Replenishing the well: a wild camping adventure
This weekend I restored my soul, and my soul’s mission, on a wild camping weekend in the Peak District.
Hanging out with incredible, powerful, kind, creative women on a medium dose of psilocybin-infused chocolate, loitering around a natural spring fountain like four goddesses of the well.
The sun poured down on us, on the days of the Summer Solstice. We’d come to the village of Birchover on the promise of gatherings up at the Nine Ladies stone circle, and those promises were answered.
Hundreds of people were camped up in the neolithic site improvising a chaotic, heart-warming blend of multi-instrument jams, dub-pumping sound systems, nature worship, and relaxed circus play.
The perfect wild camping spot away from the noise but only a 15 minute walk from the stone circle delivered itself to us in perfect synchronicity.
We had the people.
We had the place.
We had the abundance of food, camping supplies, and natural beauty.
Now I just needed to be present enough to enjoy it.
In June — I temporarily forgot my soul mission due to the stress of creating it.
I help people come into flow with their creative process — trusting their vision, taking decisive action, managing stress and nourishing themselves to create beautiful things from WITHIN.
And as with any person who proposes to help others transform and succeed — your greatest case study is always yourself.
This year I’ve received a constant, downpouring stream of downloads about the purpose, mission and true formation of my business. With the help of a couple of mentors (Earl Talbot and Betty Lish) — I’ve been able to capture some of this torrent, and break down enough of the resistance obstructing the raw flow of my creative potential so I could actually start building it all.
My first in-person event.
My first festival tent, the Alignment Emporium.
A free Skool community.
A brand new suite of 1:1 offerings.
A nascent public speaking career.
A Substack writing habit, a poetry outlet, and new songs that just won’t stop coming through….
All in one year?
Cue: complete and utter overwhelm. Tight chest. Woozy stomach. Compressed speech. Low faith.
My body went into panic. I started PUSHING to make it all happen.
As if I can trickle the living current of my soul into this world by sheer force.
As if my panicked, scatter-brained attempts to pull it all together could compare to the slow, intuitive, sure-handed instructions I receive from spirit, that pull it all together in ways greater than I could ever possibly conceive of on my own.
When your source of inspiration is streaming, and you’re left trying to catch that gold and convert it into creation fast enough to make a difference to your life and the world around you….
You need a plan.
You need structure.
You need support systems.
And you most definitely need to switch off and take a bloody break.
Ideally, every weekend.
It is a miraculous thing — to find your purpose, to devote your life to creation, to become a vessel for the desires of your soul.
And it can be overwhelming and destructive if we don’t treat ourselves with lightness, levity, and the utmost care.
This weekend with these women could not have been more perfectly timed.
On the Friday, I was so tense I could barely speak when I picked my pal up from Sheffield station.
We ascended into the Peak District, driving all the way up to a pin in a car park my van-dwelling friend had dropped me. When we arrived, the car park was completely full. Shirtless fathers hanging out in the baking sun with their kids, running around and kicking dust, waiting for the revelry of the gathering up at Nine Ladies.
I’d chosen to trust that we would find the perfect wild camping spot, because I had too many other things to worry about and couldn’t be bothered to add another one to the list.
Right on cue — a warm Scouse gentleman immediately gave us a tip from destiny, the second we arrived in the brimming car park.
A road with closed signs at the entrance, that was not in fact closed.
A perfect spot for our van.
A perfect woodland spot for our tent, that we later discovered would give us shelter from the occasional heatwave rainstorm.
After a night of beers and a homemade chilli I’d brought with in a gigantic tupperware box, we woke up at 4am to walk up to the moors, and be near the stone circle to watch the sunrise on the longest day of the year.
Ancient cultures would witness the sun at its highest point in the sky for the solstice. Celebrating this time of the year as one of renewal, and spiritual connection.
Our group of four women witnessed the sun rise on the solstice, setting our intentions for an abundant, creative, connected year ahead.
As the sun continued to rise and the heat of the day began to warm our bones, my friend Kay and I drifted off into a morning nap right there on the moors.
We could hear the thump of the sound systems and morning revellers at the stone circle.
But everything was content and blissful, where we were.
When I awoke from deep dreams to the open expanse of the moorland, I realised that we were surrounded by fields and fields of ripe bilberries.
I walked around while my friend slept, excitedly plucking these tiny berries one by one, savouring the taste of every single little gift from nature.
One of the great worries that has been plaguing me while I build out the infrastructure of my soul purpose business has been creating enough opportunity to keep me buoyant while I create the long-term plan, as well as the short-term one.
Which is pretty much the primary source of stress for any business owner building something from the ground up.
And yet I learn constant lessons from the natural world that teach me about the true nature of abundance, and creation.
When I was picking those bilberries on the moorland, I noticed the waves of my mood fluctuating in my tired mind, and how that would affect my ability to search effectively.
When I was worried about reaching the end of the patch of bilberries, the supply suddenly seemed exhausted.
When I kept myself engaged and reminded myself that it’s a privilege to even be on a moorland for sunrise, eating any bilberries at all — I keep going for long enough to find the next patch of bilberries, bigger and riper and more bountiful than the ones before.
And so it is with business.
You have to keep yourself lifted, and hold yourself through the waves of apparent scarcity.
You have to keep yourself together, while you keep searching for opportunity.
If you collapse into fear and doubt and bitterness and despair, you miss it.
If you start doubting the value of your creations in between your opportunities — you miss the opportunities.
You miss the moment.
You miss what a privilege it is, to do any of the things that we get to do in this life.
Later that day, we ate about 1g of psilocybin contained in some dangerously delicious cacao chocolate hearts.
And wandered down to a natural spring in the heart of the village.
We’d seen a young man walking back from there, drenched and happy. He told us of the spring, and we decided to amble our way there while the chocolates came into effect.
We sauntered our way down into the village, marvelling at every manicured front garden, every towering tree, the boulders and beauty of the village of Birchover.
Making our way past the Druid’s Inn pub, we finally found the natural spring, and spent a couple of hours lazing about next to these flowing waters, hydrating ourselves, splashing, laughing, passing pleasantries to all passing strangers.
Cars slowed down to gaze at us. Probably because we looked exactly like four grown women having the time of their life at a well on magic mushrooms.
I wondered what the world would be like, if women were safer to radiate their full joy and loiter in this way in public. Imagine the bus stops, the street corners, the pub bars of the world — if women languished there. Relaxed, connected, safe. Emanating our wholesome satisfaction with life, and gratitude for all that she brings to us.
Drinking from the natural spring, I was amazed to witness how abundantly this clean source of water flowed. Water that tastes better than anything you can buy in a shop, or have piped into your house. Water that comes straight from the source of the cyclical system that makes our world possible. Water that comes straight from the hills, collapsing into liquid after state-shifting from the heavens, to trickle into this well for us to drink.
You hold your bottle to capture some, and she spills out over. All you can do is try to catch some, enough to drink, enough to share.
And my deep mind whispered to me….
“This is all you have to do, with your creations. All you have to do is build the structures that capture just a trickle of this flow of abundance. You only need enough of it for your ventures to thrive, enough to share, and there is always enough”
What a beautiful thing — to wire in this realisation, with the help of magical chocolates, a flowing well, and three friends.
My life has transformed in this evocative, symbolic relationship with water. I’ll be writing about it for the rest of my life, attempting to capture the abundance of inspiration I have received from this element.
But for now — all I’ll say is that I’m grateful that this restorative weekend took me straight back to the greatest source of inspiration in my life, and this world.
I’m grateful that in the connection I felt with these women, the seasons and ourselves — I remembered that connection is the true driving force behind everything I do to live my soul purpose and help others.
And when I stay connected to myself, everything else flows.
Everything we build, everything we create — all we do is capture a few drops of life force in a bottle to share.
Looking to create a healing weekend retreat of your own?
Look no further than these beautiful magic chocolates, lovingly handmade by a wonderful friend of mine.
Join her Telegram group to order, and please do mention my name.
