Fireside music and musings
Lessons of a different kind
It already feels like a long time ago, but last month I went on an annual guitar retreat to the Kent countryside to spend a weekend jamming with nearly sixty other musicians.
It happened to be when most of the UK was sweltering in an early summer heatwave. In this beautiful rural setting the plant life around us was bursting with abundance, while we were wilting upon waking — tents suffocatingly hot from seven o’clock in the morning. Every movement was slow and measured, with energy levels evaporating like steam and each of us jostling for the coldest shower before the solar panels kicked in and brought yet more heat. Not being a morning person, I felt a little grumpy at the fact the temperature had forced me out of my bed at an hour which shouldn’t be associated with holidays. I was also feeling the stress of the previous week, when I’d been scrambling to fit everything in before allowing myself some much needed time off. But the surroundings and company soon softened my mood.
I come here for the music and workshops and to catch up with friends who I don’t get to see often. But I also come here for the location. It’s hard to describe the feeling I get when I arrive. It’s so remote that I still get a bit lost en route, every time I come here, year after year. And thats’s the beauty of it: somewhere so tucked away that it feels like entering a portal to another dimension. Although there were many more of us gathering at the retreat compared to previous years, sixty people spread out amongst the meadows, woods and orchards still felt as if we each had our own quiet space to write, play or relax.
Enveloped by nature, I could feel my brow unknit, my shoulders drop and my breathing slow within a few hours of arriving. The heat was forcing me to rest, but it was starting to feel nourishing rather than oppressive. Yielding to it, I felt carried and could allow my inner compass to recalibrate itself. It was a feeling that I can only describe as heady with calm. It was this particular year when I felt that I learned so much more than just music.
One of the campsite’s owners is a herbalist, a fact that I had previously missed. She makes the most incredible balms, tinctures and other remedies all from plants grown on her land. As soon as she mentioned mugwort, I was well and truly sucked in. It was lovely to meet someone else who sees weeds as nourishing plants rather than just an untidy nuisance. I must admit I was torn between absorbing her knowledge about herbs — generously given — and doing what I went there to do, which was to play music.
I decided that I would try to do both. The first part of the day was spent having informal ‘lessons’: wandering through the herb patch, gathering and tasting as we went, then discussing ways of using them and recipes that could be created with them. This was followed by guitar workshops in the afternoon, before heading into the woods in the evening for some fireside jams. It was just what my body and mind needed.
Staring into an outdoor fire is truly meditative. This time was no different. All kinds of thoughts surfaced when my gaze was focused on the flames. I started mulling over when it was that my writing and composing time had been whittled down to three days a year. It seems to have happened slowly, without me even noticing. My job (which I intensely dislike) has been all encompassing and seeping into non-work time to the point where it feels like it now has me tied up in an invisible bind. Even my headspace boundaries have been breached, with intrusive thoughts pushing aside everything else. In short, I’ve had enough.
It was during these precious three days that I managed to put some distance between me and my job, long enough to gain some perspective and to promise myself I would do something about it.
As the wood crackled in the campfires and we took it in turns to play, I started to feel better. I had a plan. I could bring these moments of calm and joy back into my life after all, with a bit of courage and persistence.
For the rest of the weekend, I felt fully immersed in the music. It was as if my mind had regained a bit of its own space back. The sun felt wonderful on my skin, and I had soil and charcoal under my nails and didn’t care. The communion of sixty guitarists coming together to worship at the altar of music was my own preferred type of spirituality. Layers of chords and woodsmoke danced together and swirled around the trees, lifting my psyche.
In the end, I came away from the retreat with new recipes as well as new songs, but also with the beginnings of a new path ahead.
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