Take it to the Trees

22/10/2024

Local peeps!

20/10/2024

“I looked out the window and it was stair rods” reported our backmarker at the beginning of yesterday. An hour later, and hoping for the best, nine intrepid walkers gathered by a tree in a car park off Gravel hill road at Lodge Inclosure, Alice Holt Forest.
Taking part in Alton’s Walking festival is a Soul Shed highlight of the year. It takes place in May for the entire month, and in October for a beautiful Autumnal reprise.

Holt Pound Inclosure, which is part of Alice Holt Forest, was the destination for our reprise. This land is historic royal hunting ground, and now under the auspices of Forestry England. Their respectful care and tending to the forest and other wildlife here mean that I can confidently guide people onto this land.

Our theme was interconnectedness, and an exploration of the wonderfully resourcing relationships possible between humans and forests began here. beneath the incredible canopy of The Hour Glass Yew. There are reasons for believing this is the most ancient tree in the forest. (for more see the link to research on the Alice Holt Yews at the bottom of this piece). The atmosphere changes entirely in this microclimate, and we breathed deeply, dropping into forest time, which walkers know, is quite a different thing to everyday time.

Uncovering the places within us that connect deeply with nature, is something that happens incrementally on a walk, and we arrived as a fresh group of people at the end of a busy week. I like to imagine that that time beneath the Yew eased us onto her timeline, and from there, we took ourselves across the road, into Holt Pound Inclosure....

for the rest of this piece about our walk, and more pics of this beautiful land, please follow the link to my substack

https://tinyurl.com/nt7sjbn5

09/10/2024

I would love to show you my new substack. Its about connecting with your square mile of belonging. Berries feature a fair bit. 🤩
This post is a poem with audio.

Have a berry good day😅

https://tinyurl.com/mwck85ap

04/10/2024

For you if you like berries! From my new Substack.

https://tinyurl.com/2rs782zm

01/10/2024

I did the recce for our walk (number 17) earlier with the brilliant Kaelim. We will be leading it together , and talk you on an experiential journey into our interconnectedness with nature. All these walks led by local walkers with a special interest! and completely free.

See you there?

Alton Walking Festival takes place every May and this year celebrated its 12th year. After the success of previous years we are holding our 5th Autumn Walking Festival, a week-long event showcasing a selection of handpicked walks from May which are ‘Simply The Best’. Alton’s Walking Festivals ...

28/09/2024

Friends! Im doing a new thing. I want to create spaces for our connection with the trees around us to deepen, and for deep-mapping practice to grow and thrive, so Ive started a substack.

It wont replace this page, but rather offer a place to offer you more ideas and context if you would like to grow this kind of practice in your life, as well as further content and offerings for those of us who are diving deeper into our Deep-Mapping.

It will also be a place for you to respond more easily to content, and if you become a subscriber content will arrive direct to your email inbox.

This is what you can expect to find on my Substack in the coming months:

Regular deep-mapping posts like this one (also see my instagram stories )
A monthly post about walking with a well known tree, through an archetypal lens like my post about enneagram and apple
Posts about the benefits of exploring your intuitive creativity and the power of walking with imagery

I very much hope you will subscribe!

Torch-bearing in September!

12/09/2024

What an amazing mirror of human rib cage and spine in this prayer plant.

08/09/2024

Local legend!

Here it is folks, this year's official poster for Vicky's Halloween Garden!! Please share as we would love to spread the word. We are hoping to create another great display this year and see as many visitors as possible. Once again we are rolling out the donation buckets for a fantastic charity so remember to bring some pennies with you if you can! Here's to our 15th year 🎃👻

21/07/2024

I was thrilled to have this article about Deep-Mapping in your square mile featured in Thresholds journal!

Samantha Taroni writes about how exploring the land around us can deepen our self-knowledge. Thresholds, January 2024

26/06/2024

It’s today! If you’re anywhere near Alton at lunchtime and fancy trying some intuitive Collage, come to the public gardens at 1 pm and there will be a place for you under this lovely gazebo!

The space underneath will look very different, with a tarpaulin, blankets, and cushions down, and lots of images to Collage with. 

A very cool summer initiative, from Alton town council. Doing another one on a Self-care Sunday in august too!

Hooray the Dooray!

08/06/2024

Wow to this immense poem.
Thank you Nancy

My favourite bits are

‘We offer you little in the way of certainty;�just that the country you live in will not always be that country’.

and

‘Your body is an event�and you’ll spend decades unpacking what’s happened’.

…………

Rite of Baptism by Pádraig Ó Tuama

If you pass, know that you will have no say �about what happens.
Some of our people will hate you as they hate themselves. �You must create a life �without giving them all your life’s attention.
Some people will delight in destroying you. �Some will strike you. Some will choose �others as their favorites.
Some have been waiting for you for generations; �circling, like hunters, round your little heart. �Of course they don’t know you.
This truth will set you free, �eventually. But only after you’ve forgotten this.
You haven’t learnt to fly yet, have you?
Somebody will love you.�Somebody will hurt you too, but you know that already.
We offer you little in the way of certainty;�just that the country you live in will not always be that country.
There is a lot you’ll need to suffer.�Remember: help is a howl and an imperative.� Nothing to be ashamed of.
One way or another, shame �can teach you what nothing else can teach you.
One way or another.
Your body is an event�and you’ll spend decades unpacking what’s happened.
Here are some things we cannot guarantee you:�guarantees, or history’s purity.
Here is what we can:�A platform on which your past can make or break�depending on how power is conceived.
There is no such thing as the past. �Just stories of the past poorly re-enacted.
And nobody knows where the past begins —�in the beginning it was all a dream, not a story.
Remember: you must believe�some of this.

Ash flowers
Thank you for the image which is from ‘naturally curious’ with Mary holland

02/06/2024

BEECH

Believe in yourself.

Extracted from comfort,
everyone ends up
coursing and corralling.

Hope is no holiday.

Believe in believing
entirely and unequivocally,
(even with emptiness
courting confusion.)

Hope, are you handkerchief?

Believe in beech beeching,
existential outcast,
entirely emergent.

Change comes constantly.

Hope is hardworking,
beyond the falling,
entering equanimity.

Epitome of uplift.

Calling us out.

Heartfully reaching.

Beech
Beech
Beech

Poem about this amazing regenerating fallen beech tree in the woods in Hascombe. I wish you could see it in the real.

01/06/2024

This ancient Yew is reckoned by Yew researcher, Toby Hindson to be well over a thousand years old. The oldest tree in Alice Holt Forest, this tree stands guardian to the Lodge Inclosure, and the atmosphere changes into something very different beneath its canopy. It is the perfect place to begin walks where we are intending to slow down and become more connected.

Walking with an invitation.

Our three offerings came under the umbrella that is the fabulous event that is Alton Walking Festival. They run a shorter one in October and it is a wonderful way to visit this beautiful corner of the world. We’ve planning that walk already! Maybe see you there??!

I’m linking to a little blog with lots of pics and quotes which is a gathering up of some of these recent adventures.

Also - If you were at one it would be wonderful if you could share your experience in the comments here or in the blog itself. And of course - the walks have happened, but the invitations in the blog remain for any walk!

https://www.thesoul-shed.co.uk/post/guardian-of-some-fiery-secret

Walk Alton Alton's Walking Festival Forestry Commission

Photograph with thanks to Emma.Under the auspices of the Hourglass Yew, three Soul Shed deep-mapping walks happened over the course of May. It was a great pleasure to meet up with you and share these times of creative exploration.This ancient Yew is reckoned by Yew researcher, Toby Hindson to be wel...

17/05/2024

Just for a pip from my heart to yours - Here are some green reflections under a horse chestnut tree.

☺️

15/05/2024

The genius of Ursula Le Guin. 1929-2018

‘I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up: that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived’.

‘We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.’

‘To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.’

God I love her.
And Copper Beech.

13/05/2024

Dear human of the forest…

https://www.thesoul-shed.co.uk/blog