Beginning
🪶 THE BEGINNING
If you are new to this space, this is the place to begin.
What is shared here is not a system, a method, or a set of beliefs to adopt. It is a way of relating — to land, to body, to time, and to attention — that has taken shape through lived experience rather than instruction.
I use the word Forestwalking to describe this way of being.
It is not something I set out to create. It is something I returned to. There has always been a quiet pull toward it — a sense of recognition rather than discovery. A draw toward the deeper parts of the woods, the places less travelled, where the edges feel less defined. Not for escape, but for something more direct: a way of being that feels raw, grounded, and unfiltered.
Forestwalking is not a practice in the structured sense, nor something that can be taught or followed step by step. It is a returning — to direct contact with the world as it is, without the usual layers of noise, explanation, or control. It happens most often in wild places, but it is not defined by location. It is defined by how those places are met: slowly, openly, and with as little distance as possible between body and land.
What you will find here grows from that.
Much of modern life encourages us to explain, justify, and define. This space moves differently. It is less concerned with answers, and more with the quality of attention brought to experience. Meaning is not imposed. It emerges.
The writing here moves through three strands, though in practice they are not separate.
One is lived experience — time spent walking, standing, sitting, and listening in wild places. These are not journeys with destinations, but acts of return. These reflections sit within Forestwalking.
Another is understanding — an attempt to describe what becomes visible when experience is given space to unfold. These writings explore relationship, perception, and the quiet patterns that shape how we belong. These can be found under Ways of Seeing.
The third is expression — forms shaped through contact with materials such as wood, antler, and leather. These are not designed in the usual sense, but revealed through a process of listening and removal. These are gathered under Crafting the Path.
You do not need to read anything in order. There is no correct way to move through this space.
If something resonates, follow it.
If it does not, leave it.
This is not a place built on conclusions.
It is a place shaped by attention.
These ideas and experiences are explored more fully in Forestwalking: Reflections of a Wild Soul, but nothing here requires prior reading or agreement. What matters is not whether something is accepted, but whether it is recognised.
There is no beginning in any absolute sense.
Only the point at which you start to notice.
LINK TO MY BOOK:
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