I was buoyed up by this group of young people. Brilliant! They met new experiences with humour, curiosity and willingness. I have been thinking a lot about the future recently, often with melancholia, and so to take this gang out into wilder places, freshened me and my spirits right up! …We can meet whatever is coming with courage and fervour – AND the next generation are born for it!

I was teaching in Holland for 2 weeks and wanted to add on a Kinship Workshop while I was out there. 7 of the students in my classes signed up for this one-day version of the workshop. In the morning we worked in the beautiful studio of chez The Monkies (https://www.facebook.com/themonkies/) and then took our bikes out into the countryside to work in meadows, next to waterways, in the long grass and under trees. I felt like I was in the Goonies… such fun to be traveling to different places in convoy by bicycle… “KINSHIP BY BICYCLE”… watch this space!

I also see the value of working out in places that are not very far away from our lives, to spend time to re-engage with urban wilds… on the outskirts of where we were in Schiedam (and if I also think back to last Autumn’s weekend workshop in Epping Forest), were neighbourhoods and housing estates just round the corner – and we still had wild encounters.

I want to check in with the tendency to always go away to ‘other’ places. Both here and there, urban and wild, near and far – need engagement from my human attention.

Here are some moments…

Thanks to all.