Part of a new initiative to encourage everyone out into the woods for wellbeing and woodland skills, our “Feel Good in the Wood” sessions focus on both the practical and the mindful to help you find your best way to reset. Wherever you are with your week’s To Do list, this is a day to focus on looking after you.
Pause, re-focus & recharge
We’ll start the day with hot drinks and a mindful woodland wander with Charley. These events are led by the season, so each one is unique!
Nick will then lead a Mindfulness activity designed to give you techniques that you can take home as part of your daily toolkit to pause and reset, wherever you are in your working week, and whatever that work looks like for you.
A hearty and healthy vegetarian lunch will be provided. Let us know about any dietary requirements on booking and we’ll do our best to provide for you.
Gathering around the campfire
In the afternoon, we’ll teach you how to light a fire without matches, then spend some time gathered around a campfire. We’ll let you decide if this is time to chat, or if you would like to practice meditating through gazing at the flames.
We’ll finish up the day with some gentle mindful movement. The aim is for you to leave feeling relaxed and rejuvenated!
Whether you want to appreciate your mum, a mother-figure in your life, or if you are a mum looking for a day “off” to relax and recharge, this is a day to celebrate and honour mothering of all kinds.
If you want to treat your mum, we have a special offer when you buy two tickets.
Switch off from the world, tune in to the wood
We’ll start the day with hot drinks and a mindful woodland wander with Charley. We’ll take our time to appreciate the new growth in the trees, the new life bursting out all around us, and we’ll tune into peaceful birdsong as spring arrives.
Nick will then lead a Mindfulness activity using techniques that you can take home as part of your daily toolkit to pause and reset.
A hearty and healthy vegetarian lunch will be provided. Let us know about any dietary requirements on booking and we’ll do our best to provide for you.
Gathering around the campfire
In the afternoon we’ll teach you how to light a fire without matches, then spend some time gathered around a campfire. We’ll let you decide if this is time to chat, or if you would like to practice meditating through gazing at the flames.
We’ll finish up the day with some gentle mindful movement. The aim is for you to leave feeling relaxed and rejuvenated!
‘Words in the Wood’ was something of an experiment both for myself and for Hazel Hill Wood. Would it work to offer creative writing, outside, in November? Would people come? Would they engage? Or would the potential discomfort and cold be a barrier? As a counsellor and therapeutic writing practitioner, I loved the idea of it, and I wanted to try.
I imagined a crisp, clear autumn day, the warmth of the fire, the sound of lively chatter… but would it in reality mean fingers too numb to write, a fire un-lightable because of the wet, a group too shivery to enjoy themselves?
In the end, eight brave souls attended, admirably willing to write and share their work together, largely outside, on a brisk November day.
We began with a mindfulness walk with Ruth from Corsham Counselling. Very slow, sensuous, grounding. We focused on breath, movement, and took time to notice our surroundings through all our senses. We observed the rich autumnal shades, the song of a mistle thrush, wind rustling through leaves, distant sounds of the modern world, the mulching of our own footsteps. We smiled at being gently invited to focus on our sense of smell just as we passed the composting toilet.
As we slowed, and gave attention to our natural world noticings, we noticed our language changed too. When we all wrote, around the Heartwood fire a few minutes later, our words were more languorous, sensuous; details precisely observed and captured. And our attitudes also slowed. Hurry receded, appreciation advanced.
“I noticed just how many leaves are on the ground. It’s autumn and a mattress is now all around. In my garden, this is bothersome and needs attention. Here it is a blanket, preparing for a winter by covering the ground, warming and feeding the earth.”
The environment was inspiring. So much rich stimulus was available to us, moving through the forest, or sitting around an open fire in the crisp winter sun. Writing in nature sometimes generated unexpected themes. The wisdom of trees made itself felt for all of us, whether helping to explore grief and loss, or gently shifting perceptions of self. One participant was astonished to find “the tree gave me a poem”. It really did feel as if the words had come from a source outside herself.
My writing prompts were well received, and people found it helpful to have a direction and focus for their writing, though nothing was compulsory or pressured. It was astonishing what could be produced, or discovered, in less than ten minutes. At times deep and reflective, at others, playful and childlike, the writing seemed to take us where we needed to go.
I think we all felt that unique connection with other people that comes from sharing an experience outside the norm. Scribbling rhymes astride a damp log. Dashing for shelter as the rain intensified. Sharing not-quite-fairy-stories under a makeshift shelter around a blazing fire. Surprising ourselves with our own creativity and enjoying the words and the humour of others.
“I just got all my anger out through an overflowing porridge pot!”
So yes, it worked! Admittedly, there were some cold feet, and a read-around that was rather halting due to rain-smudged paper. But it didn’t matter. The stimulation and inspiration from the natural world far outweighed any inconvenience and personal discomfort. As a facilitator, a day of constant weather changes adds another dimension of concern, but the group readily entered into the spirit. Antonia ran from one location to another, trying to anticipate where the weather might push us next, keeping fires stoked in all the right places. The quest to find shelter, warmth and inspiration meant a lot of relocating, thinking on my feet, corralling group members out from under canopies and hedgerows… but the drama became part of the magic. And it fuelled our words.
In haiku:
Come to Hazel Hill The magic is infectious No matter the weather
When sun emerges On an autumn afternoon My heart warms fastest
A satisfying ending (or beginning?)
As we concluded, all the things I’d worried about in the morning were forgotten. The wood, as always, had done its job, and most worries pale to insignificance in this rich environment. As we concluded our final round together, the mood was of new friends, warmth, relief, a rediscovery of, or perhaps reacquaintance with, our creative selves.
“I feel calm. Like I’ve opened a new chapter and given myself time to be me – which is exactly what I came for.”
