Gather & Tend. with me in summer.

Hello, I’m Lyndsay, I am so glad you have found your way here…

Welcome to Story & Thread. — a home for writing, gathering, and storytelling through meaningful PR. This is a cosy, welcoming place to come home to yourself, to tend to your creativity, and to notice the quiet power of beauty and wonder as the seasons turn.

All subscribers will receive regular thoughtful posts about creativity, mothering, home and garden, woven through with the rhythm of the seasons. You are invited to become a member of The Beauty Thread. — a creative community for seasonal gatherings, co-working spaces, and a home for finding your voice and shaping your story, including the Find Your Story guide and the Your Story Starts Here workshop (coming autumn 2026).

“Come out here where the roses have opened.
Let soul and world meet.”

—Rumi.

Dearest reader…

I wanted to write a short note after our Gather & Tend. co-working in summer session this week — the time was very welcome and allowed me to fully land (albeit in the middle of the week) after a busy few days… with a very memorable Sunday spent in Paris with friends (an organisational feat to get us all together), and then Monday and Tuesday full with work. It took until mid-week to feel my feet on the ground, and it reminded me of the the wisdom that comes with starting where we are, and beginning again…

During the session, we took some time to check in with ourselves and the season unfolding, casting our minds to the summer solstice that arrives this Sunday — the longest day here in the northern hemisphere, when the sun will appear to stand still, solstitium, lingering in the sky before it begins its return. It is both a celebration and an invitation to pause, gather ourselves inwards and linger a little longer, just as the sun does.

During the session, we sat with the prompts…

• what can you celebrate from the growth seasons since the depths of the winter solstice in December?

• And then, the other side of that same question — where are you feeling pressure to have bloomed, to have peaked, to have made the most of every drop of light, and where might you let yourself linger instead?

I pulled a collective card for all of us from The Green Witch Oracle Deck by by Arin Murphy-Hiscock.

**Sage | wisdom | purification | harmony.

Sage is a wise herb. It reassures you that you are grounded and stable, and that the wisdom you need is easily accessible if you look in the right place. The Sage card reminds you that insight can appear from unlikely sources. Being in harmony with your environment allows you to receive messages and act on them more easily than if you are living in discord. Listening can bring balance and purification can remove obstacles that further cloud that exchange of information and communication.

Remember that what may not make sense now might fall into place later. Don’t be so quick to dismiss advice that doesn’t make sense immediately. Remain open and wisdom will come to you.

**How can you help to facilitate the communication of wisdom from your surroundings?

I love this prompt, it feels as though it is very much inviting us to notice the wisdom of the season as it unfolds around us, particularly potent at this time of year whichever hemisphere you are in.

If you couldn’t make it to Gather & Tend. this time, you will find the recording above — I hope it could accompany you for some quite creative time.

There has been a lot going on behind the scenes over recent weeks and months. As I have mentioned, I have been working on my website, a new online home to exist alongside this Substack. It is taking shape in it’s own time, requiring a lot of space to feel into how I want to express everything that weaves together to create Story & Thread.

Also, the first Your Story Starts Here introduction to storytelling and PR workshop took place last week, and left me with so much to think about and build on. I am in a chapter of laying foundations after a long chapter of dreaming and pondering. A lot of trust is required, in myself, in the process, and that the invisible work matters. Not everything is visible yet — but I can feel it starting to come together.

One thing I am especially excited about is Find Your Story — a gentle guide for makers, writers and creatives ready to find their story and shape their voice. I am creating it as a gift on the new website, and members of The Beauty Thread. will receive it alongside an invitation to the Your Story Starts Here workshop, when I introduce it to the membership in the autumn.

Before that, there is still plenty to come this summer…

If you are local to North London, A Softer Space is returning — in-person gatherings at my home, woven around the rhythm of the moon. The next one falls on the eve of the rose moon, Monday 29th June, with a relaxed outdoor edition planned for July. Details are always shared on Instagram if you would ever like to join us in person.

Something new — starting in July. Inspired by A Softer Space, I have been mapping a full year of moons — their folk names, their medicine, what each one invites us to experience through the turning seasons. I’ll be sharing the first of these moon letters very soon, with some deeper reflection and prompts for The Beauty Thread. members.

The Softening — late summer. The fifth and final edition of The Softening will take place in September around the autumn equinox — a closing of the five season arc, and as my birth season it is probably my favourite of them all (though I realise I say this every season!). It is a moment to come together collectively and collaboratively before something new begins in its place. More details about the late summer themes and a call for contributions will land with you soon.

A note about August.

August to me always feels like a natural time to down tools and restore — it is an opportunity to reflect and harvest the months of growth that have gone before. Over August, the gatherings will pause — an intentional seasonal ‘rest’ as I navigate seven weeks of summer holidays…! But I will still be here, writing in whatever shape that takes, just at a slower pace between the fullness of it all.

Some changes are afoot in autumn and I can’t wait to share more with you soon…

Thank you so much for reading, watching and/or listening. I hope you find some stillness around the solstice in the coming days, and weeks, and can carve out time to consider and celebrate everything you have created in these past months of growth, and also where you might be able to release pressure on yourself and linger longer.

With midsummer light and rose moon love,

P.S. Catch up with the new ATELIER interview if you missed it earlier this week… I sat down with writer, poet and essayist Annie Ridout to talk about her creative life — early mornings, her garden studio, the meadow she is tending outside her window.

I loved her description of the writer as a detective — observing, noticing, recording the world in all its intricacies, and then often retreating to put words on the page.

I hope you enjoy stepping into Annie’s world as much as I did…