Prompted by Nature

Hello and welcome to series three, episode seven of the podcast. I’m so happy to introduce to you today’s guest, the incredibly talented land artist, Rosalind Lowry.

Rosalind Lowry is an award winning artist born in Northern Ireland who attended Chelsea College of Art and Central St. Martins before returning to her native land to set up her studio. Her practice is based on environmental themes and concerns, and using art as an intervention. She works in sculpture, land art and installations. Rosalind has completed a number of residencies across the world, from Rathlin Island to a North Vietnam residency awarded by the Arts Council which focused on natural dyes, another in Quebec dedicated to derelict old buildings, and a recent residency in 2019 for the State Government of Alaska in the national parks. Rosalind lived and worked alone in a remote area of the Alaskan wilderness creating a land art trail to attract people into the state parks. In 2018 Rosalind was one of 100 female artists across the UK chosen to create an artwork for the Artichoke Trust UK to celebrate 100 years of women having the vote. In early 2020, just before lockdown, Rosalind installed a commission of a large environmental sculpture in Belfast Cathedral called The Ark created from fallen branches of local native trees. For the past 2 years Rosalind has been Artist in Residence on the boglands of County Tyrone in Ireland for the Heritage Lottery and Lough Neagh Landscape Partnership, creating a series of installations across the bogs with a view to encouraging preservation of the land and highlighting the endangered animal and plant life on the boglands.

In this episode, we discuss:

Just one thing to note is that the reception was a bit touch-and-go at times but hopefully that doesn’t come through too much - it’s just a note for a couple of patches where Rosalind goes a bit fuzzy.

You can find Rosalind stunning work over on her website: www.rosalindlowryartist.com and on Instagram @rosalindlowry

As pretty much everything I put out is free, it would mean the world to me if you would rate, review, subscribe and share this episode and any others you have enjoyed so far. And if you would like to go a little deeper, my patreon community starts from £3 per month and I share extra prompts, zines, workbooks and recorded ‘write-with-me’ sessions. That’s over on www.patreon.com/promptedbynature

Remember to come and say hello on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or pop over my my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find all of my workbooks and zines to purchase. I’m taking a bit of a break from most teaching for now but events will go up there when things start up again.

Hello and welcome to series 3 episode 6 of Prompted by Nature. I hope this one finds you well. so we are finally emerging slowly from our third period of lockdown here in the UK and I’m thrilled that my in-person events are starting up again. If you are local to Brighton and Hove or Sussex, my forest-based creativity day retreat at back at the wonderful Wilderness Woods and I now have new monthly sessions at both forest and seaside locations down here in Brighton and Hove. Just pop to the website for more information and to book onto any of those. And if you are feeling a little lacking in inspiration, my Patreon is now in full-swing with the start of a 30-day writing project for April plus there are a number of other nature-inspired creative writing resources including write-with-me sessions there for you if you’d like to join the community. Subscriptions are £3-£9 per month. Just go to www.patreon.com/promptedbynature to find out more.

So back to today’s episode. Today, I’m speaking with artist and illustrator, Jamey Anne Redway. I first saw Jamey on a Springwatch Instagram live in which she spoke about her love of the natural world and how she evokes this through her stunning illustrations.

Jamey is a self-taught artist & illustrator based in the beautiful Suffolk, who has always taken inspiration from nature, as you will see throughout her work. She paints with watercolours and Indian ink, with the window open listening to the sounds of the Swifts during the Summer and the Tawny Owls in the Winter. Jamey is currently an MA Illustration student at Falmouth University. She works for the British Trust for Ornithology and is a Trustee for the Norfolk Badger Trust.

In this conversation we discuss:

This was such a lovely conversation and Jamey’s passion for her work and for the natural world is infectious. I know you’re going to love this one!

You can find Jamey on her website www.jameyanndesigns.com and on Instagram @jameydraws or over on Twitter @jredway95

As always, I’m on www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find more information about my Patreon community, my upcoming events as well as my own writing and words.

Remember to stay around until the end of the episode when I’ll tell you about the writing prompt that follows this conversation. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after!

In this writing prompt, I talk you through a creative writing exercise I use in my creative writing sessions that I created inspired by Grayson Perry.  In his Art Club programme a few weeks ago, he described his process for creating a piece centred around a red Fox as being 'making each mark a reaction to the previous one.'

How to do the activity:

You are given a line, in this case our line is, 'I grow and nurture my plants to see where they will lead.'  Now write another line that is a reaction to this one, then the next is a reaction to this second one and so on until you have five lines, each of which is a 'reaction' to the previous one.

The example I give in this episode is: 

1.  'I wonder what it is like, inside the earth.'

2.  Rumbles from deep within shake foundations and roots, like some soft but terrible growl.'

3.  She sits atop the highest peak and looks down on the valley, regal in her stature, focused on what lies below.'

4.  'Prowling at night, fur on end, hackles up, they creep...'

Once you have your four/five lines, choose one to be your opening line and one to be your closing line.  Write for as long as you wish but set a timer so you have an end :-)  See what happens when you try to direct your piece towards a final line.

If you'd like to join the April Writing Project over on Patreon, just pop over to www.patreon.com/promptedbynature and select a tier that works for you.

Enjoy!  Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

@prompted.by.nature

Hello and welcome to series three, episode five of Prompted by Nature. I noticed recently that I’ve had a few more listeners to the podcast so I thought I’d just say a quick hello and give thanks to the countries we now have tuning in each week. I’m Helen, nice to meet you! And hello to listeners in the following places (run through list). Even if you’ve only listened in once and never again, thank you for being a part of this community!

So, back to today’s conversation. This week I speak with Medical Herbalist, Barbara Wilkinson of the Herb Society.

Following a lifelong passion for health and nutrition, Barbara qualified as a Consultant Medical Herbalist in 2012. She is a member of the College of Medicine and Integrated Health, and runs The Springfield Clinic of Natural Healing in Cheshire. Barbara is an advocate of cultivating the use of plants in everyday life and keen to empower people with the confidence to embrace food as medicine.

As well as running her own practice, Barbara is a Trustee for The Herb Society and has appeared as a guest speaker at numerous events and conferences. She has an allotment, where she grows produce that is used for medicines within the practice, and has worked with The Herb Society on designing gardens for the RHS Flower Show Tatton Park.

In 2018, she appeared in the BBC’s coverage of the RHS Flower Show, as part of a special segment looking at fermented foods. She recently supported Horticulturist Alys Fowler in producing her new book A Modern Herbal.

In this conversation we discuss:

Barbara is a font of wisdom and it was so lovely to learn about her relationship with plants and how this influences every part of her life. If you’re like to connect with Barbara, you can find her over on the Herb Society Instagram, where she posts about her allotment and information about how to grow herbs and plants as well as an abundance of wisdom about their therapeutic and medicinal value. The instagram is @theherbsocietyuk and website is www.herbsociety.org.uk

As always you can find me on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find all the information about my upcoming in-person events re-starting down here in East Sussex very soon plus my online classes. If you’d like to join the growing Patreon community, you can go to www.patreon.com/promptedbynature to find out more and sign up. Subscriptions are £3-£9 and you get a lot for your money! I’m on instagram @prompted.by.nature if you’d like to connect there.

Remember to stick around until after the conversation to hear about the writing prompt that follows this. episode. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after!

In this meditation and writing prompt, we begin with a simple breathing exercise to bring the awareness to the breath and the body in order to help you move into the creative mind.  Inspired by Grace's words on the importance of repairing, reusing and repurposing over recycling, I then discuss the idea of repurposing, repairing or restarting a creative piece or idea that you may have put down, put away or completely disregarded.  Nothing is wasted!  Everything you've every created, 'good' or 'bad' can form the basis of something else.

Enjoy!

Helen x

@prompted.by.nature

www.promptedbynature.co.uk 

Hello! Welcome to series 3 episode 4 our Prompted by Nature. Spring is now officially springing and the sun has returned…kind of, although it’s still a little chilly, not quite t-shirt weather yet!

In today’s episode, I’m so excited to share with you the conversation I had with Grace of Green Soul Grace last week.

Grace Hull is an environmental educator who created Green Soul Grace, a personal blog, shop and podcast to explore what conscious living really means, in the most holistic, inclusive and accessible way, and Earth For All, an environmental education organisation. She takes pleasure in encouraging and facilitating folks to begin or further their journey of holistic sustainability, and in celebrating how our cultural heritage shapes our sustainable practices. I first fond out about Grace’s work via Instagram and bought a couple of her gorgeous cutlery wraps for my two children for when picnic weather comes again!

In this conversation we discuss:

This was such a wonderful conversation and, really, I could have spoken to Grace for hours about her work! You can find Grace over on her social media @greensoulgrace, on her podcast of the same name, which you can find on Spotify, Apple and wherever you get your podcasts. Her websites are www.greensoulgrace.org on which you can also find her beautiful shop, and www.earthforall.org.uk where you can find out about Grace’s speaking gigs and her schools’ workshops as well as her business consultancy and longer term projects.

As always, I’m over on Instagram @prompted.by.nature and on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find out about my in-person events starting up again in April and my online offerings. If you’d like to join my Patreon, where I’ll be running writing projects, offering workbooks and e-zines plus a ton more, you can go to www.patreon.com/promptedbynature

If you like the podcast, I’d love it if you’d subscribe and give it a five-star review, it all helps to get these voices and this work ‘out there’!

Remember to stick around until the end when you’ll hear all about the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after!

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Thank you so much for listening - I absolutely loved that! In the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode we’ll be starting with the concept of ‘reduce, reuse, repair’ in all of its guises and seeing where it takes us! As always I’m sending you lots of love. Happy writing and I’ll speak to you soon.

A little glass of water (I don't like coffee :-D ) and a catch-up!  An impromptu solo episode in which I speak about:

Enjoy!

Helen x

www.prompedbynature.co.uk

www.patreon.com/promptedbynature

www.justgiving.com/helen-forester123

In this meditation and writing prompt, I read through Stella's poem 'Inner Space' from the 'Whispers from the Elements' section of her most recent book 'Whispers from Mother Earth' (available from her website www.stellatomlinson.com).

I then talk you through some of my own ideas for where you could take the poem and use it as a prompt for your own words and creativity.

Please feel free to share your words with me either via the contact box on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk or by connecting with me over on Instagram, @prompted.by.nature

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Inner Space from (Whispers from the Elements) by Stella Tomlinson

Vast. Deep. Free.

Oceanic. Limitless.

Infinite Love.

This is the space between my breaths…

The space between my thoughts.

I connect. I drop into this space.

And all is well.

Boundaries melt away. Tension dissolves.

I am supported.

Floating and buoyant on a sea of now.

No beginnings, no endings.

No comparisons.

Just here. Just love.

This space is always within me.

I unlock the door with the key of stillness.

I close my eyes and watch and feel the breath.

Time slows…My mind expands…I dissolve.

Pure consciousness expands within me and hold me in Her embrace.

I am alive.

At one.

Spacious.

Free.

I feel You in this space.

We are all here, where nothing divides us.

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Happy writing!

Helen x

Hello! Welcome to series 3 episode 2 of Prompted by Nature, thank you so much for being here! Lots has been going on on this side of things. The Benfield Valley Project, which I set up last year, is about to become a constituted community group - whoop! - I’ve got started on issue one of my upcoming seasonal e-zine, which I’m really excited about and my newsletter subscribers will know that I’ve done a ‘soft launch’ of my Patreon community. I’ll share the address in a moment but first let me tell you about today’s conversation.

Today I’m speaking with the wonderful Stella Tomlinson. Stella Tomlinson is a Priestess of the Goddess Brighid, an author and poet, and an experienced creative meditation guide. She helps women find peace, purpose and trust in life through nurturing a spiritual connection with Mother Earth.

Her work has evolved from 20+ years experience in personal and spiritual development through meditation, mindfulness, energy healing, yoga and Goddess and Earth-based spirituality and she's been writing and teaching in these fields since 2011. Her latest book is called 'Whispers From Mother Earth: Poems and prayers of healing, inspiration and transformation'.

I loved having this conversation with Stella. I’ve known her for a number of years now after we met at one of my mala-making workshops in Portsmouth. Our paths have mirrored each other in some ways and so I loved hearing about how she came to move away for the yoga world and into a life more aligned with her heart and inspired by her connection to the earth. You can find Stella on her website at www.stellatomlinson.com and on Instagram @stellasoulwisdom

As always you can find me over on www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can book onto any of my in-person or online events and sign up to my newsletter, on Patreon www.patreon.com/promptedbynature on Instagram @prompted.by.nature and if you’d like to find out more about my 100k run in aid of the Sussex Wildlife Trust in September, which I mentioned in the first episode of this series, or to sponsor me, you can go to www.justgiving.com/helen-forester123

Remember to hang around until the end of the episode when I’ll give you a little insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows this conversation. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after.

As always, if at any point in the meditation you feel that your mind is running away from you or your thoughts are taking over and you can't come back to it by focusing on the breath and letting those thoughts pass, just stop and come back another time. <3 

In this meditation, I talk you through a visualisation inspired by Rebecca's own practice.  The writing prompt is based on whatever comes through as a result of the visualisation.  Allow it to be a starting point for something that might end up being totally unrelated :-)

Let me know how you get on!

Happy writing!

Helen x

@prompted.by.nature

www.promptedbynature.co.uk