After the asceticism and equanimity of the Vipassana experience, I make my way to Glastonbury to celebrate one of the most important festivals in the Celtic calendar: Beltane. Beltane is the festival of love, of fertility, of sexuality and the sacred marriage: it is a time when the God and Goddess meet in sacred union and dance the wild sensual dance of creation. Flowers and trees are blossoming, there’s a heady beguiling scent in the air, and young animals abound. It’s a wonderfully exuberant time that celebrates life and growth. I am not sure what exactly I am going to do [View Full Entry]

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‘Why exactly did I choose to come here?’, I ask myself as the solemn sounds of a gong wake me from slumber at 4 am. I crawl out of bed, have a quick wash and shuffle to the meditation hall in the dark, rain dripping down my face. I find my place in the dimly-lit hall and settle down for a two-hour meditation session before breakfast. Today is my first day at a Vipassana meditation centre in Herefordshire, and I am about to start a ten-day course of silent meditation. The first time I heard about the practice of Vipassana was [View Full Entry]

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The Brecon Beacons mountains located in south-east Wales are not exactly known to be a hotbed of shamanism - at least not in this day and age. Or are they? Primarily, the beautiful and wild Brecon Beacons National Park is a revered hiker's paradise with an abundant range of outdoors activities. Yet, if you dig a little deeper you will find that the area has a long history with evidence of Neolithic habitation dating from about 5000 BCE. Throughout the most rural areas you can find piles of stones marking cairns or burial chambers, as well as standing stones. The Brecon [View Full Entry]

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Krishna has never been a God I could easily relate to. Out of all the Indian Gods and Goddesses, he was the one I never paid much attention to. Partially, this had to do with over-exposure through the Krishna movement in the UK. Taking it down to the most basic (and biased) level, I always thought that the Hare Krishna movement, and in particular the 'Hare Krishna' chant you'd hear on a Sunday in towns across this country, was a bit ‘naff’. Quite irrationally, my sense of irritation towards Krishna-related places, and resistance to Krishna the God, accompanied me throughout my [View Full Entry]

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It’s Samhain morning. Tonight is the most important night in the Pagan calendar, when the veils between the worlds are extra-ordinarily thin. The Celts celebrated ‘All Hallowtide’, known as Halloween in the modern world, as the ‘Feast of the Dead’, when the dead revisited the mortal world. The festival marks the end of summer and the start of the winter months, and the Celtic New Year traditionally begins on 1st November. It’s a time to let go of the old and invite in new energies, as well as an opportunity to connect with our ancestors. This time last ye [View Full Entry]

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After a week of celebration, dance and catharsis in Dorset, I am ready for a somewhat more serene time and make my way across the picturesque Devon countryside to the market town of Totnes. Totnes, so I am told, is something of a spiritual hotbed, not unlike Glastonbury, and I look forward to exploring the place. My friend Khanga collects me at the train station. I have not actually seen Khanga for about five years, and in fact, I’ve probably only met her once or twice in my life, but this doesn’t matter. On a human level, we may be virtual [View Full Entry]

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The morning after the AUM meditation, I can’t speak. I have lost my voice. Completely. I can’t even croak. ‘This happens to everyone here sooner or later’, says community member Mala sympathetically. I am fated to converse in sign language or through eye contact and writing notes. It’s an interesting place to be in, this enforced silence, asking me to communicate and relate to others in an entirely different way. I become aware of just how much I rely on words to connect. My new muteness is especially inconvenient because tomorrow Osho Leela have planned a Plea [View Full Entry]

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Osho Leela is a friendly, open and welcoming place. The large house consists of beautiful rooms with wooden floors and massive bay windows, many of them converted into dorms for the visitors, two kitchens, a dining room, reception rooms, and large gardens, where some of the residents live in caravans and pine lodges. A lot of the people, an eclectic mix of men and women, who live here are sannyasins, ‘renunciates’. However, sannyas, traditionally the Hindu asceticism adopted by those who renounce the material world in favour of spiritual pursuit, carries a different m [View Full Entry]

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I’m back on the road. Or rather, on the rail tracks. After my three-month stint in rural Wales, I’ve come to the conclusion that settled life just doesn’t work for me at this point in time. In particular the solitary or semi-solitary way of living we’re so accustomed to in the West. Before I went travelling, my friend Rob said that I might find it difficult to settle again after such a big trip. True - although I would like to settle again at some point in my life, it will have to be in a different way. Many of my [View Full Entry]

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I‘m not made for hermit life - at least not for extended periods of time. With a personality like mine, I don’t stay solitary for long, despite the best of intentions. After one or two months of immersion in near-solitude and spiritual practice, I am starting to itch and want to get out there again. The explorer in me is far too curious about life, land and people. When I told my good friend Sheilagh Holmes that I was moving to a remote village in the Brecon Beacons, she laughingly prophecised that before long, I would organise a ritual in the [View Full Entry]

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