Slow, curious, movement

A pilgrimage to the motherlands

After a summer of very hard work on our farm, while I was also penning my upcoming folk opera, and adventuring with young children, I did a compassionate inquiry into some chronic pain I happen to live with.

It told me the already obvious (although not obvious to me): that I was getting spread too thin with farm life, and that some kind of movement is calling.

We have put our farm up for sale, and are currently building a tiny house, along with some separate moveable spaces where I can still do much of my recording.

My partner Ian and I began our journey 11 years ago, by building a tiny house together.

It appears we are recapitulating.

This leads me to announcing a bit more movement:

Over the last 2 years, a meditation group out of Gdansk, Poland has been translating some of my songs and chants, and they have invited me to lead a retreat and perform a concert in September.

My Kashubian ancestors (great, great grandparents) lived just 30 minutes away from Gdansk, and we are happy to announce, we will be touching down in those lands.

We are aware of the both the preciousness, and the precariousness, near this region, so we have booked our flights to London, and then other flights to Gdansk with cancelation insurance on all of them, and if we must, I will perform the concert and lead the retreat via Zoom. (But, I must say, there is an odd sense of courage hovering in my chest at the moment.)

As our mother the earth keeps on sending us signals that she will not be colonized, and perhaps because I sense so deeply that we are her, I keep being drawn to sending a question to the future… I am one of those unhinged people who believes the future of economics will be local…. but also… the question needs to be asked… what will curious, sustainable pilgrimage or sacred movement look like?

So after touching our feet to Poland, my family and I will be slowly exploring, and doing research, mostly in the West Highlands, the Hebrides, Ireland, then back across to Snowdonia, culminating in the Glastonbury region.

We will be carrying small back packs and rain gear and will be moving slowly, sometimes on foot, exploring the “three l’s” - legends, language, land - and sensing the incarnate presence inside of them. This is of course connected to deeper research for at least two future albums, but will also deepen ‘Hiraeth’ (the folk opera). (Also… happily for our children, the regions we will be visiting also coincide with their passion for palaeontology.)

In the midst of this slow, curious, movement, there is room for 4 or 5 concerts (or a day retreat), so please be in touch if you are connected to retreat centres, churches, house concerts, pubs.

For at least two of these, I want to perform the folk opera ‘Hiraeth’, which can happily dance inside the Christian household, but certainly happily outside of it, too.

Note that I am very open to playing at least two concerts to raise funds for local initiatives, as I want to live and lean deeply into the gift economy during this adventure.