Posts By: Alex Lee

Letting go is a process, always available and certainly in my case – always needed! This was the theme of our final Nature Immersion, as we are having a break and working on some other related projects before regrouping in September.

The infamous Thai Buddhist monk; Ajahn Chah is reported to have said- “If we let go a little we will have a little peace… If we let go some more we will have more peace… If we let go completely we will have complete peace”.

So today, deep in the woods we practised letting go of thoughts/ situations/ relationships/ foods whatever we chose that no longer served us. The Earth is a wonderful support when we are practising like this. We are held in Nature… as sometimes letting go can be a very sticky and challenging affair.

Here is the poem I read as we closed our practise today:

Letting go, in order to let in
releasing, in order to receive
nature’s coded messages become clearer
the less we try to see.

Trying hard, trying harder and harder
trying so very hard
is not the way.

We need commitment, yes
and focus
and hope and faith and trust
but most of all we need ease
a discipline of ease
not trying too hard at all.

You see “trying hard” has a cell-mate
called “giving up”, admitting defeat
like black and white
like pushing and pulling
no peace there.

“Not yet”, you say
“I’m not ready yet
to take the step beyond.”
I know
I’ve stepped so slow myself,
still do
but love sweet sister,
like death
comes in a moment’s heartbeat
then goes.

There are no ways to hold
except by letting go, and
letting it be a part of you
and you of it.

– Stewart Mercer

We’ve had a busy engaged time since the dawning of 2022 and so Clare thought it may be good to share some of the poems that have been guiding her into early Spring.

Also a couple of updates- the Forest Room has had a little lift and is now brimming with very early buds and foliage. The space has been a blessing as some mornings here in Hebden have featured very heavy downpours, so we have practised inside occasionally.

We are also branching out (!) into some creative play with Mindful Mark Making and a Sonic Immersion! Clare has an extensive track record in the arts… so it was only a matter of time!

Watch out for our rebrand all to be announced soon!

Enjoy the images and poems and we hope to see you on one of our offerings soon.

Start Close In by David Whyte (excerpt)

Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take.

Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way of starting the conversation.

Start with your own question, give up on other people’s questions, don’t let them smother something simple.

To find another’s voice, follow your own voice, wait until that voice becomes a private ear listening to another.

Start right now take a small step you can call your own don’t follow someone else’s heroics, be humble and focused, start close in, don’t mistake that other for your own.

Time to be Slow  John O’Donohue

This is the time to be slow, lie low to the wall until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let the wire brush of doubt scrape from your heart all sense of yourself and your hesitant light.

If you remain generous, time will come good; and you will find your feet again on fresh pastures of promise, where the air will be kind And blushed with beginning.

A Forest Room. This concept landed in my body as an initial idea after observing how some folks reacted to rain on one of my recent (October) nature immersions. We live in a damp, wet climate here in Yorkshire yet our relationship to Nature is more important than ever before. I am motivated to guide people from all walks of life on my nature immersions as I truly feel in my bones that our relationship with the more than human world is KEY. Key for our survival as a species for sure, but also key for the wellbeing of every species on this beautiful earthly planet.

So I thought I’d try an experiment. Just for the Winter. A space that could still allow for a deep sensory experience. I would create an indoor Forest Room in the mill at Hardcastle Crags that is adjacent to the woodland trail I regularly guide on. Gibson Mill is off grid, so the rooms are unheated. This made for a more authentic experience as we would need to keep our hats and coats on, and all the bark, berries and fern we would collect would stay intact in the colder  environment.

I weaved the space into our first ever course – Journeys with Nature. Every week course participants will practice out on the usual trail for a couple of hours, migrating into the forest room for the last hour of the session.

Let’s see how it’s all received!

Photography courtesy of Ana Paula

As we blustered into the darker months of Autumn some highly positive news landed in my inbox one morning. Calderdale council, my local authority, announced a grant they had recently received. This grant was a core fund to enable practioners across the region to offer their services for public and third sector workers. Essentially a way to say big thanks, immense gratitude for the support they have provided for thousands of  residents across Calderdale.

I applied to become a contracted practioner and was successful 🙂

This has meant a diverse and broad section of society have been now able to access my offerings, for no charge. I must admit this model makes me happy. For many years I worked in the third sector, obtaining funding for young people so they could be enriched through ambitious creative programs. This mode of operatus fits my ethos and vision then and still now. Social change is the driver for everything I do.

The natural world, the environment and social change sit within each other. Like all aspects of this living organism, there is deep interconnectedness. Taking place all day, all night, between all chains of activity.

It is my hope and intention, that by guiding a wide mix of people into the woods for healing, connection, restoration etc that we will all further invest into the protection of Nature, the planet.  I am writing a wee post on the first official day of the COP26 summit in Glasgow, so I guess it couldn’t be more timely. Let us live in hope, as the Buddhist activist Joanna Macy calls it – Active Hope.

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On a recent trip back to my original homeland; Ireland, we went off in search of the last remaining ancient Oakland. We headed down through Wicklow into the lush green fields of Wexford to a small town known as Tinahealy. Here one can find the simply stunning Tomnafinnogue woods. Tom Na Finnogue is gaelic for; The Bush of the Hooded Crow and is the last remaining woodland of its kind in Ireland. I personally find this deeply troubling and I’m not alone. Several high profile artists including U2’s the Edge, the Hot House Flowers, Black Velvet Band and my very own uncle who is a children’s artist; Don Conroy fought long and hard to keep the woods standing. Their persistence paid off and in 1992 Wicklow county council bought the site and has managed the 165 acre of Oakland since.

She is a mysterious twist of walks, laneways, railway arches and wetlands. The trees are golden, dusty and majestic, the Oaks seem to be genuinely thriving as they have not got many pesky Beech neighbours invading their roots!

We dropped into our bodies, practising some mindfulness and sat with some of these old, wise ones. There presence is so fundamental to our wellness and that of the biosphere as a whole. May we deepen our connection with all beings and never get truly lost.

The following poem eloquently describes how we are never lost when in the woods, unless of course we want to be…

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

David Wagoner

I felt honoured one Monday morning of late when my buddies over at Greenhouse Culture asked me to produce content for their first “takeover”.

So what may be a green arty takeover? I hear you ponder ! Well according to Ashleigh Downey, founder of GC:

Greenhouse Culture Takeover is a space for green thinkers to invade. We welcome a different point of view, and invite artists, educators, philosophers, activists, ecologists, scientist, nature lovers, concerned parents, and all those in between, to offer their insights and inspirations on the current environmental crisis. Each month, sharing their current meanderings; from books of interest, to quotes, thoughts, music, sound, visual materials, podcasts, poems quotes, and any manor or other relevant findings…

So here be my personal contribution, I compiled a selection of works, mainly my own with some accompaniments. May it bring some calm and inspiration to you… and do please check out the GC website, they are leading some truly important work across the waters in old Eire.

Wild Occupy : Artist Takeover

A new commitment to a daily river or dam immersion, whatever the weather, is very alive in me this month. Eek 😉

The River has been a refuge, a sanctuary over the last few years as I recovered from a illness that knocked me sideways and more. I’ve learnt a lot from these cold water moments: including- the importance of allowing the flow of life, allowing emotions to move through me, knowing there is a way, a way of gentleness when decidedly tricky barriers appear in my life. Keep flowing, keep moving, and allow.

There is also a romantic wildness with River. Emily Dickinson encapsulates this beautifully in her unusually short poem (see below).

Plunging into cold waters is an adrenalin fuelled healthful micro- adventure. See you down by the River!

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My River runs to thee. Blue sea, wilt thou welcome me? My river awaits reply. Oh! Sea, look graciously. I’ll fetch thee brooks From spotted nooks. Say, sea, Take me! Emily Dickinson

I have been fortunate to kindle many relationships with beings across the landscape where I live. This be Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. God’s country! Rambling out, a couple of times a day, taking it slowly has allowed me to drop further into my body and become as a result more aware. A sense of mindful awareness can be cultivated when we drop into our bodies as we walk slowly along the lines of the land. From this place of being I find I can open up more to myself and the nature around me. The senses are enlivened … things are good.

Partnership and reciprocity go hand in hand. When Robin comes over to say hello, my body relaxes even further and I as a result open up to this other being. I listen in. I guess you could call this the gift of our attention. The more I practise this type of listening, as a result I deepen relationships with the more-than-human-world to coin the ecologist’s David Abrams term. Naturally then my care and love for this incredible planet booms.  Home. The mother (ship).

Recently, over the second lockdown, I’ve been creating and producing a bundle of sounds, some words and a harmony or two. Here be one for you to have a listen … more will be appearing on the Sound portal over the coming months.

March is a month I don’t tend to march into.

I tread extra carefully, as if I am avoiding the crocuses as they return from their hibernation. I feel I have good reason for this, March is a month packed with remembrances.

Both of my parent’s made their final departures in March. Then we have the celebration of us Irish folk, St Patricks. Finally there is Mother’s day right bang in the heart of the month.

The word Mother has its origins in ‘mater’ or ‘matter’. I have always looked at the Earth as a mother… or more like a mothership. 

This term mother implies unconditional love, boundlessness, support, holding, rootedness, power.

Time spent amidst trees; forest bathing supports me. The trees are a constant reminder that the Mother is close by.

I consider once again how I can embody these qualities as a Mother and as someone who sees the earth as her truest Mother.

To be spacious is vast … a vast heart can hold everything.

I will leave you with one of my favourite Mother(ship) poems:

An excerpt from In Memory Of My Mother

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily

On a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.

O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is a harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us – eternally.

Patrick Kavanagh