NEWS FROM THE FOREST

The Word-Wonder

From a beak of pen juts beetle-dark ink.
A hand aches from long-houred scribing.

Ink like green-skinned holly streams wisdom
From the neatness of my fingers.

Artful men will feel the gain from my quill,
A wonder of words spring from my wearied fist.

Old Irish, worked into new version at basecamp this very August.

This is just a little note to say an ENORMOUS thank you for your support for the upcoming documentary My Heart Ate Light. Thanks to YOU we’ve managed to have the documentary team up in the very Dartmoor forest where I do much of my wilderness work. If you’ve read BARDSKULL, this is the place. In fact, as you read this that’s where I’ll be. There’s about a week left of the Crowdfunding campaign and the link’s here:

My Heart Ate Light

We have hopes to get filming through some of my wider travels, and I’d love to hear a glorious soundscape threaded throughout the emerging story, so every penny counts.

It feels like the right moment to be making the film, and also quite the leap of faith for me. I’m a fairly private man despite the publicness of my life, so this is all a rather new experience. The man you see on stage is the same fella who drinks his coffee and writes to you on a Sunday. This time there’s a camera capturing all those moments. Most of all I hope it’s a film to maybe inspire and give a good wallop of strength to others, wherever you may be in your life.

Mid a spontaneous telling of Finn and the Old Man’s Hut. I first heard that story from Robin Williamson years ago, and my version is still something of a homage to the great man.

We went right back to the roots in this conversation. To calling my friend Gavin from a red London phone box in the mid 1990’s and him telling me about a vigil taking place in the wilds of Snowdonia. “Want to do something that will change your life?” he said. With all the naivety a 23 year-old can have, I was all in.

In the background vigil guide David Stevenson quietly ignores it all and cooks up his breakfast.

(note: due to the heat, we’re not lighting any more fires till it’s safe.)