Navigating Chaos: The Importance of Practice in Turbulent Times

Recently a mentor posed a question that called for deep reflection. I noticed the question made me nervous. Maybe I was unsure what I’d discover? I took my time, dipped my toe into the reflective process a number of times, and gradually began to connect with the elemental nature of my need to walk this path.

The question was: Why do you practise? What makes you practise like you’re on fire - like the world is on fire?

There isn’t one neat answer. But as I sit with it, I find myself returning again and again to the elements. The elements are the frame, the felt sense, the pulse of my practice. They remind me who I am and how I belong.

The elemental forces remind us of the wonder and interbeing of our true nature

Earth: The Foundation of Practice

Earth and grounding are literally at the root of it all.

Did I rediscover that I am nature, or did nature rediscover me as we built this reciprocal relationship? Either way, it began from necessity. Mindfulness, compassion, and time in nature help me stay well, steady, and rooted.

My mindfulness practice and my work as a nature-based therapist developed side by side, each feeding and informing the other. The more time I spent outdoors: walking with our dog; being with clients alongside the therapeutic herd of horses I work with; guiding facilitated forest walks; or simply sitting in the garden; the more I realised that nature wasn’t something separate from my life or my practice. It is my practice. It’s an integral part of who I am and how I live.

Connection is all about relationship and it helps when we become deeply familiar with another being. Connecting with the great grandfather willow tree in our back garden has become something of a ritual. Appreciating his gnarly trunk under my hands, feeling his grounded strength and deep roots, and a sense of something wordless - a being and a consciousness. When I slow down enough to listen, I can feel his aliveness, his quiet contribution to the conversation of life. Robin Wall Kimmerer calls this the “grammar of animacy” - a way of perceiving that honours the world as alive. A river or a rock isn’t something, it is someone - a being worthy of respect and relationship.

This way of seeing changes everything. It challenges the paradigm of control and exploitation that has shaped so much of our human story. The more I attend, the more I feel the Earth’s quiet insistence: Remember your place in the family of things.

When I touch the Earth, I feel belonging. I am home. I am nature.

The great grandfather willow tree grounding the practice

Fire: The Energy to Keep Going

For me, fire is both the warmth of love and the heat of anger and injustice.

It is love for life itself that keeps me practising - but also a fierce protectiveness for what I hold dear. I’m reminded of Kristin Neff’s work on Fierce Self-Compassion: that compassion is not only gentle and nurturing, but also brave and protective when needed. Both energies are necessary - the compassion of care and the fierce flame that says, enough!

I grew up in the rugged Yorkshire hills where a love of wild places took hold early on. Now I live in Luxembourg, much of my work takes place in the forest, and I feel blessed to be surrounded by trees and horses and my dear companion animals at home.

The rugged Yorkshire moors remind me of the beauty & lessons offered in even the toughest terrain.

The more time I spend aware of the companionship of nature, the clearer I become that I do not want to be part of a system of extraction and use. I wanted to live and work with the land, not from it - to be in partnership with my equine colleagues, with the forest canopy that shelters us, and with the elements that sustain life.

That commitment - to give back rather than just take - has become a guiding flame. Time in the forest being in, with, and of nature, often unfolds like a small spiral from Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects: gratitude, grief, new perceptions, and a calling forth to caring action.

The fire in me is both tender and fierce: love that warms and illuminates, and the passion that refuses to look away from suffering.

Fire ignites a passion to act for what we love.

Water: The Wisdom of Flow

Water speaks to me of emotion, flow, and adaptability.

Much of my understanding of emotion – and an ability to be with the more challenging aspects of emotion - has come through my animal companions. The horses I work alongside and other beings who choose to share space and insight. Horses meet each moment as it is. They communicate with utter clarity, set boundaries without rancour, and return to calm grazing once threat has passed. Watching a herd move through the day – meet the shifts in light, weather, and energy with companionship and equanimity- I see how emotions are not good or bad. They simply are! Especially when we allow then to flow.

When I allow myself to be guided by nature, I’m reminded how healing it is to feel deeply, to allow the full tide of joy or grief to rise and recede. Horses don’t cling to stories. They shake, breathe, graze, and begin again. Their presence invites me to do the same - to release what’s held and return to the steady rhythm of being alive.

Water also carries compassion. To be with suffering - our own, others’, and the planet’s - without turning away. As Joanna Macy reminds us, our pain for the world is evidence of our deep connection. When we let it move through us, it can become a river that carries us toward wise and caring action.

The coastline and mountains of North Wales have nourished me throughout my Masters studies at Bangor University

Air: Clarity and Breath

Air reminds me that every breath is relationship. I breathe in what the trees breathe out; they breathe in what I exhale. It’s a constant conversation - a reminder that I am not separate, but part of a greater living system.

One of the most spiritually moving experiences of my life was visiting the prehistoric Grotte Bara Bahau in the Dordogne. The air was cool and still. Deep inside the cave, the darkness was almost oppressive. When our guide’s torchlight revealed the first horse etched into the stone, I felt shivers down my spine. It was obvious that this artist had a relationship with the being they carved. They revered and respected the horse, wanting to capture its beauty and magnificence. There was a clear sense that this ancestor knew themselves as one small fragment in an intricate and magnificent web of life.

Standing there, I felt a deep sense of awe and recognition. Yes, I thought, this is how humans once paid our respects - how we understood ourselves as part of the more-than-human world.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead once observed that the first sign of civilisation was a healed bone- evidence that someone had cared for another. Compassion, then, is ancient. It’s in our bones, our breath, our lineage.

Breathing with the Earth, I feel part of that long tradition of care. I recognise a gratitude for all the ancestors – human and more-than-human – and I too want to be a good and responsible ancestor.

Honouring my ancestral lineage at a Work that Reconnects retreat

Why Practise When Everything Feels Unstable?

So why do I practise?

I practise because the Earth calls me to remember who I am. Because the fire of love and anger keeps me alive and responsive. Because water teaches me to feel, to release, to flow. Because air reminds me I belong to everything.

I practise to stay congruent - to align what I teach with how I live. To offer what I can: gratitude, presence, and care. To leave a gentler handprint on this Earth - and to try, in my own imperfect way, to be a good ancestor for those yet to come.

The elements together form a framework that helps me understand why I practise. Earth grounds me, water helps me flow, air brings clarity, and fire fuels my energy. This elemental connection is not just metaphorical; it is a felt experience that shapes my daily life and work.

Practising in this way is an act of resistance against despair. It is a way to stay connected to what matters, to nurture resilience, and to contribute to healing, both personal and collective.

If you find yourself questioning why you continue your practice during difficult times, consider these elements. Notice where you feel grounded, where you can flow, where your breath brings calm, and where your inner fire burns. These are the forces that keep us moving forward.

Ways to Nurture Connection to Nature Through Your Practice

• Create a nature ritual: Spend time with a tree, plant, or natural spot regularly. Touch, observe, and listen to deepen your connection - be in relationship together.

• Use breath as an anchor: Tuning into the flow of the breath, the giving and receiving with each breath cycle, can be a living practice of interconnectedness.

• Invite emotions to flow: Like water, allow space for feelings move through you without resistance.

• Cultivate your inner fire: Reflect on what motivates you to practise and revisit that passion when motivation wanes.

• Integrate mindfulness into daily life: Notice small moments of presence throughout your day, not just during formal practice.

• Nurture moments of connection: with yourself, with dear ones and with all the more-than-human natural kin that we share this planet Earth, our home, with.

Cultivating practices like these can nurture a deep sense of care, connection and reciprocal wellbeing. You may also find it inspires your creativity too.

A poem inspired by my companion and neighbour, the Bambesch forest.