About | Belinda Ashton

There is no charm equal to

tenderness of heart.

JANE AUSTEN

‘Part of your heart will always be elsewhere.’ And yes, in my own experience, these words are so true... I see myself as African-Anglo, having grown up in Cape Town but, being nomadic at heart, spending much of my time in the UK, where I feel a spiritual affinity with the culture and the immense charm of its rural landscapes.

This beautiful world... I so appreciate poetry and caring and the thoughtfulness of kind words. I find inspiration in clouds drifting across autumn skies and the scent of the rain before winter storms. I love being surrounded by vases of flowers and a soulful room filled with books, paintings, and scatter cushions and, of course, the background sounds of birdsong or the wind idling through leafy branches of the bramble hedge. I love waking up each day knowing that the subtle magic of life stretches before me and then stepping into the fresh, clear dawn, filled with gratitude for the simplicity of small moments and the loveliness of it all.

I also so appreciate people who have no idea how truly wonderful they are; they just go about their lives, shining their light and making everyone feel nice and, through their kindness of being, making the world a happier place.

Sharing these soulful words by Irish poet John O’Donohue: ‘May I live this day compassionate of heart, clear in word, gracious in awareness, courageous in thought, generous in love.’ A blessing, an invocation for each day.

Through my work as a nature writer and visual storyteller, I share stories to help deepen our awareness and understanding of the beautiful living world and our ever-changing place in it, so that we can reimagine a way of being that is gentler, more considerate of nature and of one another. I weave into my work the principles of ecopsychology and our emotional connections to the land, blending poetic narratives with a gentle exploration of nature-based living, with a particular focus on finding ways to reduce our daily environmental impacts.

I live between the Cotswolds, UK, and Cape Town.

Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness.

DAVID WHYTE

Working for wildlife & wild places

After years of writing and searching and travelling into remote landscapes to deepen my understanding of place and connection - to self and to the wider living world – I began sharing much of what I learnt through publications and thought-provoking initiatives.

Professional background

tenalach

Gaelic for the relationship one has with the land, the sky, the water: a deep connection that allows one to hear the earth sing and be one with nature

Will the memory of our lives remain
amidst these gentle places of the soul,
where we have walked so freely,
and together, all these years…

SMALL GIFTS FOR MY GRANDDAUGHTER

Having grown up in a home where my parents have a love for classical music, I too fill my life with music and the inspiration of poems and written words. Working in my study with the Moonlight Sonata or Irish composer John Field’s Nocturnes playing quietly in the background is, for me, one of life’s true pleasures.

Years ago, while busy with research for a project that I was working on, I came across a few words by Albert Camus that said, ‘I like people who dream or talk to themselves interminably…they are here and elsewhere,’ and I thought, yes, this is me! And it felt comforting having these words with me, kept between pages in my journal, for surely it is in the dreaming, amid the reality of everyday life, that we connect, for a while, and perhaps more eloquently, with the true magic of life?

I am busy studying towards becoming a Wild Nature mentor with the vision of offering therapy and immersive sessions to deepen one's innate relating to nature and to self.

My Cotswolds Life

REFLECTIONS ON

The exceeding beauty of the earth, in her splendour of life, yields a new thought with every petal. The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live...

The Life of the Fields

RICHARD JEFFERIES

Peace is a practice not a hope...

Over time, and having worked within many nature awareness programmes, I have learnt that it is through our emotional bonding with the land that we develop an ethos of care and compassion for the natural world, at a time when so much of all that is wild and free is being lost, perhaps forever.