Nature notes and My Mindful Year: february

I am really relishing my notebooks! The whole process of walking, noticing, taking photos and recording nature in some form. I am doubling up my nature notes and my mindful year posts today not just because, ahem, I have run out of February days, (where has the month gone?), but because the word for february in Sas Petherick's My Mindful Year project has been connection, and the nature sketching and journaling has really been a part of my exploration of what connection means for me.

Connection works on so many levels doesn't it? For me, connection with people I love and/or respect, connection with my home and garden, with my work, with the natural world around me, with the God I believe in, these are fundamental to my happiness and wellbeing, but so often the connection gets a bit lost and frayed by the busyness and demands of normal life. Just as our bodies require sustenance, so does this need to connect with the things that are important to us. Deepening healthy connections requires time, energy, intention - margin outside of the to-do list in order to feed the soul a bit, keep it nourished and connected, no? I certainly find that it doesn't happen all by itself. It is not so much that we have to contrive and construct connections, but we do need to create time, space and opportunity for connection to happen naturally and flourish, I think? So for me, having set aside time to walk, notebook and camera in hand, is a way of slowing down and letting myself have the opportunity to be inspired. Last month's noticing and recording of the alder trees and their beautiful cones has resulted this month in the birth of a new little collection - it would never have happened without that time spent wandering and gathering, sketching and thinking.

I have even started walking with a jewellery buddy, Liz Willis, with the express intention of enjoying, discussing and exploring the notion of being inspired by place and found objects. We live near each other and have already had a few walks criss crossing our local landscape, open to whatever inspires us on the day, and taking some of that back to inform our designing back in our studios.

This month, it has been the curious juxtaposition of the brittle, bleached remains of last years wild plants and seedpods with the bright green new growth just beginning to shoot up, which has caught my eye. I am wanting to make a new collection of brooches and the fragments of ash tree keys, poppy seed heads, achillea and eryngium stalks and husks have given me more than enough inspiration!

I have also been thinking about how I connect with the people I care about, and how to make more time for them. Keeping in contact with my boys at uni and the ways I do that, one on one time with my two who are still at home. Time aside for just me and my mister.  The notion of connection has created so many questions in my mind, and it is March tomorrow, so I think it will take more than the short month of february to answer them all, but that is kind of the point isn't it?

Have you got any thoughts on connection, and how to help foster the right sort of connections that lead to a happier and more fulfilling way of life? I guess disconnecting from what no longer works for us, or even harms us is also key, but that would need another whole blogpost! x

my mindful year: january

Here we are in mid January and I am only just beginning to feel that I am uncurling from the cosy, reflective days of holiday. I have walked unusually slowly and quietly into this new year, with the notion of rest on my mind. Back in the busy-ness of Christmas eve night, I copied a few words into my journal from The Message (a modern language translation of the Bible), because the notion of 'unforced rhythms of grace' resonated so powerfully with me, as well as the idea of activity and work coming from a rested not anxious place. I knew I had to get pen to paper and record it.  I knew in that moment that this would be a key inspiration for me in 2016.

2015 had been good to me in very many ways but also, if I am honest, quite stressful as well - two kids doing important public exams (including applying for med school which is not for the faint-hearted!), our second son leaving home (he got into med school, hurrah!), hubby searching for a new job and various other issues that were to varying degrees quite difficult to work through. The last few days of the year seemed permeated with this idea of resting, trusting, laying down old fears and worries and walking 'freely and lightly'.  This is far easier to say than to do, or even understand how to do, so I have put in place a few things to make that idea of freedom more real and accessible. I have put aside time at the start of the day to do some stretching, yoga, and prayer - those things really help to start the day from a place of calm for me. 'Yoga with Adrienne' Youtube classes and yoga camp have been fantastic for establishing some kind of routine. I have also signed up for Sas Petherick's #mymindfulyear project - check out her website, I think it is going to be a brilliant way for me to become more intentional and clear sighted and less cluttered mentally. Imagine my surprise and general gobsmacked-ness when her first email proffered the concept of, yup, rest! What her insights have illuminated to me is that our energy on any given day is not infinite, just as breathing requires the in-breath and out-breath, so we need rest as well as activity, pause and imput as well as action and output. So this is the balance I am seeking this year, and there are many wonderful ways of finding it. For me, my faith, my noticing of beauty in simple things, early nights (need to work on that one!), walking and running, my making,  relaxing with a book or sketchpad, journal writing, yoga and quiet moments to myself with a cup of tea or glass of wine, are all ways to slow down and rest, to notice the present moment and how I am actually feeling. To breathe slow and long sometimes. To be properly present. The animal world is always really telling in this respect - think of the focus, power and achievements of a leopard or jaguar in full hunting mode, but also the langourous relaxation of a big cat draped over the branches of a tree - every muscle relaxed and stretched out in repose. We need both, but are so often needlessly afraid of what the need for rest says about us, and consequently glorify being busy. Not me any more, I think the potential to give value to rest is important not just for our own wellbeing, but because it has the potential to help us be far better human beings to those around us and have a clearer sense of what we are supposed to be doing with our lives in ways that can positively impact others, not just ourselves.

One way I have often found to be a short cut to a more restful and present mindset is walking - the more wild the place the better. Step by step, the mind re-calibrates priorities and focus. It is so underrated in western culture, but many indigenous people understood it well, the ability of landscape and our connection and veneration of it to ground our minds as well as exercise our bodies. There has been so much dank greyness this winter but the last few days have had some glorious sunshine and golden afternoons, so I have made the most of savouring each drop of winter sunshine, and noticed the achingly beautiful elements outside that even the short days of january can offer. These times offer so much in terms of mental rest and creative inspiration.

It is impossible for me not to think of new beginnings and fresh possibilities in January, and this has filtered down to my jewellery designs, where the idea of seeds in all their incredible potential for new life and energy alongside their willingness to rest and wait, has seemed just the right thing to be working on in this month. I started this collection a couple of years ago, making gold cowparsley seed pieces, but this month I have been looking at the seeds of my favourite garden plants and have created a new range of single stud earrings based on these lovely, minimalistic shapes. I hope you like the little slivers of silver as much as I do, and I am looking forward for making stone settings with them too. Shapes this simple need real attention to detail, so the shapes and finish have been carefully planned, a gorgeous sparkly brushed finish on the front and high shine on the edges and back for some textural contrast. Take a look here.

Just wondering if you have any fresh ideas as we start this new year, any ways to bring more rest and balance? I'd love to hear. x

hedgerows in winter

For the last fifteen years, ever since we moved into our barn which is in the middle of open fields and on the edge of a water meadow, I have daily walked the footpaths of the local landscape. These paths and bridleways along the riverbanks and field margins are usually marked by miles of native hedgerows, many dating from the 18th century enclosures but others much more ancient. As I walk my attention is always piqued by the tangle of living branches, and the life that teems within them. As the seasons come and go, I find it impossible not to be moved and creatively inspired by the beautiful annual rhythm, dance almost, of hedgerow buds, leaves, flowers, haws and hips and the flurry of birds, animals and insects that rely on them. There are many blog posts in the archives here celebrating the springtime explosion of blackthorn and hawthorn flowers in the local hedgerows, and also the frothy ribbons of cowparsley that fringe all the footpaths here. Every year there seems to be something else to notice and be inspired by, and every year I take photographs, make sketches, write words and poems and finally base new collections of jewellery on designs directly inspired by what I have discovered. The hawthorn collection and lichen and blackthorn cuffs and twiggy rings are all direct results of these observations and sense of finding beauty in the simplest of places.

Right now the hedgerows are in their somber, winter clothes, long gone are the flowers and leaves, and only a handful of haws and hips hold on against the wind and hungry birds. Sinuous miles of twiggy native species, lean hard against the cold winds together, bare and sparse and pared back to the hard, brown bone. There is something unflinching and stoic about their nakedness, something that seems to remind me that rest and resilience are an important counterpoint to growth and busy activity. In our hedgerows, trees grow out and up regularly but still unexpectedly, (once many elms did, but now mainly other natives have taken their place).

It is at twilight that they seem at their most majestic, the old lores of magicke and myth seem most believable as the low winter sun sets like low slung fire between their twisted branches.

In every season my local landscape holds so many wonders that stop me in my tracks.  The winter can seem monochromatic and terse compared to the colourful, flowery ebullience of the warmer months, and this is an especially stark contrast in the hedgerows.  Yet, so much beauty still lurks in the patterns and textures that remain, and there is a profound sense of mystery and resolute, weather-defying courage which is only amplified by the lack of colour and foliage. The earth is not just resting but is gathering its strength and power for the spring to follow. A breathing out, a gathering in. The prettiness may have seeped away with the autumn rains, but a different, more questioning gorgeousness remains.

trees in winter

I have spent much of today out doors in the cold, windy sunshine of January. It suits me to spend lots of time outdoors, and one hope for this year is to spend as much time in the fresh air as possible and practical. My hubby and I are planning some big hikes and I'm enjoying transforming plenty of my normal forty-five minute dogwalks into two hour fast walks, working hard to keep up with my indefatigable, wiry husband whose long legs and aerobic fitness means that I almost have to jog to keep up! If I stop to take photos along the way, I have to then run flat out to catch up - which is all part of the plan to get fitter and to really get to know a wider range of our local landscape. I am hungry for more outdoor foraging. adventures, discoveries and inspiration. It feeds the soul, the mind and the body, and at the risk of sounding geeky I want to understand the history and botany of the landscape where I live because these natural habitats are so full of complex life, mystery and narratives and suddenly I want to understand it all a bit better. I suppose it is partly wanting to understand the landscape my life is rooted in, but it's also just intellectual curiosity I guess, and I have a feeling what I learn will teach me about life in many other ways. I am even, shudder, getting some technical gear - those scary, gortex-y trousers and jackets while it is so cold, there will be just no excuse not to get going over river and field even in midwinter!

Today, it was all about the winter trees, magnificent in their starkness. There is something about the unsparing, colour-leached silhouettes that seem so reassuringly resilient and unchanging.

Unspeaking witnesses to so much history, activity and storms, yet remaining. There is something about knowing and appreciating that we are seeing exactly the things that many previous generations have that makes us feel closer to our landscapes and local histories I think, gives us a sense of being rooted in something deeper than yesterday, today and tomorrow. It certainly gives me a feeling of my geographical home, even though our families are not from this area. Since so many of us are scattered far from where past generations of our families live, getting to know the physical landscape as well as the local people, our neighbours and friends, gives another layer of rootedness and belonging I think?

We want to get some books to help us know more about different types of trees, their indentification, botany, legends etc because we were shocked at how hard we found it to indentify many without their leaves. Could you? Getting geeky, I warned you!

The trees' shadows were stunning too.

Over the last year, some of us who live around here, have worked together to save a beautiful and very ancient drovers' way from being officially opened to vehicles which would have made it a shortcut for any 4x4s and off road bikes. It has been a long and expensive battle to protect this part of the Icknield Way, but it was saved as the historical and priceless, life-filled ancient way that it is. Today we walked the entire local section of it, the piece we were involved with saving, and it was really quite an emotional moment to see the recently erected signposts showing its new protected status and enjoying the peace and beauty as we walked it towards home.

So, here is to really simple things like walking, trees and feeling like you belong somewhere. Easy to take simple things for granted but there is a lot of happy in them!

This walk was long enough to see the light completely alter and transform the views from soft and hazy to sharp and bright. There is a lot of fun trying to capture the shifting moods in photographs. Another thing I would love to learn more about this year! Do you have any new learning things on the horizon, I would love to hear? xx

hunting for autumn colour, where has it gone?

I'm really a summer person. There are many lovely compensations that autumn offers along the way towards the dark days of winter but the explosion of coppery colour that usually stops me in my tracks along the bridleways and woodland paths has been strangely muted this year. Perhaps the unusual warmth that stretched summer temperatures into late October accounts for the fact that the leaves seem to be falling green still, only burnishing as they lie on the ground, blown from trees before they get their moment to dazzle. Harrumph! Feeling a bit cheated, I went on the hunt for some colour during some sparkly sunshine last week, camera in hand, determined to enjoy some autumnal glory even if it was only on the ground or tips of some branches. There were really few trees in full Autumnal spendour, and some of the lime green leaves could have been from a wood in Spring were it not for their raggedness at the edges. All a bit strange, but enough loveliness to linger on and feed the soul!

I do love looking up through the branches of trees, the shapes and outlines make such lovely patterns, I could imagine them as a fabric.

I can't help feeling that these would make rather nice postcards, and I've been having a few nudges from folk asking for some of my photos to be sold as cards - what do you think - any of these float your boat more than others?  I love the idea of something Wild Acre-y encouraging us to communicate by good old fashioned pen and paper too! Your feedback would be a real help.  :)

May arrives with cow parsley and hawthorn blossoms

May. It is my favourite month - three day weekends aplenty, an explosion of green, juicy growth where ever you turn in the garden or country lane and armfuls of my favourite blooms - cow parsley, mayflowers, bluebells and alliums. Not to mention baby moorhens and ducklings swimming in nervy pride down the stream at the bottom of the garden. And occasional t-shirt temperatures which means cups of coffee and with a bit of luck, whole meals in the garden again. Bliss. 

This is the moment of the year for cow parsley, it festoons every local lane and foothpath, sometimes mingling with the white-flowered hawthorn in the hedges. The cow parsley umbels are one of nature's wonders, I love it so much it is the Wild Acre logo. The hawthorn is close to my heart too, and one of the first natural shapes I explored in silver. To have them both flowering their pretty heads off at the same time is double floral heaven for me! 

It is something about the delicacy yet profusion of cow parsley - pure looking and yet rampantly growing, clearly strong but so finely cut, it seems impossibly exquisite and utterly simple at the same time. I really love the stuff!

Even the colour-drained silhouettes are tantalizingly, breathtakingly lovely, don't you think?

The hawthorn flowers are so pretty too, not as ethereal as the cow parsley, rooted firmly as they are on the strong branches of the May bushes. But the little creamy, spherical buds combined with the profusion of papery flowers and new green leaves are gorgeous in their own right. 

When the hawthorn and cow parsley grow together, the effect is amazing, this lot is 30 seconds from my backdoor!

I will have to save the bluebells and alliums for another post, but in the meantime, hurray for May!