03/06/2026
Just over a year ago, the day after I gave a lecture in Glastonbury, I stopped in a small town called Castle Cary.
Previously, I had traced some very old family lines to that area and wanted to see it with my own eyes. I parked, crossed the street, and I asked a friendly face to take this quick, slightly cheeky photo.
At the time I didn’t consciously notice the poster behind me.
Only later did I realize the older gentleman in the window is standing almost exactly the same way I am… hand on hip… relaxed… like some future version of myself as though time folded in for us to exist at once in this place in the world.
What I remember most about that moment wasn’t the photo though. It was the feeling.
For one of the first times in my life, standing in a small village far from home, my nervous system did something unexpected. It softened. Settled. As if my body was saying, “Yes… a life like this could make sense.” Where meaning, community, good work, and belonging cohabitated.
In mind-body medicine we talk a lot about listening to the body’s signals of safety and resonance. Sometimes they arrive in ordinary moments… a street corner, a quiet town, a photograph you almost didn’t take.
The body often recognizes truth before the mind catches up. Looking at this photo now still brings tears echoing recognition to my eyes.
Sometimes a place, a moment, or even an accidental alignment in a photograph reminds us of something deeper we’re moving toward.
And when that happens… it’s worth paying attention.
p.s. the other two photos are during the same trip, same cardigan, but one at my lecture (turned somatic experiential workshop) and the other atop Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh days later.
