Welcome friends, familiar and new. I’m Jan and I live in Brittany in a house that we are renovating and hold spaces for those on journeys of transformation. I believe story is powerful and that the earth offers healing through our daily connection and herbal allies. Let’s create a little alchemy together.
June began in a village just beyond the small town of Plougasnou, a week to walk, write and read while my husband walks, draws and paints. A huge cedar tree and the warm stone of the neighbours' house jars of wild flowers brighten room. In the kitchen, plump ox-eye daisies. On the table in the covered veranda, where we ate our meals watching the turquoise water rise and fall, a 1930s emerald La Loraine glass of tall pink and white daisies  and pink valerian, another in the bedroom. I’m spending time with daisy each day of June and it’s as if Hélène, who takes care of the house, had anticipated my companion.
As the evening sun bleached the sky we walked the seashore —
Rocks
Sand
Pebbles
Kelp
Pink granite
Shells
Waves
Climbing the headland, sea washed on both sides of us, the June flora unselfconscious in its lavish abundance — elder offering great saucers of frothy cream, ox-eye daisies, tall and joyous, dancing together, foxgloves dripping magenta and mischief, pennywort towers and hairy-legged Queen Anne's lace. Higher on the headland, were emerald fern and red campion, mauve frills of thrift swaying to the lilt of waves, plantain raising long stems heavy with seed, sea turquoise and cobalt
SorrelÂ
Buttercups
Bramble
White clover
Honeysuckle
Dog rose
Valerian
Violet
While Adam clambered around rocks to take photographs or make quick sketches, I lingered with the plants, listening to the land. How much it matters that we tend this earth, that we don't destroy our home or each other. There are such riches for everyone on this earth. We should not be telling stories not of scarcity and competition. We should not be lauding individuation and self-made heroes, but community, abundance, mutuality... gatherings of of mature in connection where we hear one another's voices, the songs of ancestors, plants, animals, non-human and human...Â
Rosemary
Rampion
Self-heal
Vetch
Lavender
Cranesbill
Vervain
Stonecrop
Hawksbeard
Poppy
Cow-wheat
Tree mallow
Sheepbit
Wild radish
Calendula
And everywhere daisies and ox-eye daisies, wide-eyed, following the sun. Â
Half way through the week I held space for a wonderful group who have been exploring herbs of summer with me. We are moving from Beltane to Summer Solstice and have been tending the fire element — the fire of the heart and of digestion, the ways we are permeable to this element. We talked about being bodiful in the world —  how it's all too easy for those of us who are writers to become cerebral and sedentary. Yet great art and great writing demand that we move in the world with our senses open, that we connect to our own body and to the bodies of plants, animals (human and non-human) and the earth.Â
We need to be in our bodies in order to also be in our souls, and emotions, in order to touch the numinous, make connections and create. And the more than human world is a wonderful place to bring us back to this truth.
We talked about how we feel in our skins and how this effects how we nurture our embodiment. The world can sometimes leave us feeling that all we want to do is retreat. Yet this is not a time to withdraw, but to gather and listen and tend. Â This is a time to support one another to be at home in our skins. This is a time to value good boundaries whilst also recognising how permeable we are, how interdependent we are.
Skin comes with so many metaphors. It's a physical boundary as well as a metaphorical and emotional one. Skin keeps things out, but also lets things in — nourishing oils, sunlight, balms, vitamin D and and sometimes this includes things we don't want, particularly organic toxins.
How do you feel in your skin?
What gets under your skin?
What runs only skin deep?
What makes you jump out of your skin?
What makes your skin crawl?
Make some tea from one or more herbs that are good for boundaries — yarrow, nettle leaf, rose, hawthorn... Sit with the tea, let the aroma in first. As you drink it, think about the balance of your boundaries and permeability.Â
Are you happy with this balance?Â
Do you need to be more permeable or less?Â
More boundaried or less?Â
In what areas? In what ways?
This isn't about judgement. Simply think of one small thing you could do to shift the balance in the direction you'd like to feel more comfortable in your skin.
Nettles for skin
And you might like to make this nettle soup to nourish skin and balance the boundaries. Nettles are wonderful for the skin, despite what you might think if you get stung by one. They’re loaded with antihistamines, anti-oxcidants, iron, and amino acids. Their effect on the gut and as a lymphatic and kidney support also helps the skin and they contain fatty acids that are good for the skin’s elasticity.
You need thick rubber gloves to gather your nettles. Choose leaves from higher up the plant that are young and fresh and vibrant green. Sort and discard any leaves with dark patches and any tough stems which are hard to blend, then wash the nettles in a colander.
If you would like to join a future herbal course the next one, 'In the fruitful abundance, runs from Lammas to Autumn Equinox, and you can find all the details here.
And I'd love you to join me for a one-off workshop —
gather listen tender
How do we write with all our senses open?
How do we listen to what is other and yet is connected to us and all life?
How do we tender deep attention in a world always in a rush?
How do we show ourselves the tenderness of lingering with colour and shape, scent, taste, texture and intuition?
How do we nurture clear-seeing (clairvoyance) in our writing?
Writing that is intentional and done with thought and heart, writing that is rooted in the earth is done when we gather, listen, tender. More and more we need community. We need to listen to the non-human world and to each other, opening to intuition and inspiration.
When we tender ourselves to the work and work with tenderness, wonderful things happen.
I’d love you to join me for a Lammas workshop — a time to gather to celebrate the land’s generosity, a time of offerings of gratitude.
Let’s gather,listen and tender together and let’s create some alchemy.
The workshop will be on Thursday August 1 at 1pm BST (for other time zones see Time Buddy) and will last for 90 minutes.
Working with prompts from word and image, we’ll gather in community, listen to the land and to each other, tend to our stories and allow what is tender to be heard.
The investment is £14 (the course is free to paid subscribers — you don’t need to join to be sent the link)
For free subscribers sign up below and I’ll send out the zoom registration to everyone who joins by July 31 midnight BST
or join my paid annual subscribers here on Substack and get free entry to this and future occasional workshops plus a weekly mini-podcast on nurturing hope as writers and a 12 chapter journalling course delivered in monthly installments (all back issues available) with over 100 writing exercises.
A subscription is normally £60 a year, but if you sign up for an annual subscription by July 22 there’s a discount of 30% making it only £42 for the year.
I'm so glad you mentioned nettles. Stinging nettles have been used to treat some of the symptoms of benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH).