal with problems with a level-head, that I have the strength to carry on no matter what, and when the problem is actually happening, in that very moment, they’re right. When I was trying to rock my nine-month-old son to sleep after his second operation, when I gave a reading at my Grandad’s funeral, when I was giving birth: these moments were some of the hardest of my life, but I was in the eye of the storm, and I remained calm (for the most part), strong, focused, because what else could I do? The moments we see as being the pinnacle of the problem can often be easier to deal with, because we have no other option.

My son was born with a cleft lip and palate, and after his diagnosis when I was around 22 weeks pregnant, I fell apart. In the second half of my pregnancy I was in the eye wall of the storm - the part of the hurricane that surrounds the eye and causes the most destruction. I convinced myself that everything that could go wrong would go wrong, and I tortured myself with what if catastrophising. On the morning of our 4D scan to check for further abnormalities (of which thankfully there were none), I sat, heavy, on the floor of the shower and let the water and my tears drain away. I don’t know how long I sat in there and sobbed, but I know it was the longest shower of my life. I saw only darkness ahead.

Just over three months later I was entering the hospital to give birth, and despite all my previous fears in that moment I was strangely calm because I knew what I had to do - there was no other option. Despite a long labour, painful birth and traumatic after-birth (I passed out with blood loss and was wheeled down for emergency surgery), looking back this wasn’t the moment that really left its mark, because this was the eye of the storm, the focus amidst the chaos. When I realised this in a therapy session, I couldn’t quite believe it to be true, because surely the birth, the blood loss, almost dying, had to be the worst part of it all? But it wasn’t. It was fear of the unknown that hounded me down, because I have always, always, wanted to know what was coming next.

Knowledge has always been something I was taught to seek. And I was good at it too, so I kept going, acquiring facts and figures, understanding how things worked, filling my brain with acronyms and words and ideas. I took this part of myself into adulthood, searching to increase my awareness of life and the world around me, and in doing so realised that the more knowledge I acquired, the more secure and certain I felt, and the further away I was from darkness. I could begin each day with the certain knowledge of what it would entail, and that was hugely comforting for me. But knowledge and Knowing are two different things.

I had amassed a treasure box full of knowledge, and despite always protesting that I didn’t want to teach in a school, I moved from student to teacher with relative ease. I played the game, shared my knowledge, built a life based on its understanding. But it’s all well and good crafting a life in this way until something big comes along and knocks your treasure box over and scatters all the pieces. What good is knowledge then? What good will all those facts and figures do? I clung to them in despair and Googled percentages of other abnormalities associated with clefts, possibilities of what might lie ahead: I had knowledge, but not Knowing. My health anxiety manifests the same symptoms, and at every twinge and pain, every ache and discomfort, I crave knowledge and seek it no matter the cost. But what I really need is Knowing.

In Untamed, Glennon Doyle writes this of Knowing:

“Eventually I sank deep enough to find a new level inside me that I’d never known existed. This place is underneath; low, deep, quiet, still. There are no voices there, not even my own. All I can hear down there is my breath. It was as though I’d been drowning and in my panic I had been gasping for air, calling for rescue, and flailing on the surface. But what I really needed to do to save myself was let myself sink… The Knowing would meet me in the deep and nudge me toward the next right thing, one thing at a time. That was how I began to know what to do next. That was how I began to walk through my life more clearly, solid and steady.”

In the eye of the storm, I have Knowing. Giving birth, supporting my son after his operation, holding my husband’s hand tightly when his Grandad died, I had Knowing. It is Knowing that holds me up when everything else around me falls, but it doesn’t come easily. When I connect with my Knowing, I already have the answers. There’s no fear or deliberation: I act rather than think, and I know that this must be my approach moving forward. I must leave behind the stasis of fear and catastrophising, of always wondering what if and never being able to reassure and comfort myself, never trusting I have the answers.

But how can I be still and listen? How can I tune into this Knowing when I’m not in the eye of the storm? Now I’ve identified it, how can I shift the pattern from knowledge to Knowing? I guess that’s the part that comes next.

It’s a strange concept, knowing oneself. You almost have to imagine you’re a character in a novel or film to become aware of yourself as, well, you, but then of course you run the risk of seeing yourself from the perspective of others, through their eyes rather than your own. I think that’s probably what I’ve been doing for much of my life. Always considering what others think of me, how they will judge me, what they would tell their friends about me, and on reflection it’s a pretty narcissistic way to move through life (though knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to get out of the habit).

This past year in particular, I have been moving through a journey to know myself through my own eyes, actively seeking to drop the expectations of others. It has been - and continues to be - a process of observation, transition and alignment. In today’s post I thought I’d share a few observations on the journey so far.

1. My energy levels are influenced by many things, but mainly the lunar cycle, my menstrual cycle, how much sleep I’ve had, and the weather. In a way I always knew this, but precisely how they influence was for a long time beyond my grasp. Now I know that after one night of fractured sleep, my energy levels are pretty much the same, but any more than that and I struggle. I also know that I sleep poorly around the time of the full moon, and in the luteal/autumn stage of my menstrual cycle. I can surge ahead and get lots of tasks done during the waxing moon and the follicular/spring stage of my cycle, but once everything begins to wane, so too do my energy levels. There’s more - so much more - but the key thing to point out here is that this is an ever-evolving process. I will never be ‘done’ because our lives and cycles and energy patterns ebb and flow each year, so while I can build up a picture, I need to be constantly observing to be able to align my tasks and approach accordingly.
   
   

2. I need to listen to my body. I’ve just shifted into the luteal/autumn stage of my cycle, the moon is waning, and the year is falling too (we are now in mid-autumn) - all of these combined create an atmosphere of low energy and all I want to do is sit in front of the fire and take things slowly. Instead of pushing myself to record a workshop, which is top of my to-do list, I’ve shifted some things around and am instead sat on the sofa writing this post. Giving myself permission to do this and listening to what I need right now is incredibly powerful. I’m still working, I’m still doing things on my list, but I’m choosing to do them at a time that aligns with my energy flow.
   
   

3. It’s easy to get lost. There are so many different factors to consider, so many different people out there saying… you must do it this way… follow this exact blueprint… I have the answers for you… It can all be very tempting, but ultimately you are the only one who can make this journey, you are the only one who knows the route. Of course, we all need a little support along the way - for me this has come in the form of being a member of certain communities, taking courses, reading books and so on - but these have all merely been guides, and I’ve steered clear from anything or anyone that has tried to lead me down their own path. To journey towards self-awareness requires a focus on the self, and it’s so important to retain this as others cross your path.

I’d love to hear from you if you’re on a similar journey, or if you feel the call to begin. Let me know by emailing contact@creativecountryside.com

“It is possible to refute the Call… but life is not about being safe and secure; life is about growing, learning, transforming.”
SHARON BLACKIE, IF WOMEN ROSE ROOTED

If you read my last post in this series, you’ll know I have chosen to embark on my own version of the eco-heroine’s journey, inspired by the structure set out by Sharon Blackie in If Women Rose Rooted. I’ve already taken stock of my position in the Wasteland, and now I’m moving on to the Call. In reality, the Call has come many times for me before, but each time I have chosen to ignore it, making some excuse about why it wasn’t relevant, why I couldn’t deal with it right then. A few weeks ago, the Call came again, and I felt its power and urgency like no other time before. This Call demanded I take action before it is too late.

Unlike previously, the Call came in many different guises, in seemingly all different elements of my life. It is as if one phase of my existence is drawing to a close, the phase where I close my eyes and don’t acknowledge or accept the present moment, choosing to linger in the past or skip ahead to the future - this phase seems to be ending; it needs to end. The Call is not just a shout or scream anymore, it is a piercing cry that ruptures the fabric of my being, urging me to alter my path. It comes from Dan (my husband), my parents, the world around me, but I can ignore all of those, and have done in the past; this Call also comes from my soul, a deep understanding that it is time.

It is time to heed the Call to take control of my own life, to accept that sometimes I will get it wrong, but that I can apologise, learn from it, and do better next time: expecting perfection is not the answer, though it is certainly what I’ve come to expect from myself over the years. It’s time to listen to the Call, to open my eyes to the injustices that occur on a daily basis all around me, that do affect me and what I believe in, no matter what perhaps I once believed. My quest, then, is two-fold: to become more aware of the present moment (and all that entails), and to take control of that moment (without succumbing to fear).

This time, I’m not turning back.

I've never been particularly prone to pouring my heart out. Even as a child I kept my thoughts and emotions closely guarded, perhaps allowing one or two to see what I was really thinking or feeling. At the time it wasn’t something I acknowledged, it was even something I was aware of: the natural choice was to keep quiet and stay unnoticed.

In my therapy sessions earlier this year, I discovered this perpetuated the ‘good girl’ mentality I had grown up to hang my character on, which saw me through much of my teenage years and early adult life. I was the one who got the good grades, I was the one who behaved and always followed the rules, and I was never, never unprepared. I had to be the good girl, because in my mind there was no other option; who’d want to be the bad girl?

And then there came a moment I couldn’t have known was coming, and for the first time I felt the wind rush beneath my feet, I looked down from this great height and began to plummet, and there was nothing I could do about it.

The good girl mentality continued after the fall, but it had been broken, and I didn’t know how to fix the shattered fragments of what had been left behind. Again, I kept my mouth closed, resisted opening up, because that was weakness, that wasn’t the character the world had come to know.

Then one day, around eight or nine months ago, I realised that in doing this, I had become afraid of happiness. I actively prevented myself from feeling any kind of positive emotion, because I was scared that I didn’t deserve it, and that it would be balanced out by something negative, something unwelcomed and ultimately - the biggest fear of all - something unexpected.

Over the past few months, I’ve shared tiny snatched moments of my story, and that has been enough. I’ve never shared details of the trauma I experienced just over three years ago that triggered this healing process, and right now I’m still not ready to do so, but what I do feel ready for, is to allow a little more honesty to seep into my words. Choosing to begin this journey awoke a primal urge to share this truth, albeit from a distance. Nothing I have shared comes from the raw place of fear - though of course, this still lingers beneath the surface - it comes from the desire to arm myself with alternatives: strength, passion, courage.

This isn’t the approach that my teenage self would have recommended, and in fact I’m sure she would have made a judgement on this new-found openness, and yet perhaps this is exactly what would have set her free all those years ago. Perhaps this is how I can change my own path, with support and the knowledge that no matter what else, I’m not hiding behind that good girl any longer.

To explore and learn more about nature writing - “writing that honours the connection between the natural world and human experience, that understands them as part of a whole, that reckons with the complex forces of place and landscape in human lives” - necessitates a consideration of our own relationship with nature. For some, nature is ‘out there’, something Other than ourselves, something to be viewed from afar, tamed, even controlled. For others, we are not apart from nature, but a part of it, shaped and formed by it, influenced and guided by it on both a conscious and subconscious level.

According to activist and writer Satish Kumar, “If we can have a holistic view of soil, soul and society, if we can understand the interdependence of all living beings, and understand that all living creatures – from trees to worms to humans – depend on each other, then we can live in harmony with ourselves, with other people and with nature.” It is this approach than many new nature writers adopt, but in the evolution of nature writing, it is rare that this type of relationship with the natural world can be identified, and it is our changing perception of the world that has greatly impacted this genre of writing, resulting in what is now often referred to as new nature writing.

In Granta magazine, Jason Cowley suggests that new nature writers “share a sense that we are devouring our world, that there is simply no longer any natural landscape or ecosystem that is unchanged by humans. But they don’t simply want to walk into the wild, to rhapsodize and commune: they aspire to see with a scientific eye and write with literary effect.” As a result, work is written in first person - the writer must be present in the story - and are often focused on local or parochial landscapes. We are beginning, finally, to enter into a different relationship with nature - that we are part of nature, that yes, we can view the natural world through a microscope and discover fascinating things, but that we must also understand we are a part of this cycle: what we see has an impact on humanity, and humanity has an impact on what we see.

Writer Lydia Peele offers this insightful viewpoint to close: “The new nature writing... rather than being pastoral or descriptive or simply a natural history essay, has got to be couched in stories... where we as humans are present. Not only as observers, but as intrinsic elements... we’ve got to reconnect ourselves to our environment and fellow species in every way we can, every change we have... it is our great challenge in the twenty-first century to remake the connection. I think our lives depend on it.”

Writers, bloggers, course creators, makers and creatives in general are, above all else, storytellers. In the small business sphere, people don’t just buy the thing you’re selling, they buy the story behind the product or service: they buy your story. You are in control of what that story is, how much of it you want to share, and the form it takes. That might be the ‘about’ page on your website, a post you wrote about where your inspiration comes from, the podcast interview in which you shared your creative process, even your Instagram bio. Ernest Hemingway is said to have written a story in just six words - “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” - proof, if it were needed, that it’s not about writing reams; brevity can be just as powerful.

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“Stories matter because humans are narrative creatures. It’s not simply that we like to tell stories, and to listen to them: it’s that narrative is hard-wired into us. It’s a function of our biology, and the way our brains have evolved over time. We make sense of the world and fashion our identities through the sharing and passing on of stories. And so the stories we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it, and the stories that are told to us by others about the world and our place in it, shape not just our own lives, but the world around us.”

SHARON BLACKIE, IF WOMEN ROSE ROOTED

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Writing and sharing our stories is also an essential step to connection, with ourselves (increasing our self-awareness) and also with our communities. Some of the narratives we weave are unconsciously done; we don’t give thought to every single word choice in a verbal conversation, for instance, or perhaps in every reply on social media. Some narratives are just for us, the stories we tell ourselves about the world and how we feel. Many of these stories are fictitious, or may blend the boundaries between fact and our constructed reality. There are some, however, that we consciously tell, with careful thought, structure and meaning behind what we’re trying to express. These, too, may be fiction - the fairy tales we tell our children, the anecdotes we share about a film we’ve been watching - but usually the stories we craft come from a place of truth, of honesty, of integrity. These are the stories that others believe and repeat, the stories that have power to invoke change and transformation, kindness and humility. These are the stories that are lying in wait for us to tell, if we are brave enough.

Sometimes, being a storyteller is an act of radical defiance. We can’t all tell our stories with ease. I am in the privileged position as a white, heterosexual woman that if I tell stories, I won’t experience the resistance, even violence that many in this world are subjected to. For women journalists in Muslim countries, for instance, sharing stories can result in being silenced and harassed, or even imprisonment, as well as “online harassment and blackmail, defamation of character, unwanted advances in exchange for access, and the expectation to ask softball questions of officials, among other problems.” (source) In an article for the New York Times titled ‘Black Journalists Are Exhausted’, Patrice Peck writes: “it’s an especially peculiar time to be a black journalist. The pandemic has laid bare many of the same racial inequities that generations of black journalists have been covering since 1827 when the Freedom’s Journal birthed the black press. While this pandemic is unique, the waves of trauma crashing down on my community are not.” (I encourage you to read the whole article here.) Storytelling may be the crux of humanity, but while it occupies that space it also exposes the truth about our world and its injustices, which make telling, sharing, or transforming our stories much more complex and problematic for those who experience these on a daily basis.

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"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

MAYA ANGELOU

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Stories can be the same, but storytellers are distinctive. We may feel as though everyone out there is peddling the same tale, but that doesn’t matter. No-one else will be telling it quite like you, and it is this unique approach that gives storytelling longevity. Christopher Booker argued there are only seven basic plots - overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy, rebirth - and that each of these can be identified in every story ever told, but somehow there are almost 130 million books that have been published in the world. To tell our stories, then, it follows that they should come from our individual selves, and knowing ourselves is the first key step to this. How are we to express our story if we do not know who we are?

I encourage you to start with your own story, and tell it to yourself with honesty. It may not be an easy story to hear, and you may never wish to share it with anyone else, but if you have clarity in who you are and in your voice, the next step - sharing this story with others, crafting new stories (whether personal, professional, or somewhere in between), reading the stories of others - will follow much more easily.

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Other resources you might find helpful:

A History of Storytelling Through Pictures - particularly relevant for any makers out there; storytelling doesn’t have to include words.

Storytelling as a Relational and Instrumental Tool for Addressing Racial Justice - read the short introduction, even if you don’t have time to read the whole thing.

Can Science Explain Why Why Tell Stories? - an article from The New Yorker from 2012.

Time To Change - a series of blog posts from people struggling with their mental health during the pandemic - “By sharing our experiences, together we can end the stigma.”

“The Journey is about accepting that we each have a responsibility for the way we live our lives, for our footprint on the planet… It’s necessary first of all to see and understand the big picture - but then we need to zoom in, and focus on our own particular part of it.”
SHARON BLACKIE, IF WOMEN ROSE ROOTED

If you read my last post, you’ll know I have chosen to embark on my own version of the eco-heroine’s journey, inspired by the structure set out by Sharon Blackie in If Women Rose Rooted. Today takes me to the Wasteland, the start of the journey, and a moment to take stock of where I am right now. In essence, this stage asks the question: what is broken, and what needs to change? I’ve chosen to use some of Blackie’s questions as prompts for this post - that won’t necessarily be the case as I move forward, but responding to questions at this stage is a lot easier than simply diving in. This post does not offer suggestions or solutions, rather it points out what is already happening in my life and in the world. It wasn’t easy to write, and it’s not a piece full of joy, but it is honest and from the heart.

The Bigger Picture

“What are the ecological, social and political injustices in the world you live in?”

I’m not going to lie - this feels like a vast and intimidating place to start; there are so many. 2020 in particular has highlighted injustices that I previously wasn’t even aware of, or perhaps didn’t appreciate the extent of the problem. My first thoughts go to the anti-racism course - Do The Work - I’ve been working through from Rachel Cargyle. Before Black Lives Matter came to the forefront in May and June this year, I naively believed the natural world to be available to all, that everyone - no matter their race, age, gender - could find solace in the Earth. What I failed to fully appreciate is that everyone does not inhabit the Earth on equal footing, and if that is the case, how can everyone interact and engage with it in the same with I do?

In an article titled ‘Why Every Environmentalist Should Be Anti-Racist’, Leah Thomas argues there is “very clear data that communities of color have been most exposed to poor air quality and environmental conditions”. That’s just for starters. What about the bird-watching incident in Central Park? What about the fact that “Black and Asian people rarely visit rural Britain” because they don’t feel welcome, they feel “disowned”? Being in the Wasteland requires me to acknowledge these injustices, begin to understand them, and to take action when I can. I’m at the very start of this journey to unlearn and relearn; I acknowledge there is a way to go, and I want to take it one step at a time, to fully understand and absorb rather than skim over the facts.

There are many more injustices, of course, that are wound up with my own place in the Wasteland: climate change, the treatment of animals in captivity and throughout the world, females being underpaid. Unravelling these injustices (and many more) and learning about them will no doubt be part of my journey - at the moment they feel like big topics weighing me down because I know I’m not doing enough. It will be a lifelong learning process, and it will no doubt move at different speeds - slower with ‘big’ subjects or issues, or if I’m struggling mentally, perhaps - but currently I am acknowledging all these exist in my world, and therefore my Wasteland, and they all affect me in one way or another.

My own part in the Wasteland

“How is the Wasteland manifested in your own life?”

Currently the Wasteland hurtles me back and forth between anxiety and depression, sometimes settling in both at the same time, but rarely allowing me to occupy the moment. Anxiety forces me to catastrophise the future, and depression forces me to fixate on the past. I’ve suffered with Generalised Anxiety Disorder for a number of years, but it is my Health Anxiety that has caused me greater pain since my son was born in 2017. Depression is something I’ve only recently acknowledged, but I think it’s been there for a while, lingering and hiding beneath the surface. I experience the two differently though, with anxiety showing up each and every day, and depression only emerging in surges every few weeks, or every month or so. I’m not going to document the intricacies of either my anxiety or depression, but suffice to say they are both still present, and I am ready to learn new ways to approach them.

“What kills or confines all that is vibrant and alive in you?”

Fear. Last year I came to the realisation that I am fearful of allowing myself to be happy, because what if? I am fearful of so many other things too: of illness and death, of not being a good enough mum, of asking too much from my family, of never amounting to anything, of the injustices and shadows of the world being reflected in my own life and choices. Things I am sure most of us have or will feel at some point - I know I am not alone here - but it is the constancy of the fear that I know I need to change. Blackie shares: “Fear might then become an opportunity to display courage… Understanding, and transforming the potential for darkness in ourselves gives us wisdom – a wisdom which informs our actions, our decisions, and our interactions with others.”

Each day for the past month I’ve begun with a ten minute yoga practice, and when encouraged to choose a word for the day, select ‘strength’. Perhaps ‘courage’ should replace it?

“In what ways have you been cut off from the wellspring, from the source of life?”

Through unhealthy fixation on a myriad of different things, and from an inability to find faith in life. From trying to do too much too soon. From worrying, not living.

Seeing all this mapped out on the page feels strange and uncertain, but also like I have laid myself bare. I have shared my whole self with the Earth, spread out what is broken on her scorched soil and acknowledged I want to leave it behind. I imagine the soil cracking, opening, ready to absorb what I wish to release, to process and reform.

I choose strength, not pain. I choose passion, not aggression. I choose courage, not fear.

“This path forces us first to examine ourselves and the world we live in, to face up to all that is broken and dysfunctional in it and in our lives. Then it calls us to change - first ourselves, and then the world around us. It leads us back to our own sense of grounded belonging to this Earth, and asks us what we have to offer to the places and communities in which we live. Finally, it requires us to step into our own power and take back our ancient, native role as its guardians and protectors. To rise up rooted, like trees.”

SHARON BLACKIE, IF WOMEN ROSE ROOTED

It’s been over four months since I posted on Instagram, and over two months since I sent out a newsletter or wrote a blog post. In all honesty, I’ve felt very lost.

Community and feeling a part of something wider has long been at the heart of my work, but in a time when people have drawn together even more, sought solace in the online world, and in connection, I rejected it. It felt as though my roots had been lifted from the Earth; I didn’t know how to re-plant them, and to begin with, I didn’t really want to either. Instead I wanted to watch as they became more and more lifeless, with a strange sense of unease and a melancholic disposition I couldn’t seem to shake. I rejected communication, with anyone. I sat in the depths of my anxiety and depression, and I didn’t want to climb out.

Things that had helped in the past no longer had any impact. Being in nature might have cleared my mind a little, but the clouds rolled in continually, and the fog never lifted. I’d never before felt as though every single moment was consumed by it, as though I’d never make it out.

I can’t pinpoint the moment of change, the second I decided that enough was enough, that I was strong enough after all. But here we are, at the start of the journey, facing up to all that is broken and dysfunctional, ready - finally - to begin.

My dad has long believed that what is missing from my life is faith, and although I’ve nodded and agreed, I’ve been at a loss as to where to find it. I’m not religious, and although the Earth has long been the guide I’ve been drawn to, I found it difficult to fully see how my integration and connection with nature could help me on this journey. I know through my work all about the healing powers of nature. I know all the facts, what I should be trying and persevering with, and yet.

Something was missing. An element I should have recognised sooner, considering my love for organisation, for rhythm and for some kind of structure: the path to guide me on this journey.

If Women Rose Rooted has sat on my bookshelf for a while. I’ve read probably a third of it, and this week decided it was time to pick it up again. I flicked through the pages to remind myself where I was up to and what chapters were ahead, and I ended up on the last few pages, in the postscript titled ‘The Eco-Heroine’s Journey - A Guide’. My intuition screamed: this is it. I hadn’t even read the first paragraph when I knew this was what I had been searching for. Blackie advises, “I offer you… some specific tips, and some questions to ask yourself which I hope will help you get started in thinking about how you might tell your own story.” As a writer, the lure of carving out my own story at the same time as moving through this journey, was not only appealing, it felt necessary.

For the first time in a long time, I felt compelled to begin a new post, to share something of myself with the world. I have no agenda here, other than recognising this as a place to keep me accountable on the path, a place to document my thoughts and experiences. It will, I have no doubt, be deeply rooted in the natural world, in the Earth, and in the cycles and seasons we see play out each year. Other than that, I’m not certain of anything, but perhaps that’s a good place to start?

As suggested by Blackie, here are the stages I’ll be working through:

1. The Wasteland - “sweep aside the veil which prevents us from seeing the world as it is: to understand what is broken, and what needs to change”

2. The Call - “life is not about being safe and secure; life is about growing, learning, transforming”

3. The Cauldron of Transformation - “Don’t fear the dark: it’s a natural part of the Journey… Out of the darkness comes strength, and focus. There is always another rebirth. But it always begins in the dark.”

4. The Pilgrim’s Way - “pick yourself up, and find your way to the path. Put one foot in front of the other, and walk: a pilgrimage begins with one small step”

5. Retrieving the Buried Feminine - “Creativity is an authentic approach to life: an openness, a spontaneity; a determination to nurture rather than destroy.”

6. Restoring the Balance - “understanding, appreciating and embodying the qualities which fall into both categories [masculine and feminine], and bringing ourselves - and the world - back into harmony”

7. The Heroine’s Return - “Wherever you are, for however long or short a period of time you stay there, it is important to learn to belong… Walk your streets, explore your woods, and always, always take account of the small beauties.”

8. Becoming Elder - “Pass your wisdom on. Think about telling your own story.”

I have no idea how long it will take to navigate each stage - some days, some weeks, some perhaps months - and I’m under no delusion that this will be a simple process. But I’m ready to begin, and to share. My plan is to write a post to accompany each stage; some might be written in the midst of the work, others once I feel ready to transition to the next stage. I’m just going to take it as it comes.

First, a post on The Wasteland, which will follow shortly, to explore my current position in more depth. I look forward to taking you on this journey with me.

What is a circadian rhythm?

Circadian rhythm refers to a (roughly) 24 hour cycle in the biological process of any living thing (plant, animal, human etc.). It governs when we feel hungry, tired, energetic, and runs in the background of your everyday.

Your circadian rhythm is controlled primarily by your brain, but external factors do have some sway: if you are sleep-deprived, for instance, you will feel more affected by your circadian rhythm (for example feeling hungrier at lunch time); light can also affect your circadian rhythm, and plays an important part in resetting the cycle. There is much that still remains unknown about circadian rhythm, but what is certain is its impact on our daily lives.

How can we reconnect to our circadian rhythm?

Have you ever had one of those days(/weeks/months) when you feel like something is off kilter, but can’t quite put your finger on it? Perhaps you feel particularly tired for no apparent reason, or your motivation levels have hit rock bottom. Now consider: did you go to bed, or wake, at a different time? Did the clocks recently change, moving forward or back an hour? Have you spent much time outdoors today? All of these can impact our circadian rhythm, bringing about that feeling that something isn’t quite right. So how can we reconnect and realign our circadian rhythm?

Turn off the lights. After sunset, exposure to electronic light can negatively impact our circadian rhythm, increasing our energy levels when we should be winding down. Try not to use your phone or laptop after this time, and use natural light (candles, firelight) instead, which seems not to have such a big impact.

Increase your exposure to natural light in the day, and especially in the morning. Exposure to sunlight in the first two hours of waking has been shown to help reset our circadian clock, and has the added benefit of increasing our energy levels and improving our mood during the day. As little as 15 minutes spent outdoors should do the trick.

Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day. If you can’t commit to these changes on a daily basis, choosing to reset every month also has a positive impact. For example, if you spend an entire weekend away from electronics and electric light, spending as much time outdoors as possible (camping, perhaps?) you will feel similar benefits and your circadian rhythm will begin to realign to the earth’s natural light/dark cycle.

Image: Annie Spratt via Unsplash

Today’s blog post was also shared as part of a new, free community project I launched this month. Rewild & Slow is a way of sharing nature-led wisdom from folk inspired by the wild and the natural world in some way. The idea came to me in December last year when I was trying to figure out a way to begin the year, and the decade, with intention, but also in a way that embraced community and connection. If you’d like to sign up for the project and access future contributions, plus all those shared so far, you can do so by signing up to the newsletter here.

For a long time I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. When I was at primary school, I remember very clearly a vision I had of myself in a white school shirt sat at a desk doing some writing for secondary school; I couldn’t wait to get older and start that adrenaline-fuelled new phase of my academic life. Of course, once you’re in it, once you’re there doing the work, writing the essays late at night, revising for GCSEs and A-levels, it isn’t quite as glamorous, and so the vision evolved; a smart black dress, heels, and a job writing for a magazine, something akin to those female writers you would see in films circa 2002, going out, enjoying life, and a column of my very own.

If you’d have told that teenage girl she’d end up living in a tent and growing her own veg, she’d never have believed you, and she wouldn’t have wanted to; like most teenage girls, she was working towards a goal unintentionally disparate from her childhood and all she had come to know.

It took a short-lived teaching career, a stint living in a busy town, and a descent into debt for me to realise that there had to be another way, one that I carved out for myself that didn’t necessarily follow a prescribed path. Gradually I began to rewild and slow this busy, corporate existence, returning to the values and approach my family had been peddling all along; their surprise at how quickly my life changed was palpable. 

But what does it mean to rewild? What does it even look like?

The term ‘rewild’ appeared somewhere between 1980 and 1985, just before the internet, smart phones and modern technology began to underpin everything we do. It gained traction in 2013 when George Monbiot wrote the book Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea and Human Life. It explores in detail the approach to rewilding many of us are familiar with - that of restoring an area of land to its natural, uncultivated state, and which specifically references the reintroduction of species of wild animal that have been driven out.  But he also remarks: “there are two definitions of rewilding that interest me. The second is the rewilding of human life. While some primitivists see a conflict between the civilised and the wild, the rewilding I envisage has nothing to do with shedding civilization. We can, I believe, enjoy the benefits of advanced technology while also enjoying, if we choose, a life richer in adventure and surprise. Rewilding is not about abandoning civilization but about enhancing it. It is to ‘love not man the less, but Nature more’.”

This is the rewilding that this project will focus on. This is the rewilding that I myself went through, and what I believe is the lynch-pin of humanity’s future; if we are to reverse climate change and protect the earth, the first step is to ensure that people care about it. And when you are connected to something, you are much more likely to care.

My own rewilding process took many different turns; I began by throwing myself at ancient nature-inspired crafts, growing my own veg, foraging for berries, and walking daily. Living in a tent for a year provided a unique opportunity to connect on a much deeper level with wildlife, weather and seasonal change, and even though now we live in a more traditional bricks and mortar home, I can still use the tools and techniques I developed during those twelve months to connect with nature and the earth on a daily basis.

Some days, that might look like escaping for a two hour walk with family, playing with my son in the mud, writing outside in the top field, planting some lettuce seeds and doing a bit of outdoor yoga. But those days, I assure you, are the exception to the rule, and most of the time I just do the best I can. 10 minutes here. 20 minutes there. That’s been a learning curve these past few years too; that it doesn’t have to look perfect, and that I don’t have to be outside at every possible moment of the day. Sometimes, I want to curl up indoors too, and although getting outside and reconnecting with nature always, always feels good, sometimes it’s too much of an effort to get out. And that’s ok. This project will hopefully inspire you to start or continue your own rewilding journey, to connect with nature even more than you do right now, but it should never be another stick for beating yourself with. The world doesn’t need a small number of people rewilding perfectly; it needs a whole lot of us rewilding, reconnecting, in the best way we can. 

So that’s rewild. Now what about slow?

I first started writing about slow living around six years ago. It wasn’t a phrase that was very well-known, and people didn’t really know what it was. But in the past few years, it has exploded and become quite an aspirational lifestyle approach, often stereotypically associated with linen dresses, freshly-ground coffee and old books. Don’t get me wrong, I love all those things, but for me slow living has nothing to do with any of them.

Slow living began with the Slow Food movement. It was, and I quote from slowfood.com:  “started by Carlo Petrini and a group of activists in the 1980s with the initial aim to defend regional traditions, good food, gastronomic pleasure and a slow pace of life. In over two decades of history, the movement has evolved to embrace a comprehensive approach to food that recognizes the strong connections between plate, planet, people, politics and culture.”

It evolved - slowly, of course - and gradually other elements began to appear - slow work, slow exercise, slow living. In 2004, a pivotal text in the ‘slow’ movement was published - In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore. In this book - which I highly recommend - Honore - avoids the, perhaps expected, calls to overthrow technology and seek a preindustrial utopia. Instead the book offers a different philosophy - balance. Discovering energy and efficiency from slowing down. Slow does not simply mean slowing down.

I wrote a blog post almost 5 years ago now, all about slow living and the impact it had on me, and I thought I’d share an extract, as it’s still as relevant now as it was half a decade ago. 

"I recently reached a point in my life where my to-do list was never-ending and I prioritised by simply choosing the most pressing deadline and ploughing through. At the end of the day I would collapse into a heap on the sofa and waste a few hours trying to regain some semblance of a life. I'd wake feeling fatigued and irritable and would haul myself upstairs to bed before starting all over again; no matter how many good intentions I'd have to escape from my stupor and actually do something, things never seemed to work that way.

When I first discovered the concept of slow living I disregarded the idea, believing naïvely that there was no hope for me to ever live this way because I simply had too much to do, too much to fit in, and there just wasn't enough time in the day to slow anything down. What I didn't know, is that this is the kind of lifestyle primed for a change to slow living.

There will never be enough hours in the day, but we can shape and mould the time we have according to our wishes and desires, and once we can do that, we're able to live more slowly, mindfully and with care.

My approach to slow living is a little different to the norm in that it begins (a pre-process, if you like) with organisation. I've found that cementing routines and plans in place to be essential in beginning to live a slow life that actually has a lot going on. Running a home, working 9-5, seeing family and friends, running Creative Countryside - it doesn't sound like I'm living a slow life! But I am.

Every day I take time to connect with the natural world. I'm able to enjoy the process of cooking and eating rather than rush through it with a panicked notion of running out of time. Sometimes I'll even take the day off. All of this is only possible, though, because I did the work beforehand: I set up meal planning spreadsheets, streamlined my wardrobe and set goals that allowed me to focus on exactly what I wanted to achieve. Following this process took a little while, but good things come to those who wait, and once I'd got to the point where everything was set up and I'd designed my lifestyle to look how I wanted it to look, I could truly say I had embraced slow living."

I wanted to share this post to remind myself as much as you, that going slow is a process. For me it’s intrinsically linked with rewilding and reconnecting with nature, as those are the elements of my life I consciously choose to focus on, to include mindfully and with care. But in order to do that I make sacrifices in other parts of my life; I don’t go out and socialise all that often, we don’t spend tons of money on clothes and so on, but that doesn’t mean your life should look that way too. It could, but that’s not what rewild and slow means. 

I hope that throughout the duration of this project you’ll see how this concept can appear in a myriad of different ways in people’s lives. And I hope it will inspire and encourage you to begin or continue on your own journey of reconnection with the yourself and the natural world.

Image: Annie Spratt

Sometimes it’s hard to define what you feel most passionate about, especially when it goes against the grain, and there’s no specific word or phrase to describe it. I’ve titled this piece ‘Earth-Based Living’, because that’s about as close as I can get to describing the lifestyle I have come to adopt over the past five or so years, but it still doesn’t quite encapsulate everything it entails.

I’ve never been a devout follower of… well, anything really. When the ‘religion’ box appeared on forms and questionnaires, sometimes I’d tick ‘Christian’, other times ‘Agnostic’, but neither sat well. Around 2014-2015 I started to read more non-fiction, in particular the new wave of nature writing that was emerging at the time (John Lewis-Stempel and Rob Cowen were favourites), and as my reading list expanded, so did my perception of faith, belief and what I valued in life.

I started to ground myself in the seasons, to really try and notice the small changes in nature as the year progressed. I bought The Seasons: A Celebration of the English Year by Nick Groom, and fell down a rabbit hole: this book contained everything that I wanted to include in my life - nature, the seasons, tradition, literature, celebration, folklore, adventure - but I didn’t know where to start. So I spent the following few months devouring everything I could that sparked my curiosity. Poetry from John Clare, the concept of microadventures, the emerging idea of slow living (which at the time was virtually unheard of on the internet, and especially on Instagram).

One day my dad recommended I read Glennie Kindred’s The Earth’s Cycle of Celebration, and handed me his copy. The introduction alone was enlightening: ‘We can empower ourselves in new and exciting ways, break free of old outworn attitudes, damaging dogma and concepts. We can transform and change in our own unique and individual way. Best of all we are free to embrace a holistic understanding of all things being interconnecting vital parts of a whole.’ It goes on to explore the Wheel of the Year, its festivals and celebrations, and how it can bring focus and structure to our lives (if you’re not sure what the Wheel of the Year is, click here). She writes: ‘The Wheel of the Year is not just a matter of changing from one season to the next. Beneath the manifestation of seasonal change, there is also change in the energy of the Earth. These energy patterns affect us all whether we are conscious of them or not. By understanding the flow and direction of that energy, we can move with it, in harmony with it, as true inhabitants of our planet earth: belonging, part of, changing on all levels of our being.’

I realised that subconsciously I had already started to sculpt a life defined by the ebb and flow of nature. I was already feeling the impact of the Earth’s energy at different times of year, changing up my routine, what I was eating, the activities I enjoyed doing. What I hadn’t realised was that this wasn’t a new concept: people have always been guided by the seasons, and the transformative power of nature; it is only in the more recent past that our connection has diminished.

I spent more time reading, researching, and thinking about how everything linked together, and to begin with, my thoughts and ideas were incredibly scattered, which I suppose is natural when you’re forming a belief system. I felt very much like the odd one out, and didn’t fit neatly into any one category: I wasn’t a Pagan (though I resonated with the Wheel of the Year and the importance of ritual), and I wasn’t a Buddhist (though I agreed with the importance of meditation and lasting values in an impermanent world). I wasn’t (nor did I aspire to be) a monk, but again, many of the beliefs rang true (a rejection of mainstream society and the importance of simplicity, for instance).

My beliefs, values, and approach to life and work evolved over the next few years, and though I’m still learning today, I feel better equipped to talk about the lifestyle I aspire to lead.

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earth-based living

MOVING THROUGH LIFE GUIDED BY THE EBB AND FLOW OF THE SEASONS, AND THE ENERGY OF THE EARTH.

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My earth-based approach looks like this:

• I believe that we are all members of one Earth community.

• I believe in the power and wisdom of the Earth, and practice gratitude for all that it provides.

• I adopt a ‘slow’ approach, managing and balancing the different priorities in my life in order to focus on what really matters to me.

• I use the Wheel of the Year as a framework for planning, celebration and intention.

• I look to the Wheel of the Year, and the lunar cycle, to utilise the best conditions for my actions, and to help to explain what I feel in my mind and body. I do not use these cycles to try to predict the future.

• I look to the Earth for wisdom, whether that be through ritual, meditation, forest bathing, grounding or creative acts.

• I try to eat seasonal food and practice seasonal yoga flows, inspired by Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine.

• I use seasonal rituals to help align my everyday with nature (e.g. lighting a candle at breakfast in the winter).

• Most of all, I try to get outside whenever I can, and feel the grounding power of the Earth.

I don’t get it right all of the time (who does?!), and I certainly find things more difficult when I’m going through a really busy period in my life or work, but it really helps to have a set of principles to turn back to every so often, to remind myself of what’s important to me. As Satish Kumar remarks: “We are all part of this healthy web of life maintained by soil. The Latin word humus means soil. The words human, humility and humus all come from the same root. When humans lose contact with soil, they are no longer humans.”

Let’s make time to reconnect, with the Earth, with soil, and with the cycles and rhythms of the natural world.