Quick note: My two intuitive storytelling trainings are already enrolling. If you’d like to learn Intuitive Storytelling with me this autumn check out this page.

When I was eighteen I went on my first “Forest School Camp”. Over one hundred children and thirty adults decamped to a field in a Welsh valley and became, over the space of two weeks, a bonded, muddy, happy “temporary tribe”.

It was an extraordinary experience which I sought out again and again. My twenties were mostly an isolated and lonely experience, punctuated by these intense episodes of communal living. We lived in tents, cooked on wood and shat in holes in the ground. It was usually wet, sometimes cold, often uncomfortable and always the highlight of my year.

At the end of one especially successful camp I remember returning to the house where I lived on my own. That night I dreamt I was part of a living organism, like a tree of humanity, in which we were all intimately linked and never far from each other, woven together with the natural world. Waking up in a square room, alone in a boxy house, was heartbreaking.

Throughout my life I’ve made choices that prioritise authentic connections. That’s left me with only a few friendships, but precious ones. I’ve found community, but only fleetingly, like on those camps. Throughout all this I’ve identified a hunger that I’m sure we all share – to be “in”, to belong, but at the same time to be be known for who we really are.

I have the idea that our tribal ancestors had a level of connection to one another, and to nature, that still exists as a genetic echo, and a soul-ache, in the hearts of all modern humans. I could wonder further back in time and speculate that our pre-human ancestors had an even deeper immersion in the web of life, the hunger for which lives in us still.

Disconnection and dislocation seem to be part of the experience of modern humans, and yet our ancient longings whisper that we belong to one another more than we realise, and that we belong to the Earth rather than the other way around.

I took these themes to my story-altar recently and received a story that carried me deeper into these longings and the promise they hold. Why not join me in remembering our place on this Earth, woven together into the fabric of life? You can find the story below.

With very best wishes,

Leo.

Would you like to learn to tell your own inner wisdom stories?
I’m offering two trainings this autumn, an 8 week online course beginning September 19th and an in-person training in Devon on 6th and 7th October. Find out more and book online here.

Reconnecting With The Web of Life