2025

40th birthday

What a year.

While our shared home is burning, our relatives are going extinct, and the world has tipped into chaos; while genocide has become an acceptable act of violence and opposing it a crime; while UK streets are filled with flags symbolising rising racism; here I am, on this beautiful Devon hillside, feeling deeply connected to this land I’ve called home for the past 17 years and surrounded by people doing profoundly good work locally and across the wider world. In this little oasis, our day-to-day challenges are never absent but met with presence because we are driven by our cause and held by deep gratitude for this gift of life.

I have dedicated my life and work to helping others foster a deep connection with themselves and the Earth. Despite all the beauty I see, there is no moment when I turn a blind eye to the suffering of humans and more-than-humans alike. This year, I truly understood what it means to hold both joy and grief, my own and the world’s, in my cupped hands.

My loss this year was immense. A Joey-shaped hole, impossible to fill. With all his beauty, vulnerability, wisdom, and silliness, Joey left his human form and became an ancestor. 

Those who know my bubbly, full-of-life hummingbird self missed me as they saw me, day after day, moving through grief. I now know what it means to be a hummingbird with a broken wing - a name Joey once gave me. (At his ceremony, one wing of the delicately hand-carved wooden hummingbird necklace broke. Symbolic and exact)

This year also brought many gifts: experiences, friendships, healing and wisdom. So many inspiring people entered my life. Some became dearest friends, opening their hearts, homes, and worlds to me in ways that have enhanced my life. 

I found inspiration in people like Bruce Parry, who showed me living proof that the idea that “the true nature of humans is competition” is a myth; that egalitarian communities, among the most peaceful in the world, thrive through collaboration.

I met Brian Eno who became one of my greatest inspirations and whose music has never stopped playing in my home. Introduced on stage as someone who came close to immense wealth yet chose integrity, his work from the Long Now Foundation to his support for Palestine, and the beauty of Lullaby embodies the kind of elders I want to see in the world: one who creates art and takes action, holding creativity and responsibility together.

I’m inspired by economist Kate Raworth, whom I like to imagine as an octopus - mind and heart in alliance -  turning complex ideas like finance into a kind of intellectual circus: creative, playful, and impossible to ignore, and always reminding us that a thriving society must be both ecologically safe and socially just, where equity and meeting everyone’s needs matter as much as planetary health; guiding us back to our shared home: nature

Among friends and family, there is one little human who brings me joy every single day. In the rare moments I see her, I disappear into her magical world. Miss T, I love you. You motivate me to keep trying, to keep contributing to a more beautiful world, and remind me the importance of The Children’s Fire pledge as I lead my groups. 

I am deeply grateful for the fires that keep me company; fires that heal me, warm me, inside and out, bringing ceremony to each moment.

I am grateful for the medicine of these lands and others, which have supported my healing in ways I could never have imagined. I'm grateful for my moon cycle, for its power and becoming my super power, and its reminder to slow down. 

I’m grateful to those who come to my talks, workshops, and programmes. It is an honour to hold space, to hold pain and joy, and to facilitate outward action. Thank you for your trust. Thank you for helping bring my stories into the world.

Wales became a sanctuary for me this year. From the mountains of Snowdon to Cadair Idris, Mona and beyond, it feels like a magic pill, bringing me back to life in the darkest moments.

I am grateful for the dawn. Despite all the beauty, this has been a very hard year. Dawn has been my quiet companion, holding me in vulnerability with silence and patience. Each day, I gathered my strength, soaked in the morning light, and leaned in again.

2026; I do not expect you to be all that easy. But I intend to meet you with grace and resilience, with lightness and fierce strength.

May humans remember their humanity and act from kindness, not brutality.

May we continue to feel the awe of this life.