• Wise words from poet Georgie Jones

• A new book on exploring the wintery Water element in traditional Chinese medicine

• Join me for a walk this winter: Wintering Pilgrimage and Poetry

• My Christmas in St Agnes - why not join me there for a retreat in May?

• Yoga classes start up again this week

What does Pilgrimage mean to you?

Does the idea feel heavy or light? Is it something you want to move towards or away from?

For some, pilgrimage has religious connotations and associations with long, arduous and perilous journeys.

For me, it’s lighter and more spacious than that. Pilgrimage is something that belongs to everyone. It’s a call to explore. An invitation to set off on a road in which our physical and spiritual paths may cross. A meeting of our heartlands and wild edges.

Sometimes we need to ask ourselves if it’s time to push the “f*ck it” button

Last weekend, some fellow wanderers and I ventured to South Devon for a weekend of walking, sea swimming and camping - the perfect trio, I think, for a summer reset.

Sometimes I like to think of these offers as a bringing together of all the elements our hearts and bodies need - and then letting the intelligence of mother nature work her magic.

Little acts of kindness aren’t so small after all

I arrived home yesterday to find a spring posy and a word of gratitude on my doorstep. It brought such joy to my heart, I thought to share it with you all incase you decide to spread some spring joy this weekend with a small act of kindness. The thing about kindness is that it has a wonderful habit of spreading. Continue the ripple.

There exists a type of spider that chooses to weave it’s web between flexible blades of grass instead of between two hard objects (like stones for example). Why? Because when storms blow, and wind comes whistling along the land, their web simply lowers with the grass until the gusts have passed before coming back up and finding an equilibrium once more.

This week feels like the perfect time to explore balance, in particular our inner balance, as the daylight and darkness of our outer world comes into equilibrium with the spring equinox.

I can sense the potency in the cool, damp morning air as I perch on my stoop, birds chirping and tweeting, making brave sporadic excursions to the seed feeder just a few feet away.

Insights in healing and integration and a poem and meditation for your weekend.

A few weeks ago a passing thought took me by the hand and led me down a path I have meandered down ever since. At the time, I was walking along the river Dart and noticed how inwardly churned up I felt as I plodded along side it. I was out of sync with it’s tumbling majestic beauty, not only that, but it’s rising energy felt to be pushing up, unbidden, the sticky sediment of emotional turmoil that I would rather have let lie (for the time being at least).

Teetering on the edge, twilight alchemy and becoming Lordess of the Flies

This week I’ve been working on a collaboration project. The concept itself, although not mine, has the potential to do meaningful work. It revolves around supporting others in their roles as caregivers and positive change makers, people whose work is value-driven. So as you can imagine, I’m excited. Although it’s too early to share all the details, there is a theme that has revealed itself to be integral to the project: ‘use edges and value the marginal’.

Agreed, the phrase reads a little dry, but trust me, its juicy at heart.

Ever heard the saying ‘ where attention goes, energy flows?’ 

“While the heart is certainly a remarkable pump, interestingly, it is only relatively recently in the course of human history—around the past three centuries or so—that the heart’s function has been defined (by Western scientific thought) as only that of pumping blood. Historically, in almost every culture of the world, the heart was ascribed a far more multifaceted role in the human system, being regarded as a source of wisdom, spiritual insight, thought, and emotion. Intriguingly, scientific research over the past several decades has begun to provide evidence that many of these long-surviving associations may well be more than simply metaphorical. “

Very early on a Thursday morning.

I haven’t practised yoga for five months. The first three of which were a busy mix of saying goodbye to the studio and embracing the new challenge of walking the SWCP. And yes, of course I know it would have been VERY helpful to slowly move and stretch my achy body at the end of each day’s walking, and to incorporate yoga as part of my recovery, but I didn’t.

HeartMath’s Inner Ease Technique

The past couple of weeks I’ve talked about radiating heart, and we know now there’s power in regenerative emotions. But what about the times when activating a positive emotion can feel like too big a leap from where we find ourselves? It’s a big and somewhat tricky jump from anger to compassion or despair to joy. 

There is a practice we can try in the moments we find ourselves drowning, something that meets us where we are.