Jenny Archard: Woodland Journeys

20/12/2025

Midwinter Collection! It’s the dark time. Dark moon, winter solstice just about overlapping.

I have no photos of starry skies I’ve walked with or shooting stars who have graced the dark these past days.

Make the most of this time - being in and with the dark and all she brings you. Solace? Expansion? Protection? Stillness? Fear? Joy? Whatever the feelings, give being in the dark a go . For me so far I’ve felt connection deepened and expansion beyond my skin.

18/12/2025

A juicy first gathering for/of 'In the Dark - together'. This poem 'Sweet Darkness' from David Whyte was an inspiration for us.

https://onbeing.org/poetry/sweet-darkness/

Sweet Darkness
by David Whyte

Listen
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone,
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone, no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love. The dark will be your home tonight. […]

11/11/2025

Ah … the first Association for Outdoor Therapy conference at Plas y Brenin. That was full!! Mountains, lakes and so many people , so many words, so many feelings. Natalie Vickers and I walked up the hill and met this small waterfall and stream, much hilarity and bubbling water giggles. My workshop was right near the end of the event; connecting everyone with circle practice, themselves, the wild, and my story with Woodlanders.

Thanks

30/10/2025

It's been a while since the last newsletter, as I adjust my life and transition into new ways of working. For me, Samhain is lighting the way through the change, and I'm happy to share the marking of this important time with fellow humans and other relatives. It's the end/start of the Celtic calendar, and All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day. If there is only one to mark, make it this one....

https://mailchi.mp/682fa2eb3782/bi3iltl6j0-10343759

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...