Thank you for still being here after my 6+ month hiatus.

I went through a necessary shedding this winter; my entire identity shifting through the seasons.

The biggest change of all is my name. I have chosen to return to my birth-name Nicole and I must say I’ve never felt more rooted & grounded.

It’s so good to be home.

With that I have also said goodbye to some old ways of being. Identities that simply didn’t fit me anymore.

I’ve had to rewrite my entire bio here, because the words on the page seemed to describe a stranger.

It is with much joy & delight that I return to this space; as the wild mother.

The one thing that has kept me rooted throughout it all is my connection to nature. It has become very clear to me that my main focus here is rewilding the spirit.

Which, in my humble opinion, can only truly be done outdoors, in a forest, on a mountain top, through a river or under the stars.

We all spend a little too much time on our phones (she writes, on her phone) and not enough time delighting in the real natural World.

The more I deepen into natures seasons the more I deepen into myself.

Rewilding doesn’t have to be something fancy. It’s noticing when the elder comes into blossom, when the wild rose begins to bloom. It’s watching the sky stay lighter at night and listening to the early morning birdsong. It’s seeing the wild flowers grow through the cracks of a pavement and knowing that your own innate wildness can not be contained by the concrete structures around you.

I’m letting go of the idea that I know anything about anything - but if you want to join me on this journey of re-discovering the wild in me and the wild in you, then please stay a while.

It’s lovely to have you here.

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I absolutely cannot get pregnant.

The more I think about it the more I convince myself it would be the most terrible thing in the world.

My daughter is 15 months.

It’s taken 15 months to start to feel like me again. Whoever me is.

In fact, it’s probably been more than that.

I handled pregnancy with less-than-grace. Most of it was a write-off. Between nausea and realising I kinda hated who I had become, it was a time for purging not becoming.

But now, in this later stage of post-partum, I am finding who I am as a mother.

And I like this version of me.

She’s more grounded, cares less about the small stuff but more about the big - like becoming self-sufficient and saying fuck you to the government.

She’s carefree but in a really tidy, virgo way.

She’s adventurous, curious, playful and ever so loving. She’s got a greater capacity to love than I ever knew possible.

And now she’s finding herself as a facilitator, a space-holder, a writer and a creator.

It’s exciting.

Becoming pregnant again would ruin all of that.

I don’t think I could cope with the morning sickness, extreme fatigue, pregnancy hormones and bloating. Not on top of running around after my adventurous toddler. There would be zero room for me.

(Not to mention the huge reno project we are about to undergo 😅)

No, becoming pregnant would be a terrible idea.

(Three days later when ovulation kicks in)

Oh but I would so love…..

I wrote this journal entry over 3 months ago. It was part of a series I had written as I documented the hormonal rollercoaster I was experiencing every month. You can find the other posts here:

Somehow this one felt even more vulnerable. Perhaps because I really did think I might be pregnant and the idea of telling the whole of the internet that I didn’t want to be felt like a scam.

My partner and I decided to make an agreement. We would no longer have sex in that “in-between” phase between menstruation and ovulation. You know, those cheeky few days before the fertile window truly begins.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t stomach the feeling of “am I pregnant?” every month and then the heart-wrenching grief as I was not - followed quickly by insurmountable relief.

We limited our intercourse days to inner-autumn only.

It’s been a tremendous relief each cycle not having those feelings of dread. Don’t get me wrong they’ve been replaced with other worries and spirals. I don’t find the luteal phase particularly easy. But at least I’m not pregnant.

How do you navigate intimacy and your cycle?

Are you using the “pull and pray” method like I was?

Are you intentionally avoiding intercourse in your fertile window?

Are you open to becoming pregnant so not following any cycle tracking and enjoying it when the moment takes you?!

Let me know. I’m genuinely curious to know how other women navigate this.

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I’ve finally felt the yes to publish this. I’m on my bleed, so definitely not pregnant. Still very much in the “it would be a terrible idea yet I still fantasise about it often” phase. As I begin to vision my 2024 I realise that there really isn’t much space for another baby, not yet anyway…

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It feels like we have fully landed in winter here in the UK.

After a beautiful, long, warm and enchanting autumn we have now arrived at the mystical, magical and transformative winter.

I don’t know about you but the stillness of this time of year makes me feel like I’m so close to stepping through the veil. I often feel like I’ve taken a microdose when I’m walking alone in nature at this time of year.

Have you ever felt that?

I took myself, my 18 month daughter and my beloved wolf pup out to the local parklands the other day and found myself totally transported to another dimension.

The birdsong was so crisp, the air was so still, it was like something out of a trip.

It got me reflecting on the stillness and the not-so-stillness of this time of year.

Whilst outwardly the world seems to have come to a stop - the flowers are not blooming, the leaves are falling, many trees are bare, what is actually happening inside is the deepest transformation.

Deep in the burrows of the earth the seeds and bulbs that were planted in autumn are slowly growing their roots, taking a long and slow time to germinate ready for spring.

Whilst we are nearing the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, that also means we are getting ready to welcome the return of the light, as the days slowly become longer again.

I always find it beautifully paradoxical that in winter we celebrate the return of the light, and that at the summer solstice we recognise and honour the dark.

Which leads me onto what I would like to offer you in this newsletter -

Some prompts for you to muse upon. Perhaps you might like to carve out some time as you hunker down for winter. You might like to get cosy with a cup of tea and a blanket. Or you might like to go on a winter walk and allow the landscape to move you. These are merely the beginnings of a process that you can get lost in over these winter days.

Prompts -

1. When you come into stillness, what is it that you find there?

2. What is happening deep in the burrows of your heart?

3. What parts of you are silently germinating on the inside?

4. In this time of darkness, how can you honour your inner light?

Sending deep love to you through these winter days.

The Wild Mother

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Today I raced home from the childminders, over-tired, over-hungry and thinking fuck I’ve done it again.

When will I learn that it’s not just skipping meals that’s a problem, it’s leaving it til I’m over-hungry which can be just as disastrous.

Let me tell you it has taken over 30 years to learn how to *truly* nourish my body.

Pregnancy and postpartum were a wild ride in arriving deeply in my body and realising that, actually, I hadn’t been looking after her very well at all.

There are many threads I could share here of a story woven deep into the collective feminine consciousness, about body dysmorphia, disordered eating and remaining small.

The irony is I thought I had re-wired them.

In my mid-twenties I lived on a “high vibe” island, was vegan, did regular juice cleanses and fasts. I considered myself one of the healthiest people I knew.

Looking back I can see how the short-term high of that lifestyle was my body going through a detoxification process (highly necessary after my wild teens) - but there comes a point where we need to nourish ourselves again.

I’m not going to go into the whole vegan vs meat eating debate, mostly because that’s a whole other post that I’ve had saved in my notes for probably about a year, but also because that will detract from what I’m really here to talk about today.

This article is about the beautiful homecoming of arriving back in my body and learning the craft of ancestral cooking over the hearth.

As some of you reading this will know, my mum passed away earlier this year.

But it feels like I’ve been grieving her for even longer.

She was diagnosed with terminal cancer in March 2022. I was 7 months pregnant.

The past year and a half has been the deepest shadow journey of untangling my grief from my rage, my sorrow from my disappointment, and to put it straight: navigating the mother wound whilst my mother was dying.

As I became a mother I was suddenly made aware of all the ways my own mother hadn’t loved and nourished me the ways I wished for. As I made conscious choices about the way I wanted to raise my daughter I realised, wow, my mother never made these choices for me. It’s okay and I know she was doing the best she could. But I had to go through this harrowing process nonetheless.

My heart breaks for my younger self, and for my mother.

There are many reasons why I felt this pain, and many many aspects of the mother wound, but to keep on track I really want to share along the theme of nourishment.

My heart breaks that my mother did not make me a fully home cooked meal. Not once.

My mother was a get something out the freezer and stick in the oven kinda woman.

She did not know, nor care, how to nourish herself.

I grew up watching her smoke 30 cigarettes a day, skip breakfast and lunch, live off chocolate biscuits and drink tea with sugar whilst never drinking water, everyday of her life.

We went to my grandmother’s house nearly every evening for dinner. She would make us delicious home-cooked food. But I was never there to see it.

We would arrive, eat, then I would disappear upstairs to my room to the make-believe world that I lived in.

I was never involved in preparing the food, I never took an interest.

When my grandmother died in 2017 I was living in Ibiza, eating my vegan diet, so it never occurred to my mother to pass down her recipe books to me.

They were all thrown away

It was the initiation of becoming a mother that got me to really understand how to nourish myself.

In the first trimester I put on weight fast. The people around me would joke about me “eating for two” but really I was just eating for one.

One hungry woman who suddenly realised how many meals she had skipped to remain the size she thought she wanted to be.

That couldn’t be the case anymore. I had a growing baby inside of me - I needed to eat.

Pregnancy hormones did strange things to me in those early days, I ate a lot of crap to be honest.

I thought I didn’t have the energy to cook well, but perhaps I just didn’t know how.

My meals were healthy-ish, but I had no idea how to balance out my carbs with proteins and fats, how to regulate my blood sugar, what to eat for nutrient density, or how to truly nourish myself.

I truly believe that it is a craft and one that is lost in today’s society.

In a world that chooses convenience over pretty much anything, it’s no wonder.

(You can see more on that here - Unpopular opinion - women do belong in the kitchen)

As I got closer to birthing my babe I was frantic about getting meals in the freezer. I dreamt of a meal-train but I was new to the area we were in, didn’t have many friends (and most of the ones I had made were pregnant too as I met them in pregnancy classes).

We lived on a piece of land between a yurt, caravan and a tiny cabin.

Our kitchen consisted of one electric hob, a tiny fridge-freezer and if we went out to the caravan we could use the pretty crap oven.

In hindsight I should have done a crash course in slow cooker meals back then, but I didn’t.

My partner would go to his sister’s house and batch cook me some meals but he knew very little about how to nourish a postpartum woman. I appreciated the effort but most of the meals were lots of vegetables and grains. My body needed hearty stews, bone broth, casseroles and soups. My body needed the kind of meals a grandmother cooks over her hearth - the craft was lost once again.

My early postpartum days were not how I envisioned. I was not held and supported by community. I was mostly alone, with a horrendous tear, worrying about my dying mother. Again, a post for another day.

I could barely move myself from the yurt, but even when I had healed every time I wanted some food it required strapping my baby to me and navigating myself to another building. Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing and it would have been worth the investment to create a more substantial kitchen - but at the time I did not prioritise the hearth. I did not know what it meant to nourish myself or my family.

That first year of Wrenna’s life in the yurt saw more uber and just eat deliveries than I would care to admit.

Landing back to my mother’s home earlier this year I began to really sink into my role as the heart of the family.

The kitchen became my creative hub and I found joy in trying new recipes and learning new skills - aka the craft.

I begun to learn what it meant to be a nourished woman.

We eat organ meat nearly every week.

I eat breakfast without fail.

I cook hearty stews and shepherds pie (that never ends up with leftovers because we love it so much).

We began to bake our own bread, make our own pizzas, and truly eliminate ultra-processed foods from our diet.

Our takeaways limited to a once in a while treat rather than the norm because we were too exhausted to cook.

& the more I nourish us, the more it gives me.

Yes it takes time and energy but it comes back tenfold.

So that day that I came home from the childminders, over-tired and over-hungry, I was so pleased to see my slow-cooker bubbling over the brim at me.

A delicious shepherds pie made with so much love.

What was meant to be dinner, suddenly became lunch.

I dived in and enjoyed not one bowl but two.

Not because I’m greedy, but because I’m nourished through and through.

With love,

The Wild Mother

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Every time there is a contraction, there is the opportunity for expansion.

In every little (or big) moment in life where you feel a contraction, you are you being offered the growth and expansion to become BIGGER than that you are facing.

In birth, these contractions can swallow you up. You can hide, turn away from and fight these contractions.

Or,

You can rise. You can breathe. You can become bigger than. You can expand.

In those challenging moments where you feel a frustration rise, you have the choice to be engulfed in your feeling and become contracted, or you can breathe and physically create the space in your body to overcome it.

A breath.

A lengthening of the spine.

A pause before it’s too late.

We are handed all these tools freely yet we so often choose not to use them.

Where in life are you allowing the contraction to take you?

Where can you open up to the possibility of expansion?

How can you shift in the crunchy moments to be in ease?

Imagine how good it would feel to rise up to life’s challenges and g r o w.

This is my invitation to you.

To lean into the energy of expansion the next time your body wants to contract.

Share your experiences of expansion vs contraction below.

Leave a comment

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Let’s take a look at the health of our nation, our community, our family.

It’s gone to shit, let’s be honest.

We are eating out of convenience, not through choosing health.

Why?

I would say mostly because on the whole people are too stressed, too tired and too busy to be able to make healthy whole foods each day of the week.

I’m not talking some woo woo stuff here.

Men have a 24 hour hormone cycle, meaning each day is more or less the same. Their testosterone peaks in the morning then reduces throughout the day.

Women, on the other hand, have a 28 (ish) day cycle with fluctuating hormones that need to be honoured.

The majority of the women I know do not want to go out to work on their pre-menstrual or bleed time.

In fact the majority of women I know do not want to go to work full stop.

Our cyclical nature requires an ebb and flow. Something that can be nurtured to as a homemaker / housewife / stay at home woman.

When the woman is in the kitchen nurturing herself and the whole family they are ALL able to thrive.

The man can be more focused on his strengths because his needs are being taken care of.

And yes I absolutely believe a man’s strengths are going out to provide.

I find it insulting to human biology that for thousands of years our ancestors lived like this but now it is deemed as misogynistic to think this way.

Feminism has destroyed our nation. Not the patriarchy.

The entire system is warped and twisted. Something which I believe is very much on purpose. I call it the attack on the family home system. Driving mothers out to work, children out to school and inviting in toxic chemical-laden foods and appliances out of convenience.

Think back to the time of our great-grandmothers. What was their role? The matriarch? What did that look like? What did that feel like?

I’m going to imagine it looked something like staying at home, in the kitchen, making nourishing foods for the entire family and looking after the household.

Now I know I’m going to receive comments about how it’s near impossible to raise a family on a single income in this day and age. Yep I hear that. But I also think it comes down to our personal choices and priorities.

I’m merely saying if we were to have an honest look at ourselves as a society I’m pretty certain we could trace the increase in disease and health issues to when we lost the heart of the home - the homemaker.

For our family health and well-being is a top priority. It’s a priority over fancy cars or nice holidays. So we ‘sacrifice’ in certain areas, we don’t drink, we rarely go out, we are mindful with our spending, but we prioritise good, organic, whole foods and creating a home environment where we are all nurtured and nourished.

And honestly? I love this role in my life. I love the simplicity of caring for my family. It is the most fulfilling way to spend my days. It is an honour to serve my partner and my child in this way.

What qualities do you think of when you think of the feminine?

Nourishing. Caring. Loving. Warm.

It is in our biology to be care-givers, to be nourishers, to tend to the lives of those around us. We weave the fabric of life into being simply by being who we are. We cannot do that when we are not at home.

Who would darn the socks? Who would bake the bread? Who would lovingly make the bed in the morning? Who would tuck little ones in at night?

It is in our bones.

Sometimes I wish our lives were more simple

That we lived in a simple house

And worked simple jobs

Sometimes I wish our dreams weren’t quite so big

Or our aspirations quite so tall

Because as incredible as it is to be chasing a dream

It’s also exhausting

And whilst we’ve escaped the 9-5

We’ve moved into a 24/7

There are no breaks or holidays

I wonder what is this so called freedom?

Some days I want to trade it in

For security, stability & something I cared a little less about

But wouldn’t that mean trading in

Everything that’s meaningful to me?

Not just a house, a home, a dream

A way of life that’s family-centred,

And whilst we’re busy at least we’re together

A way of living that’s sovereign,

No involvement from the government,

Just us and our kin

Home-steading and home-edding,

Earning an honest income

It isn’t easy, it isn’t easy,

But good things rarely are

So whilst some days I want to trade it in,

In reality there’s nothing I want more.

Some honest reflections on our way of life.

I’ve never felt so stretched, in my relationship, in my mothering, in my day-to-day life.

It’s somewhat ironic, that we are creating this “simple” life of raising children, baking bread, growing our own food and not working for “the man”.

But the complexities of that simple life are more intricate than I thought.

And there are certain sacrifices that come with this freedom.

The reality of this phase of our life means Daniel is away literally building our dream, whilst I carry the load of parenting on my own.

I’ve been hit with a deep wave of grief, a sleep regression, toddler tantrums and some disruptions to my menstrual cycle all at once.

I feel like I’ve been hit by a high-speed train.

And here’s the thing: removing myself from the matrix (including big pharma, big food, the education system etc) also means removing myself from their version of support.

There have been moments recently where I’ve wanted to cave on my beliefs and put my daughter in nursery so I could get a break. Where I’ve considered going to my GP to get some pills to make me feel better (but really they’ll just numb me out).

Fundamentally this is not my truth.

Sometimes it’s so hard to untangle myself from a system that’s so deeply embedded in our own minds and bodies.

It’s hard to take radical responsibility of a situation and look at how *I* can show up for myself and my family in a better way, so that I’m taking the reigns of my mental health in my hands and riding into a better place.

It’s hard not to outsource my power every time I struggle. To look for the easy quick fix that doesn’t actually require me to change my behaviour.

But underneath it all I know what my truth is: I want to be free.

The choices we are making now may seem difficult, but they are leading us for a life of sovereignty. Where we don’t need to depend on outside sources for our health, wealth or happiness.

So right now this looks like getting outside even when I want to stay in bed, creating beautiful heart medicine and drinking lots of cacao.

It’s having some slightly uncomfortable conversations that will then serve me better in the long-run.

It’s finding childcare options that feel aligned, with people that I not only trust but also know my daughter has a deep and beautiful bond with.

It’s taking responsibility for my life. It’s acknowledging I might be in a shit storm right now but that it’s not going to last forever. It’s taking the steps to ensure I can be here for my family (in a present and loving way, not a disassociated or neurotic way).

It’s tending to my nervous system, feeding my body well, prioritising rest and asking for help when I need it.

It’s remembering to breathe.

(Disclaimer: thoughts and opinions in this substack relate to my feelings about my life only. I recognise the importance of pharmaceuticals and mental health medication in certain situations. If you are on medication please do not suddenly stop, or consider not getting the help you need. We are all deeply individual in our choice-making. We are all sovereign beings. This is my path and my choice. I respect yours, please respect mine.)

PS if you’re looking for yummy heart-opening cacao I highly recommend Ritual Cacao from the Tsatsayaku Association. As a mother I have found it to be the most grounding and gentle cacao. It is my daily heart medicine.

Get your ritual cacao here. Use the code AFFILIATE10 for 10% off.

Enjoy.

With love,

The Wild Mother

I nearly decided to just let this week pass, it doesn’t matter anyway.

But in a week that’s been filled with challenging moments, toddler tantrums, relationship disagreements and zero time for myself I decided to put my foot down and carve out this bit of time for me.

It’s always been my therapy.

I’ve had a strong journalling practice for many years now and have become adept at documenting my emotional processes.

I think it started when I was training to be a counsellor, but it’s only gotten stronger in the ten years since then.

(Wow, sidetrack for a second, I can’t believe it’s been ten years since I trained to be a therapist, holy shit where has the time gone)

So I’ve been on substack for about 2 months now. I’ve written weekly, sometimes more through my own enthusiasm, and I’ve learnt a lot.

I’m following some incredible accounts. I’ve paid for some (worth every penny). I’ve also had to Unsubscribe to many. I found this space getting too busy for my sensitive mind, and I began dreading coming on here due to the overwhelm of how many unread articles I had in my inbox. Do you experience that too?

I quickly learnt that’s not how I wanted to do things.

So I’ve simplified. Much like I’m simplifying my life right now.

I’m definitely in my slow living era. Much of the accounts I follow share this kind of content also. I highly recommend Hunter Burgtorf’s The Magically Mundane and Jennifer Cat’s Well Rooted Motherhood if you’re into that kind of thing.

For me it’s about being present & intentional.

I left the rat race many years ago to pursue a different kind of life. And that had me living in a campervan full time for 2 years, crafting my own business so I didn’t have to work for “the man” and now choosing full time mothering so I can be fully present for my daughter.

So what’s this all got to do with this weeks writing?  And whether I was actually going to write at all …

I started off by sharing I had been too busy to schedule a post this week. It hadn’t  happened. I have barely had a moment to breathe.

And I’ve realised - this isn’t how I want to do life.

I’m dysregulated, my healthy eating has gone out the window, I’m back on caffeine and having all kinds of flare ups.

And my writing stopped.

No.

This is not how I want to do life.

I don’t tend to have fixed intentions in my life anymore, but I do know how I want to feel.

I want to feel relaxed, regulated, ready for anything. I want to have such spaciousness in my body, brain and life that when something arises I can handle it with ease.

Today I had a ten minute shouting match with my daughter. Because she wouldn’t get in her car seat. Because I was already at capacity and wasn’t regulated enough to deal with her tantrum.

This isn’t how I want to do life.

I want to feel calm, confident, capable. I want to have such conviction within myself that I am not outsourcing my power whenever shit hits the fan. That I’m not turning to my partner in a panic and handing over the reins.

I want to feel grounded, grateful and generous with my energy. I want my cup so full it’s overflowing, pouring out into my community.

Today I also had 2 mama friends come over to help me sort my mums house. I want to feel so resourced that I can offer that energy back. So I can reciprocate not just receive.

And how does that translate to my substack?

I want to feel creative. I want to feel like I’ve got something to offer you. Granted most my posts are about me and my life, but I would hope they are filled with glimmers of inspiration or resonance. Hopefully an “aha” moment as it highlights something in you.

And the only way I can cultivate that is by nourishing myself so my creativity can grow. So that I have time to pause and create notes on my phone. Not in a frantic way (ok maybe sometimes in a frantic way cos toddler mum life is a vibe), but in a way that encourages depth and philosophical evaluation.

So as I approach 2 whole months of substack, 14 (now 15!) posts, a bunch of lovely subscribers and even a recommendation now (thank you !) I can definitely see & feel how I want to be more intentional with what I write here.

It doesn’t mean posting weekly because I want to keep up my substack stats (real talk) but because I feel moved by what I’m creating.

I would really, really love some feedback from those of who you take the time to read my posts and subscribe into this space.

Why are you here? What do you get from my writing? What moves in you from my words? What do you look forward to hearing about? What would you like more of? And because I’m feeling brave….where can I improve? Where can I deliver more quality? What needs to go to create space for something even better?

Leave a comment

Sending you all much love,

The Wild Mother

Going into birth (and motherhood) I had all of these fantasies about what it would be like.

Fantasies that only the maiden can dream up in her sweet and pure innocence.

The reality of it all has shaken me up. But it has not broken me. It has required me to call upon deeper levels of strength, courage, wisdom and embodiment.

It has pulled me into the wisdom of my body and asked me to stand in my strength even when I think there is none left.

The amount of times in motherhood I have been in that place of the wounded maiden. That feeling of panic, that I can’t do it, that it’s all too hard.

It is this aspect of the wounded maiden that came out in my birth experience and caused my transfer into hospital.

And she comes out in my life, often.

She is the one who will purposefully leave the house a mess just to prove how much she is struggling.

She is the one who will speak her troubles aloud in the presence of others hoping for sympathy and to be told she has it the hardest.

She is the one who is STILL waiting to be saved.

Then, enter the dark goddess.

She bitch slaps her way through and says WAKE UP CHILD.

She calls me out on my immature ways, grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me until I see truth.

She buckles my knees not so I cannot walk, but so that I can build my strength from the ground up without reaching for anyone’s hand.

She has me on my knees crawling through the hedgerows getting pierced by thorn, only to emerge crowned and holy.

It is through these difficulties, these initiations, that we truly come to know ourselves.

That we stop looking outside for the saviour and call upon the well of internal strength that we all have but most do not know how to tap into.

The dark goddess will wake you up to all that you are. A formidable force, an eruption of power, strength and yearning, fiercely placed upon this earth with a unique and powerful mission.

She takes all the ways you outsource your power and forces you to find it within. Her ways are not soft and gentle, they are direct and impervious. Her medicine is not the sweetest but it is always precisely what you need.

The Dark Goddess isn’t bad. The darkness is from a place deep within the earth. The womb of all creation. The primordial pulse of the universe. She is powerful and she lets her presence be known. (Not to be confused with the shadow feminine, that is something different entirely, more akin to the wounded maiden I mentioned above.)

I really feel the presence of the dark goddess in my mothering journey, I like to call her the Dark Mother.

She is the guiding voice which brings me home to myself when shit has hit the fan.

Whilst the birth I had was not what I had imagined, desired, or prepared for, it was the strength of the Dark Mother that got me through.

There was a moment about 15 hours in, when I had already transferred to hospital, that I heard her loud and clear.

“You’re just going to have to push this baby out whether you like it or not.”

She was right. All of my fear, all of my resistance and all of my worry were going to have to take a backseat so that I could actually birth this baby.

And it took calling upon her strength, standing up and roaring for my baby to be born.

The Dark Mother goddess is the true Initiator of Motherhood. As maidens we are the young initiates, waiting to be transformed. It is She who holds this Holy ritual and anoints us as worthy as we each the Otherside.

It is not how instagram-worthy our birth is, nor how close it was to our birth plan, it is how able we were to call upon the power of the Dark Goddess - whether you knew it to be her or not - in our moment of transformation.

How has the Dark Goddess served you in your journey?

Do you relate to her as the Dark Mother?

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Plain, perhaps a little boring?

I mean it’s the sensible choice. It’s gone 2pm I definitely can’t have caffeine. And if I pick one of the super sweet cakes or opt for syrup in my coffee it’ll swing my blood sugar levels into oblivion. I’ll be hyper & over-activated so I’ll be stressed for the rest of the day. Fun.

So yes, perhaps at my ripe age of 31 I have indeed become one of those people.

Boring? Maybe to others.

But deeply in tune with my body and unwilling to sacrifice my health & well-being for instant gratification…yes.

After decades of abusing my body through substances, alcohol, binge eating and god knows what else, I’m finally at a point in my life where I feel a sense of balance.

Although I’ve been in and out of “recovery” since my early twenties it’s only now that I am completely clean. I can thank motherhood for that.

The moment I found out I was pregnant the last tendrils of my addiction were severed.

I’m proud of the life I have created and the woman I have become.

Former me would have perhaps considered it a bit beige and sickeningly wholesome, but I have arrived at a point of inner peace I think I always quietly craved yet ran from.

I forever chased highs and lows worrying that to plateau would be boring. I didn’t know who I was outside of the drama. It’s quite sad to reflect upon, that for my entire teen & twenties I was caught up in some….I don’t even know what. Some story that kept me stuck in a loop of addiction and mental unwell-ness.

Truthfully if it wasn’t for becoming a mother maybe I would still be there now?

And in some ways I am. In some ways I still struggle with my mood. I can get myself into a funk that will last for days, and often I won’t want to get out of it.

Strangely I find comfort in the messiness of it all. I feel more at home being low then I do feeling happy. It’s easier for me to share how hard shit is than it is for me to celebrate my life.

I’ve battled “mental health” my whole life, but what if there’s nothing to battle?

It’s just myself.

I’ve been peeling back the layers for years. The getting clean, going to therapy, diving head first into self development.

But now my inner work is more subtle. It’s nervous system regulation, it’s being kind to myself, it’s choosing decaf and a lemon & poppyseed muffin.

What choices in your life are reflective of where you are at on your journey? What subtle shifts are occuring within you? I’d love to hear.

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I feel pregnant.

I feel full of potential, the seed of possibility spiralling in my womb.

I feel ignited, the spark that took to flame.

I recognise this feeling in my body, I know it.

It’s been a long time.

2 years since my last actual conception, and some time before that since I felt the gestation of something creative deep within my womb.

I do not know yet if this is a physical child, or some other labour of love that is wanting to be birthed through.

There are signs everywhere.

I sense I could become pregnant if I merely chose it to be so.

& it’s so unbelievably tempting and undoubtedly dangerous.

So I do not try and play God.

I surrender to the source of all creation.

I return to the spiral of my womb.

Whatever you will be, greatest Creatrix, I will house you, nurture you, grow you and birth you with all that I am.

The night before my birthday I went to WomanCraft - a full moon crafting circle held by two of my dearest sisters.

The theme was making goddess statues out of clay.

I was in my absolute element, crafting with my hands dirty, getting grounded in this earthy clay. My inner virgo was very happy.

I was full of creative energy. It was the first night in a long time that I was without my little one and this level of freedom lit me up and made me feel wild!

I knew I was ovulating and the juiciness of this time in my cycle was oozing out of me. I felt fun and flirtatious in all the best ways.

As we were guided in meditation to tune into our wombs, our creative centre, I could feel mine pulsating with the rhythm of life. I couldn’t sit still. Hips circling, spine flexing, my whole body felt alive.

Before starting the creative practice we were invited to pick a card.

Conception.

I laughed and casually dropped into the circle that my partner and I had started to have sex last night, but then moved into other forms of intimacy because I knew I would be ovulating soon.

I sent a cheeky picture of the card to Daniel with a wink.

He replied with a GIF of someone fainting with the caption “Wait, what?”

I allowed my focus to return to my hands and the piece of clay in front of me.

I’m not usually a visual person. I’m kinda crap at creative projects, but I really love working with clay. There’s something raw and wild about it. It doesn’t matter so much if it doesn’t come out a certain way.

All I kept seeing was a pregnant goddess with a spiral on her womb.

She came through so strongly, there was no avoiding it.

So I crafted her.

The form was basic, but instinctual. It was a deep meditative process, which to me is more important than the outcome. But I was pleased with how she came out, adorned with crystals and the spiral on her womb.

After we crafted we feasted under the light of the full moon.

Gathered in circle, sharing, crafting, singing, moving.

This is the medicine for me, and the best birthday gift to myself.

Arriving home that night to my partner, my lover, my man, I allowed myself to romanticise what it would feel to be pregnant again.

The following day, my birthday, I sat in the bath and wrote the journal entry at the beginning of this post…

The theme of conception stayed with me. I felt it deep within my psyche and my bones.

Once again, I convinced myself I was pregnant.

There is such a tenderness to my grief when my bleed then starts to come.

I don’t want to get pregnant, it’s absolutely not the right time, but there is something about the energy of conception that takes hold of me. That seed of potential. Born from the womb of all creation.

I long for it.

With love,

The Wild Mother

We have become so afraid of nature.

We have forgotten that we are made of it.

I’ve been on a journey of rewilding in this lifetime.

My own mother was afraid of nature.

I was always taught not to pick berries, and she didn’t tell me that weeds were in fact healing plants. She probably didn’t know.

She had an excellent knowledge of garden flowers - something I only wish I had enquired more about before she died.

She could name any flower in a bouquet, and would often be found in garden centres buying heaps of perennials to go in the many pots she had in her paved garden. On reflection the very fact she planted in pots and not directly into the earth tells me a lot about her relationship to nature.

When it came to living from the land she was clueless, and her lack of information left her terrified.

It’s only in recent years that I have come to learn about the wild and all she offers us.

It’s a slow journey, perhaps I carry more of my mothers fear than I recognised.

The pivotal point was living on our own piece of land for nearly 2 years. Watching her seasons change so intimately. Learning the subtle early signs of spring when there was still a frost. Being able to orient myself through the seasons rather than a calendar.

It changed me, forever.

But even living the way that we did, it was only our final months there that truly opened me up to the magnificence of natures bounty.

In our first year we created a vegetable patch with all the best intentions.

In our second year we let it run wild.

From this place of unbridled freedom grew the most magical medicine garden.

All plants for healing the feminine.

It was all so perfect. Of course the feminine nature thrives when she’s left to be wild.

I loved my wild garden very much.

The great tall nettles, the beautiful yarrow, the unruly raspberry bush and of course my beloved wild rose.

Each plant offering me her unique gift and medicine.

In the weeks leading up to us leaving I wanted to harvest as much of her medicine as I could. I wanted to take it all with me.

But alas it wasn’t meant to be.

Nature taught me a pretty rough lesson on what to take and what is ours, when really we own none of it.

More on that another time.

Anyway, for the past month I’ve been back at my mothers house. We are sorting through all her belongings (an absolutely horrendous task I gave to admit). Where I had become used to living in the wild we now find ourselves on a housing estate in a built up area. Both Daniel and I left feeling quite disconnected.

Then one day he told me where he had been taking Wrenna to walk the dogs. I was using the baby-free time to sort the house so I hadn’t been getting out much truth be told.

I didn’t recognise the way he described these walks so I decided to join him.

To my absolute joy and astonishment he lead me through a haven of hawthorn, elder, mugwort, yarrow, rose. He lead me to a paddock with miniature ponies. He carted me over a stile into a hidden garden.

My man had found the most magical of places hidden within this built up estate.

So now I join him for the walks. We pick wildflowers and berries. I speak their names so that my daughter hears the words and knows that they’re safe.

I’m rewilding myself for my daughter, and for my mother who never had the chance.

I’m rewilding myself for my entire feminine lineage.

And all those yet to come.

The sun dancing off my mother’s sun catchers creating rainbow glimmers across the lino floor, giving both beauty and tender memories.

Wrenna has a new favourite thing to do.

She spins in circles as fast as she can, often falling into a pile on the floor in a heap of giggles.

I put on my favourite song - earth my lover - and she smiles as she moves her body with the rhythm.

She goes to the drawers she knows she’s *not really* supposed to open. She pulls out a little gift bag filled with scented candles. My motherly instinct is to want to say stop, no, don’t do that and maybe it’s the heart warming cacao or this soft morning light but I let her carry on.

She brings it to her nose and does a big double sniff, the way I’ve shown her in an over-exaggerated way to smell flowers and my creams.

I smile.

She hands one to me, eagerly awaiting me to sniff it too.

See, if I had rushed my “no” we would have missed this simple magical moment and connection.

All too often I’m quick to say no.

I think about potential consequences before something has even played out.

She’s just being a child and there’s a sweet innocence in that.

Other times, not so much. Like her brief obsession with the toilet brush. Immediate NO.

But this sweet interaction with the scented candles shows me my girl is growing up, perhaps a little too soon.

I wonder at what point she realised they were scented. Did she sniff them through pure joy and curiosity only to find they were scented? Or could she smell them the moment she took them out the bag? Or did she know they were candles and knowing her mother well thought they must be smelly ones? Who knows, her delightful toddler inquisitiveness is enough for me.

She goes to the door and says what I know to mean “outside” but would be inaudible to most.

I haven’t yet changed her nighttime nappy and it’s starting to sag. There’s a sweetness to the image of it all.

I pull it off and before I can put a clean one on she wriggles off, determined for her morning outdoor adventure.

C’est la vie, she can play naked if she wants.

She rushes to the lavender bush which is being overtaken by our wildly overgrown passionflower.

As per usual she pulls the unopened buds off of the passionflower plant. Normally this is a daily battle but today I just let her be.

There’s hundreds of flowers on it anyway.

She lets out the occasional sigh of contentment and busies herself smelling the lavender.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with different mother friends lately about the difference between permissive parenting and gentle parenting.

I think there’s a really fine line between allowing your child to do what they want, and creating an environment where they can follow their curiosities but with boundaries in place.

As a therapist I have seen only too often what an inability to hold boundaries can do to a person. It’s not healthy.

But here I am, a new mother, struggling to set boundaries with my child.

I find I swing from one extreme to the other. Too much no or too much yes.

I wasn’t modelled healthy boundaries in my childhood. My mother was a fierce and tenacious woman who commanded dominance and respect.

I don’t want my daughter to learn respect through fear.

I want her to experience respect through respectful behaviours.

Which means the onus is on me.

And modelling healthy boundaries is the foundation of building respect.

So where does that leave me when my toddler is opening cupboards I’d rather she didn’t, or pulling flowers off the vine?

Deep down I know.

Gentle discipline through reinforcement of boundaries.

Telling her no in a way she understands and being consistent with my approach.

It’s hard. Especially on days like today where permissive parenting is the easy option.

I mean it’s always the easy option.

I said to one of my close mama friends that this is why the majority of the population aren’t doing gentle parenting. It’s hard. It challenges us to look at ourselves in such a concentrated way. To look at the way we were brought up, our internalised conditioning and how that affects our relationship with our children.

I’m in no way a parenting expert.

I’m just a mother wanting to do the best for her child(ren).

And that’s all we can ever do, our best.

I’m not writing this to shame anybody for how they are choosing to parent. I’m sharing my own reflections on how *I* want to parent.

I know there are ways I could lean into more gentleness, ways I could allow more space and time before entering my no, and in the same breath I know there are many areas where I need to be more consistent.

As Wrenna gets older she’s only going to test the boundaries even more (a totally healthy and developmentally normal thing to do) and it’s my job to uphold those boundaries with confidence and love.

So as I enter the season of tantrums and boundary-pushing and shouting back I call upon love and grace to get me through.

I am gentle with myself as I know I am doing my best.

And I hold compassion and forgiveness for my mother for doing her best too.

Knowing that the way I mother my daughter is changing an entire lineage.

And I want that to be based on love, trust, mutual understanding, respect, compassion and the ability to communicate through conflict.

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I know it’s true, with me wanting a wild pregnancy and all that, but the reality feels far from it.

Perhaps I’ve lost faith in my body, or perhaps the idea of being pregnant again is too painful to bear.

I desperately want another child.

But not now.

I’ve spent the morning considering my options.

Would I be “too pregnant” to use plant allies to prevent it?

Would the egg already be imbedded in my womb?

Would this now call for…a medical abortion?

I’m whipped into a bit of a frenzy by this point and think sod it I’ll take the pregnancy test.

It’s not the “natural & sooooo in tune with my body” way I want to be, but I can’t run these ideas of abortion through my brain when I’m only on cycle day 28 and have been worrying for days.

(The irony is I’m pretty sure we hadn’t even had full intercourse this month, so it was practically impossible)

Needless to say, the worry was there.

And I didn’t want to go through another day of it.

I sit astride the toilet, tear open the wrapper and pee on the designated stick.

Almost instantly it comes up with a singular line.

Negative.

When I was pregnant with Wrenna the test showed 2 very bold lines immediately, so I trust this to be true.

I leave it on the sink and dart back to it every few minutes, just in case.

Nope, definitely negative.

A big sigh of relief. A softening in my body.

Wouldn’t surprise me if my bleed starts now.

Three hundred-and something grams of dried organic chickpeas (soaked, then cooked)

3-4 large tablespoons of tahini

Squeeze of one lemon - plus a few dropped lemon seeds (ever tried fishing a lemon seed out of a large vat of chickpeas?)

A good drizzle of olive oil

However much water you need to not get your blender jammed up

3 cloves of garlic - definitely needed more

Large pinch of Himalayan salt

Sprinkling of cumin

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I stood over the kitchen sink individually peeling chickpeas.

This is ridiculous.

I was already late for preparing lunch, to now be facing the mammoth task of sorting these chickpeas felt like madness.

Thankfully Wrenna was content playing with her pretend kitchen and joyfully running over to Daddy.

This better be the best damn hummus I’ve ever made.

I was following a recipe. Sort of.

Once again I had chosen one that measured in cups not grams. A mistake I must start learning from.

I thought back to my free-living-hippie-days when I was vegan and lived in a campervan. I used to make homemade hummus all the time. But looking back I don’t remember doing this…so I must have made them from a can. The memory forces a gentle smile upon my lips. Oh to be young and carefree again…

I turn to my chickpeas. I’m not even halfway there. I’ve made a complete mess of the sink.

Why didn’t I put the casings in a bowl?

There’s still so much for me to learn. So many mistakes and mishaps. It’s all part of the journey - I remind myself.

Eventually the chickpeas are as peeled as they are going to be.

Time to blend.

Daniel thinks I can use the soup maker. Me on the other hand, I’m not so convinced. For starters, it has a tiny whisk blade, I think we are going to need something bigger…

I start up the motor and lo and behold it gets jammed in a sticky sludge of slightly over cooked chickpeas. I add more water and bang the blade. It only lasts a few seconds before it’s jammed again.

I’m now very hungry and getting frustrated.

“The soup maker can’t do it!” I shout across the room.

I give it one last attempt but the pathetic vibration simply won’t do the trick.

I lunge into my mothers cupboards and pull out her hand whisk. This has got to do a better job, surely?

I whiz it up and we have the same problem, but this at least lasts a little longer. So with frustrated beating and banging on the side of the pot I eventually turn this sad looking pot of chickpeas into something that resembles hummus.

I realise that at the point of abandoning the recipe I didn’t add anywhere near enough garlic and the whole thing is tasting rather bland.

“It’s because we’re used to the addictive taste of rapeseed oil” I try to convince myself as I pass the testing spoon over to my partner.

Into the spice cupboard I pounce, pots flailing up out of their perfect rows as I decipher what the missing flavour is.

Cumin.

I settle for cumin.

One last whizz and the hummus is made, I am exhausted and the kitchen is a complete and utter mess.

It may have taken all morning (let me factor that in for next time) but we had delicious homemade hummus.

This isn’t just a post about hummus.

It’s about the grace, humility and patience that is required as a home-maker, especially one who is self-taught.

My mother’s kitchen abilities lended themselves to taking items out of the freezer, putting them on a baking tray and putting them in the oven. End of.

Whilst my grandmother was an optimistic chef I sadly did not place value on her home-cooked meals in my adolescence and so did not get passed on any of her secrets, nor her recipe books.

It feels like somewhat of a modern rebellion to rekindle this sacred vocation.

In this day and age of fast-foods, consumerism, convenience and over-indulgence it is my secret revolution to make things from scratch.

Not to mention the fact all shop-bought hummus is full of seed oils.

So I will continue to take the long road over that of convenience. I will continue to peel my chickpeas and make hummus from scratch, alongside our homemade bread and homemade pizzas. This quiet revolution cooking up a storm inside of me. A commitment of health yes but also a commitment of service. A way of saying “I really love you” with a simple dish.

I would love to know your staple made-from-scratch dishes. Perhaps we can share recipes? Drop me a comment below :)

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I sit at the dining table in a half-daze, fumbling around on my phone to find the recipe I bookmarked late last night.

Ahh that’s the one. In American units though, god why did I choose that one, I ask myself whilst still lost in a daze on my phone.

My daughters sudden shout of hunger reminds me that I am in fact eating breakfast and supposed to be passing her a loaded spoon of porridge.

I chuckle aloud, here I am searching for a recipe for lunch and I haven’t even had breakfast.

This is motherhood.

This is home-making.

& I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My partner looks up at me from across the table bemused.

He’s got a sort of make-shift office happening over there. To me it’s a messy pile of papers and cables, but to him it’s evidence that he too can make this his home - even if only for a little while.

We are both settling into our roles here.

We are both getting to see just how much the other has to deal with on a daily basis.

For him, a mind-boggling amount of admin as he juggles multiple jobs and projects, that even the most organised person would struggle with (and organisation is not his forte).

And for me, a day that starts the moment I open my eyes and doesn’t stop until the moment I go to sleep, running around after a toddler for the entirety of the day whilst trying to run a household.

A small sacrifice to pay for the price of freedom for my family. Knowing my daughter is being raised under our roof with our values, not by strangers and subjugated to their, often very different to ours, beliefs and morals.

It was never an option for me to have it any other way.

For me, raising a daughter meant the deepest reconditioning of everything I knew.

Which also meant allowing all of the systems that had lead to those beliefs to crumble.

It meant returning to source, starting from scratch, in order to provide the purest teachings from my heart.

It was instinctual to want to keep my daughter at home, with me.

I believe in a way of life that is family-centred, child-led and nature-based.

I believe in creating environments where little minds can grow and find their own interests.

I don’t really believe in school. Not for children anyway.

My entire adult life has been a deconstruction process of everything I learnt in adolescence.

All of the ways I became the good girl, or found other unhelpful ways to get attention.

You see, I was very good at school. I got top marks and knew all the right words to say, in fact it was probably here that I learnt exactly how to get what I want. The art of manipulation.

But, that could only serve me for so long.

Somewhere along the line I realised I had zero life skills, fawned at any sight of conflict and totally had no clue who I was.

I had to tear apart every single part of my life until I found what was authentically true for me.

I’d quite like to save my daughter the effort.

I believe in a way of home-educating that encourages self-expression, that hones in on a child’s natural curiosities, that empowers that child to unabashedly be themselves.

And I don’t believe the school system, pre-school or nursery cater for that.

Personally I find it incredibly sad that as mothers we are encouraged to get our “independence” back as quickly as possible by placing our child’s care into the unknown and returning to our “identity”.

I am a mother.

This is my identity.

My entire world now revolves around my little one.

Every single belief system that she formulates begins here.

We are, quite literally, raising the next generation.

Isn’t that the most important job on the planet?

Clunk!

The spoon has been thrown on the floor and is now collecting dog hair quicker than I can leap out of my chair to grab it.

My daughter is covered in porridge, as are all of her surroundings.

The daily routine of “splash splash” now begins as I fill an oversized Tupperware with warm water to clean the thick paste of oats off her fingers.

This is our daily rhythm.

Sometimes monotonous, often frustrating, but it is ours.

I seek comfort in the mundane rituals, knowing that they belong to me.

This is the life of a mother and a home-maker.

And whilst I dove into this path somewhat naively, I fully embrace the role now it’s here.

We’ve spent the whole night this way. Her clamped down on one boob and gripping hold of the other with her fingers.

I’m at the point now of trying to hide my other boob but it never works and she just gets more frustrated.

I’m awake.

And it’s my birthday.

Truthfully it doesn’t really feel like my birthday. I’ve woken up exhausted, touched out and with an undertone of negativity and anger. Sadly this is how I wake most mornings.

I hear my partner creeping down the stairs to go for his run. The mornings are his salvation. He rises before the sun to claim that time as his and his alone. Whilst I’ve never been a morning person I find myself envious of how that must feel. I often feel suffocated in my days, grasping at the midnight hour when everyone else is asleep but it doesn’t quite feel the same.

I decide to have a word with myself.

Not today, Venus.

Just for today can you PLEASE be nice to your partner.

Just for today can you please focus on all the lovely things that are happening, not all the darkness and despair that dwells inside.

Honestly every morning is a battle. And of late the dragon of despair has often won.

My daughter is still clutching hold of both breasts. All I want is some space. I feel so touched out.

After ten minutes or so of the boobie battle I give in and let her have them both. Ironically it’s all she needs to fall into a deeper sleep. As if by magic my nipple falls out her mouth as she relaxes. I look down at her, so peaceful. The new found freedom in my body means that I too, ironically, just want to lay there with her.

It’s funny that isn’t it? I can be laying there skin crawling desperate to get her off but the moment my boob is free I can fully relax and surrender again.

After a few moments of gazing lovingly at my daughter, feeling her warm breath on my cheek, I decide to roll over.

I stretch my contorted body and relax into *my* favourite position.

It doesn’t last long.

She’s realised the booby dummy has gone and is pawing at my back demanding more.

My heart sinks a little.

I roll over in servitude and allow her to take my breast.

Perhaps they’re not mine anymore, they’re hers.

It’s kinda funny how a birthday can hold so many deaths.

Shedding so many skins of the people I used to be.

The fifteen year old who was desperate to be loved.

The seventeen year old who was only interested in sex, drugs and raves.

The twenty-one year old who decided to take a chance for a better life and applied for university.

The twenty-five year old who thought she knew it all.

The twenty-eight year old who thought she *was* it all.

The twenty-nine year old who’s world was falling apart and she didn’t know why.

The thirty year old who was deep in the throes of new-postpartum and life-changing grief.

And now here I am, turning thirty-one, feeling somewhat like the phoenix rising from the ashes.

Only to burn it all down again and again and again.

This birthday holds particularly more grief than other years.

It’s my first birthday since my mother passed.

I’m not entirely sure how I’m supposed to navigate a day that is supppsed to be the celebration of her birthing me, now that she is gone.

Everything feels…duller.

And although we had challenges in our relationship, particularly in recent years, there’s nothing I would love more than for her to be here wishing me a happy birthday.

She always used to stay up late the night before so she could be the first to write happy birthday on my Facebook wall (fuck how gen X is that).

I miss her. Especially today.

I sometimes feel this pressure to “end on a positive” or to “turn it around” and today just isn’t one of those days folks.

Sorry, no happy ending today.

Am I at peace with myself?

Who is this person standing before me in the mirror?

What version of myself am I embodying?

Honestly I feel like I’m at a place in my life where I can say yes I do like who I have become.

I am the mother I always wanted to be (most of the time).

I am at peace with my mistakes and I am working on the areas that still cause friction in my relations.

I don’t know who I am right now - but that is okay.

I’m still in a process of unfurling who I am now I am no longer a maiden, and as the heavy weight of grief is slowly lifted, how will I re-emerge reborn?

What I do know is that I set certain intentions this time last year.

They were intentions I had been aspiring to for a lifetime.

Perhaps I’ll share them with you -

It brings me deep joy & fulfilment to know that I have shifted my internal reality so that my actions and behaviours are in alignment with these intentions.

The biggest thing for me was “living more purely” - cutting out sugar & coffee. It was leaving me so frazzled & disembodied.

Whilst I have had some minor slips and have leant rather heavily on cacao, I feel so much more in my body on a day-to-day basis.

I feel in alignment with my ancestors when I connect with plant matter and herbs.

I feel good in my body when I eat healthy & whole foods.

There was such a shedding that came with adjusting to this new way of living. Not just physically, but energetically too. I was noticeably different.

I’m proud of myself for achieving this.

Looking forward to my thirty-first year I don’t yet know what my intentions are.

I know there are going to be some big moments, possibly quite challenging ones, as we adapt to life in cornwall however that is going to look.

I’ve gotten used to home comforts already and they will be stripped away once more as we work on our renovation project and live outdoors once again.

One key thing I do want to lean into is embodied resilience.

I’ve written a whole post about that - you can find it here.

I’m always working on a slower, more intentional pace of life. And what comes with that (for me) is deeper embodiment.

I definitely want to be more present in this next year. Less time on my phone, more time connecting to my surroundings.

I want to learn more. I want to master new skills.

I want to be in a place so that when I am reflecting back in a year from now I can say - “Wow, what a year. Look how far I’ve come. Look how dedicated I was to my path. Look how much I steered to true north. Look how much I embodied my fullness. Look at how much love and presence I gave my family.”

That is what success is to me.

That is what it means to feel accomplished & fulfilled.

Sure a good harvest would go nicely as well, but it’s the cultivation of the inner garden that really matters.

(I have no idea if Daniel reads these but I can guarantee he will be making a face at that. He is very determined that I will grow us an abundant vegetable garden!)

So that’s where I am. Checking out of thirty and into thirty-one. I feel good. I feel grounded. In some ways I feel the best I’ve ever felt.

I am ready to have a good year.

I am ready to face what life has to throw at me, with embodied resilience.

And most importantly - I am ready to love myself through it all.

Happy Birthday to me xxx

Now before I dive into all this you gotta hear me out.

Whilst I’m not your average high maintenance woman in the 21st century; I don’t use hair products, wear high heels or collect designer handbags, but I do enjoy some of life’s finer comforts.

When I go camping it’s probably closer to what most people call glamping. Bell tent adorned with a string of fairy lights, fluffy rugs on the floor, big double bed piled high with blankets. You get the picture.

So this primitive living is all a bit far out for me.

Yes we lived in a yurt for a good year and a bit but again there were certain comforts that came with that. And when those comforts weren’t available I found it really challenging (like when we spent the winter with no running water for over 2 months - fuck that was hard).

So I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. I am used to living outside of the “normal” living conditions of society, but I’m still adverse to certain levels of challenge.

Daniel would always tell me “you’ve got to stop pushing it all away. You’re making it so much harder for yourself.”

And you know what?

It would piss me right off.

I was so deep in my own pitiful victim story.

How can he not see how hard this is?

Its taken me quite some time to realise that he could in fact see how hard it was, but he was choosing optimism and strength in order to be able to survive the situation.

Otherwise known as resilience.

I spent most of the time living on that beautiful piece of land pushing it all away.

It turned me into a resentful, ungrateful, bitter and somewhat obnoxious twat.

All the love, light and gratitude disappeared out of me.

I was so deep in the victim story that I couldn’t see what was in front of me.

My mental health suffered, my relationships suffered, my ability to mother the way I deeply wanted to suffered.

All because I felt entitled to an easier way of living and could not accept how hard my reality was.

So, going back to the wilderness gathering, I had one of those life-changing lightbulb moments during one of the workshops.

Her name was Willow. She was one of those embodied elders who wore life well. There she was in a handcrafted fur tunic made out of buck skin, lined with beaver and trimmed with fox fur.

Her skin was the type that had been weathered by the great outdoors, with eyes that sparkled within beautifully crafted wrinkles.

(Photo courtesy of Willow’s social media)

She was talking about magic.

She crouched on the ground by her altar filled with shiny talismans, an array of bones, feathers of all kinds and woven baskets filled with herbs for offerings.

“Faith in nature - Ritual, Ceremony & Survival“ was the name of her workshop.

Daniel and I sat eagerly at the edge of the tent, taking it in turns to take Wrenna for a stroll around the perimeter, trying desperately to stay within ear-reach so we didn’t miss a peep.

You know, I could try and type out the entirety of her workshop, it was filled with such a grounded sense of wisdom and earth magic that nourished my soul so deeply, but I know I wouldn’t do it justice.

I will however share with you the gold dust that has changed my perception of life entirely.

“When you’re in a survival situation, do not become the victim. The victim will not survive. No. You must become the survivor. Become the rescuer. Go and help the others. Do it for someone else. But do not become the victim, or you won’t make it out of there alive.”

Her words resonated as they landed in my body. Not the type of swirly resonance that makes your heart sing, but the type of grounding-you-so-deep-into-the-earth-that-you-land-with-a-thud resonance.

It hit me.

I had allowed my life circumstances to turn me into a victim and as a result I barely survived them.

I had become this weaker, darker version of myself who outsourced her power and to be honest just became really whiney.

It’s interesting from a psychological point of view. Some of you might be aware of the drama triangle by Karpman. It places the persecutor, rescuer and victim all on a triangle.

(Image credits - mindful.me)

In my years working as a counsellor I learnt that whilst these positions may be played out by different people, ultimately the same person enabled and acted out all three.

That was me.

I was allowing life to be the persecutor, I became the victim, and I would either outsource the rescuer or I would play it in its shadow aspect and become the martyr (woe is me).

In a survival situation, which can be translated into life itself, we have to transcend these games of the ego and become the one that survives.

So whilst my spiritual practice doesn’t necessarily need to include building a shelter from fallen trees, filtering river water, or making a fire using a flint, it does need to, not only include, but revolve around resilience.

Being the survivor in my story, no matter what shit life throws in my way.

Because here’s the thing, life is hard. Life will continue to place difficulty in my path, and I can either fold and choose the easier option (which may not turn out to be easy at all) or I can choose to expand and grow through the challenges.

Huge gratitude to Willow Lohr for her teachings, incredible wisdom and a level of embodiment that comes from deep lived experience in the wild.

Willow currently only offers her Faith in Nature courses in the Netherlands where she originated from, but I am hoping to catch her on her next trip to the UK and will share if she decides to do any workshops or trainings here.

Daniel & I like to have big conversations.

We have big dreams and there’s only one way to make them happen.

We’ve already overtaken our current dream and are landing at our ten year goal already  #gratefulandblessed

So he asked me today what my focus is, so we can make sure our everyday choices in the now line up to that vision.

For me - it’s motherhood.

The next ten years of my life are devoted to raising our children. To making babies, birthing babies and raising them the way that our heart tells us is right. In the home, child-led and family-centred.

Part of that includes being the home-maker - a role I am learning to relish in.

It is truly the greatest honour to serve my family in this way. To nurture, to care for, to nourish.

We believe in being as self-sufficient as possible, mostly because we don’t align with the values of the mainstream and we’ve worked hard to carve a life for ourselves that exists outside of that.

So my role, and my goal, is to deepen my knowledge in growing veg so that we can eat garden to table everyday. To learn how to preserve our food so it lasts us through winter. To learn how to eat the gifts of the land through foraging.

And - one more slightly more self-centred goal - I have a big desire to learn how to make flower food 😆 I see all these insta accounts with the most aesthetically pleasing botanical delights and I really, really want to learn how to do that 😂

So for me it’s mothering & the homestead. Our childrens free range “education” will be a part of that. Teaching them real life skills of how to survive in this world.

Isn’t it sad that most children can’t identify the different species of plants on this land?

Raising children in the wild.

That’s where I’ll be ♥️

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