Dear Friends,
January saw us hitting the local beach here at Wonwell in the sunshine and cooking up a lovely feast with friends to welcome in the New Year.
February 1st we celebrated Imbolc at our local Ashburton healing Well and later at the Chalice Well gardens in Glastonbury. A very magical time in a special place.
March saw us taking a much-needed break and catching a dose of sun in Lanzarote, an Island singularly lacking in trees! But stunning volcanic landscapes.
April and Spring is here, everything is greening up in those translucent verdant glowing colours. Ferns uncurl and forest bathing courses start again. Late April sees Stefan attending the Remembering Earth Time Spiritual Ecology retreat at Sharpham House in Devon.
May and we are now full ensemble, full throated choir of joy. We attended the amazing Bhakti festival in Dorset and also the Nature and Neurons conference on The Gower in Wales.
In June Cow Parsley and Hogweed are doing their thing, and we started on a new collaboration with the amazing people at the Together drug and alcohol project. This was an offshoot of the Woods 4 Wellness programme, and we had some great sessions which we hope to repeat in 2025.
Also In June thanks to Primrose’s hard work we also successfully became a CIC so we could get funding to run our outreach projects.
In July Stefan finally launched his book Wild Life, and we started running the new Plymouth University Clinical Psychology Ecotherapy sessions at Mt Edgecombe, a short ferry ride from Plymouth.
August – we were busy with courses but found time to attend the glorious Medicine Festival and meet up with lots of friends and with the help of Tanya, Emma T. and Elena we ran an early morning Forest Bathing walk with 43 people in the beautiful Wasing estate.
We also started on another new collaboration with The Pelican Project in Exeter for young adults with autism and other complex needs, This project is called ‘Pelicans in the Wild’, and ably assisted by Sonya and Jane and other guest teachers we have had such a blast out in Nature.
September and we headed up to the Forest of Dean for ‘Deeper into the Woods’ our Advanced Diploma training. This was a new venue for us, and I can honestly say it was one of the best weeks of my life, with an incredible staff team of Amanda, Pina and Andrew who held the space so beautifully, and a wonderful group of dedicated students who endured some wild weather, a memorable night walk, and evenings round the fire.
In October we ran our last 2 courses of the year, popped over to Spain and in the mountains of Catalonia helped with the Almond and Walnut harvest and took part in a beautiful ritual to honour the Madonna in the local church. We also had our official Wild Life book launch at Eastgate Bookshop in Totnes with the venerable Harry Hilser asking the questions.
November was memorable for some severe flooding here and our last Pelicans session of the year with the obligatory sausages, hot chocolate and marshmallows round the fire.
December. We are winding down now, heading into the darkness and sowing seeds for next years courses and projects.
Primrose has gone on maternity leave and we welcome Natalia who has settled in amazingly well, and started to take over the office role alongside her fund raising activities. We have also now been joined by the equally wonderful Jade Kellett who is doing some of our Social Media work.
I would like to thank you all for such a fabulous year in the woods and as we enter our 8th year of trading I look back on all our achievements and I think the growth of our forest bathing community means the most. Without you we are one hand clapping, and it is with the amazing diversity of students, mentors, teachers and practitioners that we grow stronger, wiser and lead this new wave of an exciting, dynamic discipline with our courage, grace, humour and humility and above all our gratitude for the bounty of Nature.
I invite you all to join me on the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21st) to give thanks for another year of life, and pause to remember those who have passed and those yet to come and what sort of planet they may inherit from us.
A special massive thank you to Primrose Matheson for her incredible hard work, diligence and patience over this last year and we all wish her well with the birth of her next child any moment now. Blessings!
Finally a plug: Stefan’s book is a bloody expensive stocking filler but it will keep you amused, engrossed, perplexed and engaged over the long winter months by the fire, so please check it out at any reputable bookseller priced £24.99 and published by Singing Dragon.
See you all in 2025 for more forest mayhem.
