For the past couple of decades of my life, the wild places in which I’ve been fortunate enough to live have centred me and informed me. Taught me the most important lessons I’ve needed to learn. I’ve immersed myself in every bog, headland, beach, loch, wood. Rooted, dreamed, wandered. In all weathers, and all seasons; with and without dogs. Place has been everything to me, and place has always been wild. The wild places I’ve lived in have reimagined me, dreamed me into new ways of being.
This year has been a little different. As many of you will know, we landed here in Wales a day before lockdown, after a difficult transition period and a hugely stressful relocation from Ireland, and I was pretty much immediately struck down with sudden-onset, severe and aggressive rheumatoid arthritis. Because of the National Health Service’s almost-exclusive focus on COVID-19, it was five months before I could get help, and access the treatment which is thankfully now working beautifully. Because I shuffled painfully around like a cross between the Handless Maiden and the Little Mermaid – neither hands nor feet worked, and very little in between – I was suddenly, for the first time in a very long time, confined to a house and small garden. A very lovely old house, with a beautiful view across the Cambrian mountains and surrounded by old yews and other wonderful trees – but there was still a sense of confinement. Even getting up and down our sloped fields required a marathon effort (let alone the impossibility of getting boots onto swollen feet and tying the laces with fingers that had no flexibility and hands that had no grip); for weeks on end it just couldn’t be done at all.
So I learned to home in. Quite literally. To bring my ordinarily long gaze very much closer to home. To get to know a little courtyard garden and a tiny copse of trees, and the remarkably lush and varied bird and insect life which inhabit them. To sit for half an hour at a time watching swallows, and red kites circling around the top of the hill behind us.
Along with everything else I’ve learned this year (get off the treadmill; say ‘no’ very often, and repeat; rest, rest, rest) it’s been revelatory, and the nature of the revelations keep on coming. I haven’t begun to properly process it all yet. But as I’ve sat here, looking out across the valley, past Hafren forest and beyond, where the dark mountain on the horizon meets the brighter green – there where a shadow of misty darkness lurks – looking over to the heights of Plynlimon and the source of the River Severn – I’ve longed for the day when I’d be well enough again to step out into the wild.
I’ve been working up to it for a while, with increasingly longer walks down out lovely green lanes. But yesterday, in the company of my lovely friend Sarah, was the first time for eight months that I’ve been able to venture out beyond my home place – out into the depths of the forest, hugging the banks of that powerful old river.
And it is such a river, here in the place of its beginnings, here in its own home place. Avon Hafren, in Welsh; one of three sisters – daughters of the giant Plynlimon – who met one day to discuss the question of what was the best way to the sea. Being water spirits, of course, they were fond of the oceans. The first decided to take the direct route, and headed westward. She became the river Ystwyth, and was the first to mingle with salty waters. The second sister had a taste for landscape, and made her way through purple hills and golden valleys – her name was Wye. The remaining sister decided against short-cuts, and it took her 180 miles to reach the sea. She was the Severn, and it seems that she wanted to visit all the fairest cities of the kingdom and never stray far from the haunts of men. These are the living spirits which constitute this land. The beautiful, shiny waterways which, Celtic myth tells us, originate in the Otherworld.
These new hills and valleys I’ve landed in are rich with memories of water, because the geology here is founded on sandstone and mudstone – rocks created in a long gone, ancient inland sea. And at last, I can make my way out into them. Walking (though just a little more slowly and carefully than before) against the Severn’s flow. Edging ever close to Plynlimon, which one day I can now believe I’ll find my way up to, out of the trees and across the moor and bogs to the Severn’s source. That’ll be a special day, for sure – but every day is special now, and I’ll never again take for granted the gift of feet and legs; the gift of something as apparently simple as a walk.
Thank you for sharing your journey through your landscape with beautiful emotive images. It is good to hear that you are better. Pain is your body’s way of communicating with you. It is good to hear it’s wise words x
Sorry to hear about the rheumatoid arthritis. Your work has been an inspiration and a blessing to me so I wanted to send a blessing to you:
May the winter sun gently warm your frozen joints
May you flow freely, easily and joyfully with the streams
May you feel the power and force of the wind in your being
May you be rooted in the security, safety and strength of the rocks, the stones, the earth as they whisper their secrets
May you feel the moon softly stroke your cheek as you dream
Her stories
Our stories
May you know in your bones
Your essence
Your soul
That you are loved
Thank you so much for sharing your journey Sharon so inspiring also helping me to find the place beneath my feet in lockdown London
Wishing you a beautiful recovery ?
I know so well from my own health issues the position you write from – thank you for the way you have written about it ?
So sorry to read of the shock of your sudden illness. I can only imagine how devastating this has been for you.
How wonderful to see that you are at last able to return to doing what you love best.
Thank you, a timely reminder this morning for me to remember to be grateful
I wish you ongoing strength and a full recovery. Thank you for your inspiration and sharing,
In my experience, the times of confinement due to illness have highlighted to me my need to be attuned to the subtle energies that permeate the natural world that are all around me. I tune in to the energy of the rocks, the water, the trees that I cannot see with my eyes but that I can feel on a deep interior level. Having touched and been touched by those magical beings, they are in me wherever I am, and we are in intimate communication. I always have the air, that shimmers with Life’s energy.Blessings on you as you make your physical recovery with a new found sense of gratitude for your mobility.
Dear Sharon, Isn’t it a strange thing how illness brings us such strange blessings and moments of quiet surrender and bring a strange calm connection with the truth of things . Like yourself I have had to navigate my way through some very serious health conditions including loosing much of my eyesight, I am never able to feel the small joy of the warm sunlight on my face again due to one of my conditions, something you take for granted before that simple joy has been taken away but somehow nature just holds me and loves me just as I am, is never offended by me or judges me. I feel so much true love and healing from nature. Sometimes illness itself is like being given a special key to a secret door. Thank you for all your inspiration Sharon.
Thank you for your writing this, I too have been challenged with my mobility & I have learnt to look at it as a chance to explore my inner world & the joys of the outer life just in front of me. Mine was brought on through trauma too, which I have been exploring & now leaving behind me & I too am looking forward to walking & discovering the fields of my new home & new world.
I know this journey and learning it long ago has given me the gift to see beyond the ordinary as body and land merge. I am grateful for the knowledge and connection. Thank you for the words.
Mobility, how we do take it for granted. How Ive watched my mama, struggle in and out of her wheelchair, shuffle up the hall to the loo and back again. Her swollen foot giving her pain, and her right arm no longer working. Yet she amazes me everyday, how shes adapted to these changes and how resilient she is, living her life in a different way, why, because she’s still alive and she has too, the best way she can. So she’s learned how to use modern technology, watches movies off u tube, listens to music and all kinds of programs, that interest her. She loves rear outtings in the car when health permits, to the countryside. I wish you good health Sharon and much love to you, to carry on and live your best life. How blessed we all are, to have read your work.
Hi Sharon, It’s so good to know you are able to get out into nature for walks. I hope you make a full recovery. Without my daily walks into the suburban bush here in Australia I would be lost. I send you blessings for a full recovery.
Regards
Wayne
Thank you for sharing- my Mamma has debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. It makes me grateful for my healthy feet and legs and drives me to walk as much as I can right now – not putting it off until life is less busy etc. Wishing you healing and strength so you can wander your wild places. Much love
I loved your healing recovery from severe pain and incapacitation dear Sharon. I understand your experience as I too was laid up with a broken ankle for three months and another three months of painful recovery. But before I could expect it, I was walking again and was able to walk around 40 km in the rainforests of Silent Valley in Kerala, South India. Yes Sharon the wild river and the forested land will heal you completely. I would love to share this Rumi poem too. Let me come to your pain and wound to heal myself dearheart.
Rumi on Pain and Sorrow
He said: Keep them on the road.
I said: What about my passion?
He said: Keep it burning.
I said: What about my heart?
He said: Tell me what you hold inside it?
I said: Pain and sorrow.
He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
Rumi
Ah thank you Sharon. I needed to be reminded of this today. Of the things we take for granted, so precious, so simple. Like walking. Your writing is like the river spirits, originating from the Otherworld, and providing us all with a magical drink.
Sharon, as always, thank you for sharing. As I type, I can see the swelling in my hands as I approach my next scheduled RA treatment. It is always there as a reminder, Happy to know your swelling and pain have been effectively reduced and you are back with in the places that nurture you. Wishing you continued improvement and looking forward to the Bone Cave!
May you be wooed to believe the truth about you, … how you are held hearth, heart, meadow and glen … no matter how beautiful it is.
Dear Sharon – thank you for this wonderful piece. Your revelations about coming home to yourself yet again, amidst great beauty and also pain has resounded deeply. Your ability see and to name things is encouraging to me too. I think it takes great courage and insight to be in pain and to see into it and beyond it, Thank you from the depths of my heart. I particularly love Wales whilst not being overfamiliar with its folds and valleys and rivers and your writing brings this home again to me. I note I’ve used the word Home twice here as I look for that in the wider world, intuiting a change ahead, May there always be a fire in your hearth, the flow of water and the flowering of words, art and love, In friendship, Win
I am getting ready to have shoulder surgery on my right shoulder which means no usage of my right hand for 6-8 weeks. Your words struck a cord within me for patience and endurance and seeing the world that is right in front of me. Lovely words of wisdom that yo u shared.
I hope your health continues to improve and thank you – just simply – thank you for all you do.
Anne
i have peered at the screen to read your words and responses. I moved to the wilds of Northumberland just a few weeks ago, inspired by your stories as i needed a wilder landscape to feed my senses away from family and friends coinciding at the same time i had retinal surgery. With moving and all it entails I allowed my boundaries to be broken … by self and others and found two weeks ago my eyes had weakened so much without due rest that I needed emergency surgery, with possibly more to come if this bubble inserted is not enough to hold the retina in place. I then need attention on the other eye. I cannot see at all well, can type because I am a typist of long standing. I am feeling very sorry for myself, frightened, fearful of losing sight so that I can remain independent and drive and explore and although I know I should or could surrender to the situation I am the height of despair tempered occasionally with calm. Each of us takes our bodies, our minds, our abilities for granted, and it is only when felled, we appreciate how much we have expected. It is only when limitations knock on our door we wake up … the light shines on our brokenness and whether courage and strength can come through and sustain us. I am completely lost, and vulnerable and I say this as this is how it is for me right now, it is okay not to feel okay. It is where I am in my truth right now and tomorrow is another day where another feeling may rise up for attention. Many blessings x
Dear Jane, I know exactly where you are, I have retinopathy and have lost so much of my sight too, lost my job as an artist and can no longer drive and a lot of friends have fallen away but please do not give up, out of this you will be astounded by the inner well of courage and strength you have in that deep well within you. I urge you to seek the company of trees and soil, ask someone to take you there and stay close by but allow you to be alone to feel the great loving arms of nature. You will get through this, I am speaking from experience and I am still struggling with it all but have found nature to be my very best friend. I wish you so much love. X
Having recently sprained my ankle, I can relate to your experience! I’m used to emotional ups and downs, but I’ve always had strong legs and feet and love to walk, run and explore. But I can get around my yard on crutches…today will be through snow. I can watch the birds, and all of nature and warm myself outside by a campfire. I’ve realized that just being outside is a gift, even in colder weather, and I don’t want to take any day for granted. If all I can do is look out the window as the weather rages, then that is a gift too. Slow is good. Hope you can climb your mountain one day!
Thank you for sharing your words Sharon. I have read your books and tales of your travels and the joy that walking in the wild brings to you. I am sad to hear that you have been confined by illness. I am just about to walk on Kinver Edge, I am there most days with my dog. On each visit I tell the land how much I love her, how in awe of her I am. And on each visit I always give thanks for my health which allows me to be there. I hope you recover quickly and fully! Blessings
Thank you for sharing. I appreciate the importance of being reminded not to take anything for granted. May your strength return more each day. Blessings
Dear Sharon and fellow subscribers
I am so very, very touched by your tale of pain and tribulation. As a mover, walker and nature guzzler, I can relate to your earlier feels of being trapped. I am rejoicing with you that you can venture forth again.
We have all experienced confinement and I dare say a new sense of Home, if we are lucky enough to be safe and secure where we live. I loved the tale of three Rivers as I have lived next to the Wye in the Forest of Dean and the River Severn is now my local goddess in Stroud. Added to that I have started a relationship with the frisky little River Frome, that is a microcosm of river life in a safe, relatively accessible form not far from…. Waitrose! This is where I have a wild dip most days playing in shivering rapids and eddies. It is a privilege to receive your newsletter and I bow deeply to your frankness and fortitude. With love, Katie
Sharon, your journey has been long and painful, but you are on your way to a new and pain free journey…the three sisters will help you on the way. The Celtic three sisters of the Barrow,Nore and Suir will also accompany you…..Banbha, Ériu and Fódla…..Stay Safe and look forward to the spring and the sparkling river sisters.
Go n-éiri an bóthar leat….
Thank you Sharon. Your work has been so inspirational for me, reclaiming my ancestry, my inner child and all that entails. You have been, as David Whyte so aptly puts it “the star I did not know I was following!” Many blessings to you and may your recovery continue robustly. Namaste
I’m so glad the meds are working for you. RA is a tough one. Sending you wishes for continued progress. It’s wonderful that you’re able to get out into your beloved wild places again.
Thank you for your heart-full sharing dear Sharon. Happy for your countinuing recovery, sending much love
Xx
Welcome to my world. I have been mostly confined to my house and garden for several years following an accident. The difference is that I live in a big city – no gorgeous nature to see, just roads houses, traffic and my ears assaulted by noise, my house and body by the vibrations from speeding traffic. But… I have a garden: just a 3 x 5 metre piece of veriditas – but full of trees, herbs and wildlife (and alive with mythic creatures despite city pollution). These have kept me going through this long 8 months of emotional darkness. I have immersed myself in myth and magic – painted the Green Man, written a covid nature diary, written poetry based on wild nature and continued to write my fantasy novels (i x young adults and 1 x adult) that are based on wild nature and connectivity, with huge splashed of love and enchantment. Despite everything, Wild Nature and my garden have been my haven and salvation. x
Sorry my mouse hovered too long and accidentally, over submit, And, I hasten to add – I live as above … ALONE.
Meditation has also helped me – and the course This Mythic Life. This course is giving me that underpinning support that I need to live the lifestyle of my choosing as well as the one fate has sent me. Thanks Sharon.
PS the second to last line should be splashes of love… and its 1 x young adult not i x young adult – I would have edited before sending if I hadn’t accidentally submitted early. xxx
So pleased for you that your medication is working for you Sharon, your journey struck a chord with me . I am in same sort of situation, had right hip replacement January 2020, and was due to have left knee replacement in August, but with Covid this has now been put back 12/14 months . I am so lucky to live where I do, can see the Downs behind my house ( was my Dad’s house) and hear the sea from indoors on a windy day, but the sheer frustration of not being able to get out there walking has been so hard , I’ve not had a decent walk for ages the last one was of a mile back in October 2018, I had been used to wandering up to 8/10 miles daily with my dogs . So like you I have learnt so much from being house/ garden bound ..all the little things not noticed before , time to stand and stare and listen ,taste and smell, it has done me good, I do not take things for granted anymore , each day is treasured ,I am a better person for it .Strange thing is when I was about 10 years old I remember saying to my Dad ,when I am old I will have bad joints and will go blind , I am more like a cart horse than a race horse ,I was a horse mad kid (still am just a 66 yr old ) loving the heavy horses, My Dad who died in 2017 reminded me of this when I was caring for him , he had lost most of his vision for his last 10 years and said not being able to see was the hardest thing he had to cope with in all his 97 years but he could still imagine it all, he was a great outdoors man and nature lover , he said take notice of all that goes on around you in nature and remember it well , make the memories for the future , how wise he was. and my eyesight is getting worse as I age, so I have also borne this in mind for the future and with help from my children and grandchildren we are planting a sensory garden, but with it being especially for nature with local varieties of native plants and hedging ,some fruit , trees and bushes and a small pond and a few rustic sitting places ,for us all to enjoy. One thing all this has taught me is just how lucky I am to be alive and just being here . Best wishes for the future
Hi Sharon, Thanks for sharing this…the story of my last five years has been quite similar, though much lengthier. Y arthritis is of the more mundane sort and had eaten away at my hips. As you know, we have no NHS here in the US. so I had to wait a couple of years to get approved for Social Security Disability Insurance and while I waited the pain increased and I lost more and more of my mobility, finally becoming dependent on a walker in the house and a wheelchair for going out in longer distances. i was in ‘lockdown” well before it became de rigueur. Finally after turning 65 {Medicare eligible) I was able to get the hip replacement surgery I needed…because of my years of mostly sitting or lying in bed due to the chronic pain, my rehab is taking quite the long time as I need to strengthen my hip and back muscles in order to stand erectly and walk unaided by the walker. I do resonate with your need to get out into the wild. Throughout this process, my greatest longing has been to return to time in Nature, in fact to relocate from the small city in which I currently reside to a place in Nature where I can live the rest of my life on the land as I did when I was young. I.too. am just beginning to understand the gifts of this descent.But one has been made crystal clear: Patience is a practice I must engage daily. And gratitude for my backyard, where even though my gardens are overgrown,dead and brown, I can now sit and feel the breeze, listen to birdsong and observe the squirrels and feral cats and I share it with. And on good days, I am keenly aware that my garden, like me, isn’t really dead, but still alive underground, waiting for the care and rains is needs. blessings and Peace, Ann
Thank you, Sharon. We, your readers, want to hear about the magical as well as the mundane, your vision as well as your limitations. About how limitations, like being housebound, can actually serve to open vision. As Muriel Rukeyser wrote: “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” Don’t ever shy away from sharing your truth. Women have prettied things up, or been prettied up, for too long. Thank you again.
Sharon, I (with my wife) was blessed with being the temporary owner’s /stewards of a tropical cloud forest in Costa Rica for 22 years. Now we have returned to Canada for medical reasons (me) and I miss it so! Like you, I learned as much as I could about the many forms that Life took and how it all seamlessly meshed so that all could thrive.It’s no accident that she is called Mother Nature as these nurturing qualities are quintessentially feminine.
As David Brewer once said, “The Wild Places are where we began, when they end, so do we.” With Green Thoughts, Steve
Dear Sharon,
I have very recently discovered you and am very excited by the prospect of communicating with you in the virtual world, and perhaps beyond. Your focus on mythology, archetype, and place is a voice that I feel I have been “waiting” for. I am an elder – a “hag” – in Philadelphia and returned to school at age 60 to become a psychotherapist after a life career as a media artist and writer. I am Irish American, and have strong Celtic roots in Connemara. My husband and I have just bought a farm house in the beautiful landscape of Cumberland County in South Jersey, near the Delaware Bay. I plan to explore the land and the water, and re-invent my relationship to place there – and continuing to practice as a psychotherapist. Thank you for sharing your path; for inspiring.
Sharon, I celebrate both your return to roaming through nature and your wisdom in finding the gifts of a painful disease. Your name is RESILIENCE!
Many blessings to you. ?????
I’m a walker so that would drive me crazy. Your photographs are beautiful. I love those expansive green fields and hope I can walk in a landscape like that when covid finally goes away and we can move about again. . In the meantime I appreciate my strange high desert/mountain landscape in Nevada, US. Thanks for the reminder.
My mother bore the struggle with RA with great patience…I did not understand, and your writing has helped me have more compassion. My heart is with you, and all here. Thank you for reminding me of nature’s gifts. I’ve felt the burning pain, as if my fingers were held in a fire, after eating potatoes, tomatoes, etc. of the nightshade family…this has helped me not tread her path, and my doctor advised the same years ago. I hope it is okay I mention that here, just in case others might be spared. Thank you for writing Everything, sending so much love.
Reading your article, I was struck that there is something of Salmon in what you share: the words Homing In, your inability to use feet and hands well, the shoring up and resting, your new home place which (I hope I recall correctly) is in the land of your heritage. I experience Salmon in you. Blessings and healing to you, and long wanders to come.
Good to hear you are able to be out in the hills again. I am in recovery from sepsis and some lingering issues and challenges that came with that rendered me somewhat still for a long while. It’s truly humbling and I am still regaining strength and stamina. Being struck down suddenly is quite a shock and the healing truly takes time. Blessings on your continued healing and walking!
So glad you have an effective treatment regimen that makes it finally possible for you to roam your lands. That incredible old rowan tree has surely missed your conversations. You have much to discuss!
I do so value what you write and teach – thank you!
Sharon
Wishing healing light and a speedy recovery
Thank you for your recent talks , really enjoyable
So sorry you’ve been hurting, Sharon. Not fun. Glad the meds are helping. Thank you for carrying on with webinars throughout your illness. It must have been difficult. Sending you light and healing!
I am so grateful you finally got treatment that helps, and that you’re beginning to explore in the ways you love–and share with us! My heart ached for you when I first heard of that sudden onset–that’s what happened to my mother, 60 some years ago when so little was known about rheumatoid. Some of the treatments were nothing short of brutal, themselves. I was her caregiver all during my teenage years and I know how agonizing that disease can be.
Like you, the women in our family have always loved and needed landscape, to be OUT there, to walk, to explore, to ground ourselves. She had to give all that up far too young; 1999, for me, though I’ve found ways, as you did. It’s frustrating to always have to think about how rough the ground is, and how far I dare venture, but venture we do, don’t we! Must needs…
Dear Sharon, i cannot begin to tell you how much you have inspired me in my quedts and dtorytelling… and I appreciate your sharing
Of your hardships. May the blessingof good health grow and flourish just as the tree you loved back into its bounteousness (is that a. Word?). Arohanui
Sharon,
No matter how far you are able to go, just outside the door or further, may the natural world fill you with color and scent, textures ,and movements in the sky, movements among the trees and plants and over and under the earth and fill your ears with every sort of sound. May your legs and arms, hands and fingers become resilient and stronger. Your words propel me to go outside, and to think of you (and your respondents) wishing you well as I take in the natural world in the city.
Dear Sharon. Your powerful achingly beautiful story has become yet another ‘river for life’ from the source place. Grow strong and enjoy that exquisite place in Wales
Merrill
Aotearoa NZ
Dear Sharon,
Your last months sound like a deep and unpretty lesson in life.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
It shook me up and led me to re evaluate my priorities.
I send you healing hopes and wishes from over here in East Kent.
Rest, Rest and more Rest
Laura
Dear Sharon, How very difficult for you. Thank you so much for sharing this. I had a relatively minor but not unrelated experience during the first bout of ‘lockdown’. I live alone. I am a plain air painter. Mobility is a requirement and has always been assumed. A bad sprain prevented me from leaving my house. Access denied even to the square mile around me that had become my life jacket and my muse. The ground I used to simply walk through to get somewhere else had become creatively deliciously rich. One mile had become world.
Suddenly that ‘world’ was unavailable. I sat with my one large foot elevated and looked out of the window. I found my focus settling on the gap in the outer breakwater of Portland harbour. It is a very long way away. It occupies one percent of the picture plane set out by my window. Most unexpectedly, that gap in the breakwater ‘grew’. That far away inaccessible place where the white waves were colliding and exploding …filled my field of vision and filled my paper as I painted.
It had happened again: one window’s worth had become ‘world’ once again.
Dear Sharon, Thank you for this writing—your words, books, articles and classes offer so much to us as readers and students, and it’s an unexpected gift for you to also connect in the so personal arena of pain and physical limitation. Last year I too was laid low, after a lifetime of active walking, dancing, running, kayaking—by debilitating back pain. Nearly the whole year was spent mainly lying on my front, sometimes standing, certainly not out walking. Now two years after it began I am taking walks again in my beloved home woods and beaches, and the gift of gratitude is so utterly profound. May you be blessed with continued recovery and expanding circles of exploration in your new Welsh home. The land will surely recognize you and take part in your healing. Kind thoughts from the Pacific Northwest.
Dear Sharon,
Thank you so much for sharing your journey with is. I am sorry to hear of the illness you have been experiencing and its timing with the pandemic and relocation. That you have used it to find a new way to make a home in new surroundindgs is an inspiration to us all.
On American Thanksgiving Day I am glad to have a place to write to you to express my gratitude for taking your year-longThis Mythic Life course. It has been a rich blessing in my life and I look forward to continuing in the Bone Cave with you. May you walk on your path with ease.
As always, Sharon – your writing makes my heart sing. And this one touched me in a different, deeper way, as I live along the Trent Severn waterway in Ontario – so-named by past settlers from your lands – in the territory of the Anishinaabe. Hope you find yourself on many more walks along your river as I hope to do so along mine…