Jenny Archard: Woodland Journeys

23/06/2025

After the Solstice - https://mailchi.mp/27e225ed8cf2/calling-equinox-gather-and-more-10340751

A little update... it has been some time. 😊

19/03/2025

This resonates deeply with me. Do what is mine to do, as part of this beautiful living planet.

"Don't apologize for the sorrow, grief, and rage you feel. It is a measure of your humanity and your maturity. It is a measure of your open heart, and as your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal. That is what is happening as we see people honestly confronting the sorrows of our time.

You don't need to do everything. Do what calls your heart; effective action comes from love. It is unstoppable, and it is enough.

We are capable of suffering with our world, and that is the true meaning of compassion. It enables us to recognize our profound interconnectedness with all beings.

Don't ever apologize for crying for the trees burning in the Amazon or over the waters polluted from mines in the Rockies. The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe.

All is registered in the 'boundless heart' of the bodhisattva. Through our deepest and innermost responses to our world - to hunger and torture and the threat of annihilation - we touch that boundless heart.

The wave of the future is on the local level. Don't waste your heart and mind trying to pull down what is already destroying itself.

But come into where you're almost below the radar and reorganize life. We [need] communities where we live and work and fight for the future.

Out of this darkness a new world can arise, not to be constructed by our minds so much as to emerge from our dreams. Even though we cannot see clearly how it's going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination.

We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts."

~Joanna Macy

06/03/2025

As I walked in the spring morning sunshine yesterday I was so aware of the buds on the oak and ash trees near my home. So easy to see how the colours on the tops of trees, the edge of the branches, is now changing. Really with paying attention to over the next month, as buds swell and leaves will begin to appear. The light has really shifted. I notice in my home where the sunlight shows up as the seasons change. The sun is now high enough that I can sit here - at my laptop - and not be dazzled by the afternoon sun. I have big windows and lots of light, one of the many things I love about my little house.

The equinox is coming , and things are speeding up. That is the time when day and night light are even, before we head for full sun towards the solstice. Life is pushing forward here in the northern hemisphere! Thank goodness, with all the weird stuff going on in the world.

Do you want to come and find balance in the woods around the Equinox? Listen to what is emerging for you, for now and the year ahead? The seasonal ritual afternoon on 22nd March still has spaces. One might be yours...

https://bookwhen.com/woodlandjourneys =ev-sasp-20250322140000

Wild Hearth in the woods

06/02/2025

February has arrived. Imbolc and Brigid are here. Snowdrops, inspiration, emergence… A big outbreath, phew, the darkest days are done for another cycle. With the new moon, I notice my vitality has increased. Hurrah! Time to celebrate this shift in energy and feelings, to notice what is changing in...

06/02/2025

A spring invitation in these darkening times...

February has arrived. Imbolc and Brigid are here. Snowdrops, inspiration, emergence… A big outbreath, phew, the darkest days are done for another cycle. With the new moon, I notice my vitality has increased. Hurrah! Time to celebrate this shift in energy and feelings, to notice what is changing in...

29/10/2024

Untitled -

This new workshop promises to be an adventure into the darkness of life and be-coming with the meaning that is waiting. I’m busy reading Tyson Yunkaporta’s latest book, “Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking” and getting taken down trails into how our/my Western trained...

12/10/2024

Decomposition and Decay:November 2nd - https://mailchi.mp/de8a533c2364/decomposition-and-decaynovember-2nd

A Threshold into the Dark
This new workshop grows directly from listening with the land. Samhain marks this threshold into a new period. Being able to be fully in the dark times of the year and of our lives, to thrive there, is a sign of a healthy being. How do we cross that threshold, notice what shift is needed and find our own place with it? http://www.woodlandjourneys.org.uk/decomposition-and-decay-2024.html

02/05/2024

Loving the Hawthorne - around me there are both buds and flowers so here are some great recipes 💚

is the time when the earth's fertility is celebrated with the plants such as a masculine herb and the that we see as feminine flowers.
Fertility and growth can now be harnessed allowing for good planting times ahead. Sowing seed and planting out, but being aware of the old saying "nay cast a clout till may be out", meaning at the end of Hawthorn / May blossom is the time to remove a layer of clothing. Clout is clothing.
We like the plants will still need a cover close to hand, as the weather can still catch us out.
We are in the Ta**us period, a true earth sign that thrives on connections to nature and is encouraged to get hands in the earth.
We may dance round the to celebrate fertility or dance, sing and feast, share stories and have fun, giving a nod to our heritage, the ancestors of old that knew a thing or two about our connections with nature.