Felled Elm to Hazel Hill, a bit more from Jake...

It would be a challenge to go through a day without hearing more devastating news relating to the climate and ecological emergency, that oft heard voice of David Attenborough joined now by a host of others.

Yet despite the coverage, how is it that we have not turned wholesale to face into the emergency? What psychological denials or other intra-psychic or collective-psyche trickery is afoot that has us, on the whole, going about business as usual? This holds my curiosity and alongside James and Kirstin with Leading Through Storms I am enabled to play my part in bringing more awareness of what holds us in this fixed gestalt that has long since ceased to be of real service.

Brought up by a small woodland and backing on to an old roman road in suburban Yorkshire, nature was close at hand and always there to receive when mum ushered me out to make the most of the fine weather (any weather it turned out was fine as long as it wasn’t raining stair rods).  I remember my grief when the elm tree at the end of the garden was felled as it succumbed to disease, and my silent promise to not let that happen again. Failure began young. As did my connection and comfort in nature (well certain sorts, not for me the wilds of the Arctic or the rainforest - I know my limits).

Fast forward a couple of decades, I trained as an organisational psychologist in the 90’s, drawn to ‘enabling people’s working lives to be more fulfilling’ and quickly plugged into and later specialised in the field of personal and leadership development.

In the noughties I was introduced to systemic constellations (drawn to play in the field of invisible dynamics I could feel the push and pull of) and this led me to study Gestalt theory and train as a psychotherapist. My forays into various spiritual practices grew over the same period, principally tantric and pagan traditions that propelled inquiry and honouring of the inner and outer cycles of life. It was a Celtic festival that drew me to Hazel Hill Wood 20 years ago, a place that has since become a second home, a place for me and my three children to grow to know intimately and play our part in - and now the home of our Leading Through Storms in-person workshops.

And the thread continues; in this last five years in activism (thank you XR) in Deep Adaptation and in tuning in to and tending the Grief of so much loss. 

In all of this I have found the joy of community, and been in the field of teachers dedicated to deftly weaving their thing, and sharing it. I note the threads that have found their way to and through me; and I continue to weave, now gratefully alongside the rich tapestries of James and Kirstin and our growing community. I am emboldened by the sense that together we can weave with increasingly bold colour and dive with increasing sensitivity to unfurl the gestalt that has literally and figuratively worn us out.

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