June 2025: Life vision and more from the oak tree
I shed blood under the oak tree, where I’d had a blissful morning laying on my front filling in my journal with the sun on my back: I felt as if I was progressing along my soul’s path, and became a committee member of the Work That Reconnects Network to that end. Listening to American Jungian psychoanalyst, author, and public speaker, James Hollis talking on the YouTube video, The Summons of the Soul, enabled me to see that I’m being bold in response to fear and that I’m doing the deep work of negotiating change.
In applying for the Sir John Houghton bursary to finance my Green Building MSc at the Centre for Alternative Technology starting in September, I had to dig around in the cupboard for my certificates, transcripts and academic references from 30 years ago. In so doing I found a photo of me as a baby with an open, joyful expression on my face, wearing a brown and cream 1970’s dress (two of my favourite colours). She’s getting me through my days right now.
Here’s what I wrote on the bursary application:
I envisage building my own cob hybrid and using the arts, green building principles and sylvotherapy to aid self-exploration, expression, empowerment and interconnection for incest survivors in a more equitable, inhabitable world.
At nearly 50, my journeys as an all-round artist, survivor, organic gardener and wild camper have converged into an ever deepening exploration of natural building and sylvotherapy.
I’d love to build or retrofit affordable safe spaces with a reduced embodied ecological footprint which are linked with all beings and respect the land of our ancestors.
My certifications in sylvotherapy, integrative psychotherapy, and related arts (BA) plus my role as an ecotherapy buddy volunteer at a permaculture-run peace garden, have boosted my cultural intelligence and enriched my understanding of the therapeutic benefits of how nature impacts the well-being of individuals as a whole. This knowledge will inform the nature-integrated and human-centred design and layout of my green building projects.
As host of Tudor Crescent Village in the City, I’ve strengthened my micro-local community (initiating pavement ‘chalk talk’ with my neighbours) for the generation of beauty, goodness and climate-friendly practices, plus I’ve sold my allotment-grown organic food and fermented drinks using locally sourced upcycled glass bottles.
Green building practices are constantly evolving and backpacking has taught me resilience in uncertain times, efficiency in reducing waste and energy consumption, and a forward-thinking approach.
Obtaining 98% for a forensic science introduction shows me to possess an analytical brain for interpreting evidence to reflect on, for example, the root causes of a structural failure.
Extensive musical skills; teamwork, discipline, precision, observation, and the sensitivity to engage with the environment’s patterns and rhythms, have primed me for the rigors of studying green building.
The MSc in Green Building at CAT will grant me the hands-on experience I need to make my vision a reality.
Google could provide me with no answer to my question, “How can green building help incest survivors?” so there’s an opportunity for pioneering research here. Also my medical records went missing along with my diagnosis of having abuse-related OCD / PTSD. I had to fight to prove that I have these conditions for a fit note, which was extremely retraumatizing and I needn’t have been put through any of it. Bottom line was, nobody cared. This highlighted to me just how needed my Incest Survivor’s Roar project: using the arts, green building principles and sylvotherapy to aid self-exploration, expression, empowerment and interconnection for incest survivors actually is.
I treated myself to the new OEX Phoxx 111 tent, which I’m delighted with. I tested it under the protective arm of the oak tree which drew me into its company.
In the garden a spray of oxeye daisies appeared in place of a rose bush that died, and the redcurrant, blackcurrant, strawberry and sweet purple gooseberry harvest was amazing: these plants survived the transplantation from my allotments well, plus the wisteria and grape cuttings are thriving at last. The scent of honeysuckle wafting into my office early morning was divine, and I learnt more about broadleaf, conifer, pioneer and climax trees.
I experienced an all-over bursitis relapse followed by a mental health crisis, but doing my first shifts as an Ecotherapy Buddy Volunteer at Forest Farm Peace Garden, Hainault, helped: I absolutely love it there and found it rewarding sharing my knowledge of plants, nature and natural building, and I helped to make a hugelkultur raised bed.
In preparation for teaching jazz piano again, I’ve been reading the fascinating book, The Story of Jazz by Marshall W. Stearns and listening to all of the jazz musicians and songs he mentions.
Oak tree sit-spot - June 2025
Please see my June 2025 oak tree videos here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk99iJ6gY68gjbstO3S-q67eN605h7oga.
Approximately 6.30 am. Fresh and warm. Two grown great tits (?) fighting; tumbling over each other in midair near to me. I pocket a filoplume feather with a yellow tuft of barbs. A woodpecker war between two great spots over a limb halfway up the oak. One flies off while the other one, upside down, walks along the compression wood. Does this oak tree and its company recognise me? Grass spikes slow-moving behind me feel like a person. The woodpecker pair fly to an outer branch and spar. A robin (?) calling very loudly; persistently. An audience of high grass in seed becomes creamy green rolling waves during stiffer breezes. The sun obscuring my view of activity. The bird voice that's always here is mysteriously not present. I pick up a dead baby oak leaf turning into a skeleton and cradle its roughness between my fingers. A choir of birds in surround sound. Trunk fissures. Laying on my front writing this, I feel welcome sunshine on my back. A hovering wasp lands on my Bergen then disappears. The citronella candle won't stay lit. A twitchy grey squirrel whose fluffy tail resembles a grass spike. Gazing through a letterbox onto the grassland formed by the natural fence, a sapling, and leaves at the very ends of the wiriest oak tree twigs. A plane taking off I can almost read the name of. The lady with a grey-blonde bob, sunglasses and a big orange dog (a regular at this time), waves at me. Trying to stop insects from killing themselves in my tea by covering the cup with my hand. Totally blissed out. Builders not far off, clanking metal.
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6.40 am. Cool. Calming. I don't want to go on; I don't know how to go on. Mysterious knocking (coming from the tree trunk)? that is more human-sounding than woodpecker. Warmth of the rising sun at just the right time. Following with my eyes little birds flitting between branches. They land so light as to do no harm. The higher the sun, the more invisible the tree. A magpie comes into land by the trunk while another one preens itself as it hops from branch to branch. Suddenly it becomes cold and darker... grey clouds. There is no escaping the heat. A grey squirrel disguised by oak leaves bounces the tree shoots. A fox trots by after staring at me, pausing to pee as it goes.
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7.07 am. Autumn has arrived early: accelerated seasons. I've never known ripe blackberries at the end of June. Overcast, breezy, cool. Far off birdsong. The oak tree feels empty and dead, or is that just how I'm feeling? Spikes and part of the stems of the long grass are a cream colour; dying. Chiffchaff. A section of the brown natural fence is covered in two bowl-shaped, dense cobwebs. Traffic noise is louder than bird noise. Parched grass: more visible ground surrounding the tree to sit on. I was positioned very close to the trunk yesterday, and was left alone by biting insects. I'm sleepy. I would walk away from all the pressure others are putting me under if it wasn't for my animals. I keep thinking about the hedgehog that had been run over I saw on the way here that a crow was helping itself to the innards of. I managed to nudge it onto the pavement so at least it wouldn't keep getting run over. The water bladder makes a nice cool pillow for my head. Silhouetted chicks sorting out their rest area / organising leaves on a branch. The closer I pay attention, the more I soften. A wasp hovering over my face. A dead green insect with black eyes and one wing lands on my page. Acorns forming. Spicy smells.
