Be the Change UK is a digital festival taking place on Saturday 27th March, designed to connect people in meaningful ways and inspire social action. The one-day online event will feature movement, meditation, and discussions from leading activists on topics including anti-racism, welcoming refugees, and dismantling barriers to yoga.

The line-up will be hosted on Zoom across 3 virtual stages, from 9am-6pm, with individual passes available for each stage & a kids yoga session. Balance Garden is offering a 30% discount on the full festival pass ticket here.

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Wicker Woman candles is a small, new home-run business started by Elle Daniels, who was our guest on E05 of the podcast. She’s been making hand-poured soy wax, essential oil candles with delicious self-made scents - Hope, Intimacy and Sacred.

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You can watch more videos from Denise Sherwood, listen to the album on Spotify, buy it on Bandcamp & follow her on Instagram or Facebook

E07 - ‘In Between’, explores the transitions happening inside and outside as we pass the Spring equinox & mark one year in lockdown. I discuss paths through creativity, womanhood & mental health with singer & music industry counsellor, Denise Sherwood.

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As we reach the Spring equinox, episode 7 is taking stock of these changing times and asking how they might have affected us after a year in lockdown. How has the viewpoint from which we see the world shifted after witnessing a full annual cycle without so many of the toings and froings, diversions and distractions? Having had to find our creature comforts closer to home, what’s shown itself to be valuable as we’ve had to define and refine our more basic needs?

It was this time last year when the trees burst out in blossom, in stark contrast to our sudden solitary confinement. The birds and bees mingled freely while we were reluctantly forced to stay in our bubbles with only a few people and places on which our well-being depended. During the daily hour of sanctioned exercise, I discovered a deep solace in the other living things around me, from which I didn’t have to stay a safe distance away, and that led me to launch this podcast a few months later, half a year ago, at Autumn Equinox.

Now we’ve finally reached that turning point when the light starts to overtake the darkness. The yellow trumpets of daffodils announce the return of new life and colour, and the birds are singing louder each day, not, as one of my favourite sayings goes, ‘because they have an answer, but because they have a song’. And we may be feeling almost ready, albeit a little nervous, to take what we have gathered during our time in hibernation outside, and spring back into life above ground.

Yet, as Uncle Mark writes to us from Haddon Copse Farm in Dorset; ‘winter still clings tight to her hold: only the boldest blackthorn has ventured forth into blossom; the trees remain winter bare; no butterflies have braved the wing; most of our ewes stand tranquilly chewing the cud, awaiting their time to lamb, and the cutting winds that once gave this month its name threaten still to bring sleet and hail.

The Old English name for March was Hlyda, meaning ‘loud’ from the noise of the wind and this word persisted in Anglo Saxon as ‘Lide’ until as late as the nineteenth century in some parts of the UK. ‘March comes in like a lion & goes out like a lamb’ - the Traditional proverb goes. The harsh force of winter is weighed against the mild gentleness of spring as the Earth carries us on her journey back to the bi-annual point of balance, when the Sun crosses the equator from south to north.

This place of perfect celestial symmetry was recognised as bringing balance to all the opposing forces of the natural world - dark and light, masculine and feminine, inner and outer life. The Equinoxes bring counterpoise to the year, holding the annual cycle in equilibrium. They are the pause between breaths, the momentary suspension of the pendulum before movement begins again.’

The year used to begin on Spring equinox in the Julian & Hindu calendars, and some historians believe that this is where April Fools’ Day traditions originated, around 1582, when France switched to the Gregorian calendar. People who were slow to catch up with the new new year being on January 1 and continued to celebrate it in the last week of March through to April 1st would have paper fish put on their backs & get called a ‘poisson d’avril’ (an April fish), after a young, easily caught fish.

April Fools’ Day falling around the first day of spring might also be to do with the changing, unpredictable weather we would usually experience at this time of year. And as we dare to hope that warmer days are on their way & we might be able to start sharing more of them with each other again, we reflect on what has indeed been an extremely changeable & unpredictable year.

In part 2, I talk to singer, counsellor, mother, and generally amazing woman, Denise Sherwood. We hear about the making of her debut album, This Road - which came out in September 2020, her creative journey & career as a mental health advocate & counsellor in the music industry. We mention the support for musicians offered by Help Musicians & Music Support.

I read the poem ‘Your Way’ by Olav Hauge, translated by Robin Fulton

No-one has marked out the road
you are to take
out in the unknown
out in the blue.
This is your road.
Only you
will take it. And there's no
turning back.
And you haven't marked your road
either.
And the wind smoothes out your tracks
on desolate hills.

In part 4 I quote psychologist & holocaust survivor, Dr. Edith Eger - “Love is a 4-letter word spelled T-I-M-E” - from a highly recommended podcast - Unlocking Us with Brene Brown, On Recognising the Choices & Gifts in our Lives. I also read the short lyrical essay, ‘Close’, by poet & philosopher David Whyte, which came to me through the brilliant Brain Pickings newsletter.

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