I have this little nugget of an idea, which I hope you’ll allow me to play with today. I know it’s not particularly the done-thing to practice in public; we’re really only meant to present a thing to the world when it looks pretty. I know we’re encouraged to start before we’re ready, but no one really wants to look at an unfinished thing, do they? Despite all of the advice about just bloody doing it, the businesses and ideas that really take off still seem to be the ones that are polished. Tidy. Seamless.
There’s a contradiction in there.
We can’t truly create something polished, tidy and seamless without creating something rough and raw and split open first - but we don’t want to buy the raw thing.
Has anyone been watching All That Glitters on BBC2? It’s the second season of a jewellery making competition presented by Katherine Ryan, and I am in love with it. I didn’t watch the first season and I think I’m going to have to go back to the start because it’s so wonderful. Of course it’s funny and inspiring and competitive, but there’s also actual jewellery making (obvs) - which just so happens to be an activity stacked full of metaphor.
Jewellery making is ugly.
Truly ugly.
The metal gets bashed about, and burnt, and tarnished. It goes black and lumpy.
No one, not one person - I believe - would buy a piece of jewellery half way through these jewellers’ challenges.
And yet, when they’re done, they’re lovely.
I’m going to offer you a burnt piece of scratched up metal today. Enjoy!
Finding Peace in Places
There is a field on the edge of the Cotswolds that provided me with something I have been yearning for repeatedly over the last few months: quiet.
It’s been increasingly hard for me to find it.
To some, I live in the middle of the countryside. There are plenty of fields around me, several farm shops on actual farms, and I have to drive if I want to buy anything more substantial than milk or Pot Noodles.
But I also live next to a road used as a cut through between two of the busiest motorways in the UK, so I hear traffic all day every day. We’ve moved in with my partner’s parents, which I’m incredibly grateful for, but there are intermittent dog barks, and TV noise, and occasionally grandchildren around - none of which were part of my life’s backing track before this point. So as my stress around life’s decisions and overwhelm in adjusting to change grew, so did my desire for silence.
I believe our bodies tell us - sometimes in cryptic or confusing or downright unintelligible ways, but still, tell us - what they need.
So when my partner was heading to Bristol for a tattoo sitting, I decided to hijack his plans to stay in a convenient inner city hotel and instead take us an hour away, for a two-night stay in said quiet field.
The Swallow is a converted horsebox nestled in the middle of Waterhay Farm. I was thrilled to discover that you park near the farm outbuildings, and then push your belongings across a field in a wheelbarrow, then through a narrow gap in the hedgerow and a gate marked ‘private’, you emerge into your own rural idyll.
Mini horsebox bathroom to your left, the main living horsebox straight ahead, fire pit and chairs past that, with a stone path through the wild grass connecting the three. To the right: open fields.
It was exactly what I needed.
I’d never really thought anything more about my senses until I started my somatic coaching journey. Eyesight was just seeing. Smell was just nice or not nice, or useful in assessing food freshness. Touch was just.. touch. I knew I was lucky to have access to all five, but the fact that I did meant that I never really thought about them.
But then I learned about the nervous system, and how important our senses are in regulating us. They are information highways, telling systems working in a dark, senseless box about what’s going on outside of that box. The nervous system and the brain don’t know what the fuck is going on without them.
When I learned that, my senses stopped being just there.
They came alive.
In this little field on a farm, my eyes had the chance to rest and reach. They chased the dark shape of bats against the last light, or scanned the hedgerows for deer and rabbits. They drifted.
When our eyes can soften, and our gaze stretches loosely and gently off into the distance, it signals to the nervous system that it’s time to relax. Tight, focused vision signals for concentration, and tells the body that it needs to be switched on and alert. Useful in many scenarios, but not a state that we want to force ourselves to be in continuously.
I’ve wondered whether the image of a deck or a front porch outside of our homes is subconsciously so popular for this reason. It symbolises a spot to just sit and stare. Not at anything in particular, but just because our eyes require it.
The deck leading into the horsebox is exactly that. Not only does it extend the living space, but it’s the perfect spot to drift.
And the quiet.
Interestingly, a small study (very small, only 17 people - but it’s interesting nonetheless) found that listening to natural sounds promoted outward-directed brain activity, and listening to artificial sounds promoted inward-directed brain activity. Basically, that means that the information we’re receiving through our ears influences whether we’re more likely to turn our attention on ourselves and our thoughts (typically associated with increased anxiety) or whether we’re more concerned with the world outside of our own mind. It gets us out of our heads.
With the exception of the smallest bit of distant road noise, The Swallow has a purely natural soundscape. It’s just bird song, rustling leaves, and the occasional moo of the dairy herd. The farm prides itself on using organic and regenerative farming practices, so all of the fields are filled with vastly varied species of flora and fauna - and you can hear it. I have a big issue with large scale farming and mass meat production, but when farming is done well it can be incredibly beneficial to the landscape, and in turn, to us.
There’s a shedding that seems to happen at this horsebox. As soon as you leave your car at the gate, you leave behind the need to be anything other than right where you are. There’s a USB charger for your phone, but no grid electricity. You shed the background noise. You shed the intensity of concentration. You even shed embarrassment and self consciousness, as you shower in front of a big window, open to the field in front of you. And with the shedding of each of those things, a small but significant piece of tension is released.
The more you shed, the less heavy the world feels - and it’s the experience of that lightness that is so enjoyable to sit in.
This is finding peace in The Swallow.
This was the first in a series I’m thinking of creating of part-review, part-somatic exploration articles on how we respond to different landscapes and locations. We paid in full for our stay and they have absolutely no idea I’m writing this, so there’s no influence on my experience from that perspective. If you’d like to see more of these then please let me know! I’d love to hear what you think.