Hello lovely Subscribers, It has started - the Mythcelium Series of work. It entangles, fairytales, myths, ecology, and what it means to be human in this more-than-human-world. It also underpins much of the work that I do and I want to write a little about that here. But before I begin, you can listen to the first episode of the podcast (that forms the foundation for tonight's online Mythcelium Gathering) here . The work I am creating now is very much focused on bio-mimicry,

A new way of working together for change. Art work by Pete Shaw Art work by Pete ShawHello my wonderful Subscribers - it is so meaningful to me that you have signed up to hear news of the work I am doing and how I am doing - it which is what this newsletter is all about. For some time now, as well as using narratives to design and deliver my courses - I have been meshing in bio-mimicry and ways of being entangled. More and more we use phrases like, 'living with uncertainty' o

The purpose of an ice crystal lies not in perfection but in connection. It is the time of hard, cold nights here in Sweden. I wake to mornings of glittering white, but it is not snow it is ice - crystals of ice. I find them utterly exquisite and cannot help but stop and gaze in awe at their geometry, like delicate miniature, cathedrals. I remember one of the first times that I came to Sweden to visit the man who is now my husband. It was in the winter and we travelled north f

I write this from a body that is aching and very worn. I have been ill for over two weeks but still needed to work. (I will talk about this later as I had a eureka moment.) It is that time of the year when we pause and look back, in order to look forward towards the year that is gradually rising in the now lengthening light. This is something I relish and I feel is important plus, I have a special way of doing it - I write myself a letter from the future that is next year and

This morning I woke to a temperature of -10 and clear blue skies. My husband and I looked out of our bedroom window to a forest glinting with white. It was beautiful. We have a daily ritual of reading poems to each other at breakfast, we take it in turns, he usually reads Swedish poems and I usually read those that are written in English. This morning I found this one: Testing Gardening In the garden I watch myself take care as if I were the garden. I even learn from experie

The image is an inversion of the base of the birch tree in my garden - it feels so human in its form and I often sit beneath it and wonder about what is happening below the ground and what other trees in the forest behind our house, is it connected to. 'Connection' has always been a theme in my life and in the work that I do - when people ask me what I am passionate about my answer is always, 'connection'. Whether this be connection with self, with place, with community or wi

This is the third in the series of blogs about disconnection and it explores disconnection from each other - something that was magnified with the Covid Pandemic and that we all painfully felt. In some way the pandemic highlighted how vital human connection is to our existence. The psychologist Harriet Lerner states that, "only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connecte

(Art work by Pete Shaw http://peteshaw-acoustic.yolasite.com/) This is my second blog on the theme of disconnection. I have spoken before on my personal issues and experiences regarding body disconnection but I want to go a little deeper here and reflect on it as a much wider and insidious phenomena. I also think these 3 areas of disconnection, (Body, Earth, Each Other) are all so intricately woven together that it is heard to pull on one thread without it snagging another. L

I have been mute here for some months and yet I have had such a discomfort and sense of constriction in my chest; a need to release words but I was not able to find the words ... so now I exhale and begin. I have felt disconnected from so much recently, from my words, my body, my family and loved ones and it has forced me to reflect on what this means, not just for me but for many of us at this precise time. I feel there is a triptych of disconnection present now: we are disc

Many of you will know that I have recently moved to Sweden. I am in the process of making a home here with the man I love, hence the move. I know, that like a spider I carry with me a thread; a thread of resources, abilities and identity - a narrative that I have developed through my 52 years of life. However now, I need firm structures here, loadstones, to attach the weight bearing strands of my narrative thread to, so that I can start to weave a sense of belonging here. Th

Intersections – it’s where the magic happens or not. I have just returned from New Orleans where I delivered at a conference on “Livable Communities’ for AARP (http://www.aarp.org/livable-communities/) Another organisation called Safe Growth (http://www.safegrowth.org) facilitated the three days and the way they worked was inspiring. We had spoken the day before the conference about intersections. I related this to how people’s stories and journeys intersect; the story of