When I was first invited to hold a day as a well-keeper I felt dwarfed by what felt like an enormous responsibility. It’s taken me till the very end of this year of daily well-keeping to finally sign up.

I chose the 3rd of February because today is what could be described as Solar Imbolc - it is astrologically the precise cross point between the solstice and the equinox. It is also a “moon-day” and last month I heard that a visionary neighbour is attempting to re-set our week structure so that we rest on the Sun Day (honouring the masculine) and the Moon Day (honouring the feminine). I haven’t looked into this much but it seemed to make immediate sense.

Today has been an extraordinarily powerful day of remembering and reconnecting - with lost parts of myself and as-yet-unclaimed parts of myself. Somehow the paradox of when I give myself full permission to be present with and be of service to all of creation, I find myself guided far more deeply back into myself! There is so much I want to say but I will start with the two main headlines, which have images and links to go them…

THING ONE: I was - extremely unexpectedly - guided to create this “tree shine” - having COMPLETELY forgotten about first seeing one in Sri Lanka over 20 years ago. Although my mother was born and brought up there, she was educated in English as a Christian. It was only at the age of 30 I was lucky enough to be immersed in rural village culture and learn that these tiny shrines used to be everywhere - a mixture of the ancient, indigenous nature-worship and Buddhist or Hindu idols (probably Christian and Islamic too - the Sinhalese are fantastically all-embracing, it being such a melting pot of cultures). I haven’t been able to find anything online about them and will ask a friend of my mother’s more because I am now fascinated to have excavated this memory. Also, this tree hollow is on my road and I have walked past it countless times and not notice it til today. I really observed and discovered the world around me in greater depth. (more pics and fuller description of how this unfolded below)

THING TWO: The second unexpected impulse was to offer a You Tube Live (something I have never done before!) of “Love Songs to Gaia” - a collection of songs I have caught over the years that are themed around the natural world. The sound quality isn't great and it was a bit glitchy but I decided to share it here anyway as it seemed to be such a strong impulse.

And if you want more details, there’s a hefty amount of words coming up. I guess perhaps THING THREE was that I spent much of the day writing which is interesting because I used to consider myself “a writer” and journal constantly. In the last 15 years or so, that hasn’t been the case. I barely read or write at all. So today was a delicious immersion in reflective writing for me… another part of the reconnection.

I feel incredibly blessed to have been living off grid in the wild Woodlands of West wales for the last two years in fact since in bulk 2023. There’s a magical community here and the eight Celtic celebrations of the year are very much observed.

When I moved here I felt such longing to be more in touch with deep passing of the year as it actually happens rather than through the Gregorian calendar with which I’ve grown up. In the same way that this lifestyle makes me keenly aware of the daylight hours, reliant as I am on solar power, I see the moon very clearly from my cabin and can’t help but be tuned into her cycles. And for me, observing these Celtic markers through the year make more sense than any calendar I’ve known until now.

Yesterday I took part in Imbolc ceremony at a neighbouring community. As we do each time, we began with a simple song called remember the land which was caught by the young woman who holds these ceremonies. 

“Remember the land, I remember you

Listen to the land, I hear you

This is where we came from

This is where we’ll go”

We stood around a fire with our feet on the earth and I guided the group in a simple exercise I came up with last year when I held a workshop around using the voice to express Eco grief. We begin at the heart sighing or yawning out anything we need to fully land in the space and then drop our awareness in the belly, breathe in and allow any sounds that want to emerge from there. Then we drop our awareness into our root and again imagine we can breathe into our root and see whatever sounds want to come from that place. Next we drop our awareness down to our feet, to the point where we meet our connection with Gaia. Breathing into the soles of our feet and see what sounds come forth. Finally we allow our awareness to drop down through the Earth, right into the very heart of Gaia, and imagine that we can breathe deep into this place and allow whatever sounds want to come from there.

I came up with this exercise last year, imagining that it might give people an opportunity to bring sound to the grief they felt about the state of Mother Nature. But what happened then, and every time since I’ve introduced this into different groups, is this: In the belly and the root there tend to be more Primal, raw kinds of sounds coming forth. But as we drop to the feet that starts to change and when we drop down into Gaia, the most beautiful harmonious sounds emerge and we allow that to take its course for a few minutes. What I take from this repeated experience with different groups of people is that in fact Gaia is in perfect health and harmony. It is us who are the ones who are most in trouble - as well as the other species on the planet that our actions are impacting. Nevertheless it always feels so precious and important to pay reverence to and remember our Mother Earth.

We sang together in Harmony well each person had a chance to place an offering from the land: leaves, flowers, twigs, whatever they felt called to, at a little alter to the Earth Mother next to the fire. And we finished this part of the ceremony by replacing being invited to place our hands onto the Earth. That was a very powerful moment.

We continued the ceremony inside with storytelling song and some beautiful ceremony but I mainly wanted to share this outside experience with you all as an inspiration into the ways we can come together and “remember the land”.

So that was yesterday. Then at 11:30 pm last night a special Puja was performed in the south of India to Ganesh the remover of obstacles. I had booked this for myself in response to some difficult news I received last week and didn’t realise until yesterday that it was to fall on this suspicious 24 hour period. Ganesh will make another appearance later!

This morning, I woke to the sound of rich bird song as I always do - one of the main reasons I moved to live in the way that I do. But what is fascinating is how much more keenly I received it and heard it waking up with this intention to be truly present with the natural world. It amazes me that I spend my every day life more or less on a nature retreat and yet to take on this invitation has allowed me to deepen into even more presence with the glorious natural world around me.

As I said earlier, today was also an unexpected day of reconnection with myself. I found myself inspired to shake my body gently, due to a recent injury making it almost impossible to do my regular yoga practice. This is a practice I was introduced to almost 20 years ago by an Indonesian energy master but I haven’t done it much in last years. As I was shaking I remembered that the day I first really “got” this practice was when it was introduced to me as connecting with the earth energy through the legs and then the heavenly energy through the crown. And once you have these two connections established, the shaking basically happens by itself. You then do not have to effort or doing anything but surrender to being shaken. It was truly precious to remember that I can connect with the earth energy in this way. (And I discovered the following day that it had speeded up the healing of my injury, which is something I remembered from before!)

Another reconnection was with the tree shrines. I had already decided to chant the 1,000 Names of the Divine Mother for Gaia. This is something I have been chanting pretty much from memory since 2010 and it takes about 45 minutes. At the end of last year, I started to spread the word that I was available for people to book me to chant for them on 4 days of the week (for instance if they are going through a hard time and need some extra prayers). I made it into a win-win by committing to myself that I have to go for a walk while I’m chanting. So I get a good walk in, as well as the benefits of chanting these potent mantras - whilst also being of service to another. So today I realised I haven’t chanted yet for Mother Nature. So I set off on my walk doing that.

I find that I go into quite an altered state on these walks and have some profound connections with the natural world. But today went even deeper, having that specific intention. I noticed SO MUCH MORE in this area I walk in daily! Such a surprise. And one of those things was this hollow which I remarked seemed to be crying out to be made into a shrine. I walked on some more steps before stopping in my tracks and realising that was what I must do. So I retraced my steps, still chanting, with the intention of returning to my cabin to gather some items. As I walked I wondered about flowers. There is literally NOTHING in bloom at this time of year. I was trying to remember if my neighbour had any flowers. But somehow it didn’t seem right to go and ask them. And then I saw it - a SINGLE buttercup. I was amazed. These are normally only summer flowers. There wasn’t another one in sight in my whole walk to and from my cabin. And then I saw a single Dandelion. Again, these don’t flower this time of year and there wasn’t a single other one in sight! I KNEW these were the two for the altar. 

Back at my cabin, I slowly gathered altar items, still chanting and, just as I had gathered the last pieces, I came to the end of the 1,000 Names. So I decided to start again and set off back to the tree hollow.

And here, I watched while this wild little shrine constructed itself through me. I added in some ivy berries with the two flowers. I had imagined this would be a Divine Mother shrine, as I was chanting the 1,000 Names of Devi and always seeing Mother Nature as the ultimate Goddess. But this is where Ganesh put in a very deliberate appearance again. 

The lamp in the centre, holding the main candle, was given to me by my mother exactly a year ago. For some odd reason, it hasn’t made it onto my altar at home and I kept wondering why. Today, I felt it was meant to be inaugurated on this specific and auspicious day. It has one large Ganesh in the centre and eight more around him. I’ve only noticed that today as I look at it more carefully to describe it to you and it’s completely relevant.

Around the lamp, I placed some tiny white pebbles which I collected off a beach in Devon two years ago. I was convinced there should be nine (a Goddess number) but as I placed the ninth one on, it rolled away underneath the lamp and disappeared. This happened a second time, so I understood that eight was the number! Only today, the power of Google tells me that 8 is the number associated with Ganesh. I had no idea!

Then there are the prayer flags, given to me by some dear friends last summer. Again, I didn’t remember they had Ganesh on! And I had been searching for the tiny brass Ganesh for about 2 years and found him as I gathered, so he’s perched next to a miniature lamp from Tiruvannamalai, India. 

At the top, the only Divine Feminine is a tiny Selkie, courtesy of Deva Pathways, the Womb Awakening training I took last year. Near her is a pale coloured triangular rock which came from a very sacred mountain in south India. Continuing round clockwise, a rough lump of Obsidian from Haus-am-See near Berlin where I took part in a year-long training in 2023. And below that a shell from the UK, from another dear friend.

I completed this shrine in time to chant the last 10 minutes or so of the 1,000 Names of the Divine Mother - the Sri Lalita Sahasranama - and then, like the sand mandalas, I gentle dissembled it and walked home in wonderment!

😍

A little while later, I went Live on YouTube to sing my songs. I hadn’t told anyone about it because I hadn’t done this before and wasn’t sure if the technical side would work. As a result, no-one showed up - which worked out well as it was a little rough around the edges and the sound wasn’t as good as I hoped. So, that was an experiment for the day... (link at the top of this post if you're curious).

An entirely precious day, thank you 😍