Slow & Simple Moments | 09.24

Entering a period of slow and gentle transition, I find joy in pilgrimage, in connecting with the past, and beautiful reminders to relish and take delight in the simple moments each season brings.

In this series, I share some of the things I’ve been getting up to, places I’ve been, and other beautiful and special slow and simple moments from the past month.

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I don’t know about you, but summer went out with a bang here. The humidity which has plagued us all season seemed to rise once more, then, what felt like the entire summer’s rainfall descended in about 48 hours. We happened to be at a service in the cathedral when the thunderstorms struck up. If you haven’t experienced a thunderstorm in a building like this, it’s quite something. The thunder seemed to echo endlessly around the great vaulted ceiling, the rain drumming on the rooftop. In true British fashion, the congregation looked at each other with a nervous smile on their faces. Summer was over, and autumn had begun.

Beautiful autumnal colours at Ilam Hall and Park, Derbyshire; October 2011.

I'm an autumn lover, and I know many of you are too. I look forward to going up to Ilam Park in Dovedale to see the beautiful autumnal colours take hold, just as they have for centuries. the photo above shows that we have been enjoying this expedition for at least 13 years, and I relish that welcome sense of continuity year on year, season on season. Perhaps you too have favourite places where you love to visit at this time of year? The Autumn Equinox passed last Sunday, and now, the light begins to fade as we move gently towards winter. If you’d like to read more of my reflections on the beginning of autumn, you can do so here. Plus, if you missed it, here are some of my reflections on summer:

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September 2024

If summer went out with a bang, the start of autumn has been a little more gentle. We have started to notice the little changes, the leaves on the ground, the dampness in the air, and the butter in its dish not remaining as soft as it once was. For many, myself included, September feels like the new year. It brings the new academic year, but autumn can also feel like a time for new beginnings, just as spring brings its own sense of planting and sowing. After the vibrancy of summer, I can sense nature beginning to slow, encouraging us to do likewise. Observing these often simple moments can ground us in something greater, for just as in our own lives, the seasons come and go.

Here are some of my slow and simple moments from September. I hope they might inspire and encourage you to seek out your own in the months to come.

Talk

Much of the content and information we consume these days is to be found online, whether it be through written publications like this, social media channels such as Instagram, or video platforms such as YouTube. There is some amazing stuff out there, but it was such a joy this month to go to a talk - yes, a real live talk, with real live humans sitting side by side (though we were the youngest there by some distance).

Clementine Barton

and I were lucky to secure tickets to a talk entitled How to Dress Like a Georgian Woman: a Show and Tell at the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield. It was only a very small talk, an hour long, with about 25 people in the audience, but how refreshing it was - no technology, no PowerPoint, nothing to inevitably go wrong, just a one-person talk and demonstration, and a few handouts. I think we’ve forgotten how much enjoyment there is to be found in just sitting and listening. Somehow, it encourages us to use our imaginations, to really dig deep into the historical and cultural context. A talk like this is somehow the perfect example of something slow and simple.

Have you ever been to a talk? I wonder if it’s something we’d like more of in our quest for a slower and simpler life?

Literally walking on history at Bosworth Field; October 2010.

Wayfarer

One of the things which has brought me so much joy in the past month is reading Phoebe Smith’s book Wayfarer. In it, she talks about how, in her quest to rediscover who she was and to try and understand her place in the world, she found herself walking some of Britain’s oldest pilgrim routes. I loved this book because it somehow embraces everything which is so important to me both here on Rediscover · Reconnect · Re-Emerge and for A Life More Creative as a whole; rediscovering a connection to the past in a way which helps us make more sense of the present. By connecting with the pilgrimages, and the struggles of the past which often brought them into being, Phoebe finds herself. I’ve written recently about my own deeply felt connection to nature, and also of those places which inspire me most, and the blurb for the book seems to reassuring reflect that:

‘Wayfarer reveals how nature and place can heal past wounds, offering a pathway to salvation she’d never thought existed.’

Nature has been a healer for me, and by rediscovering my love for it and by reconnecting with it in recent years, I have re-emerged with a stronger foundation in the present, where many beautiful pathways have opened up before me.

Where are your healing places? In a season in which the trees shed their leaves to make way for new growth, what might we need to shed, in order that we see old and new pathways afresh?

Photo by Thom Schneider on Unsplash

Clear Skies

As we’ve transitioned from summer to autumn, the temperature has begun to drop, and with it, we’ve had some beautiful clear skies where, if you can find somewhere dark enough, there are infinite stars and celestial constellations to stand below. It really is awe-inspiring to look up at the vastness of the night sky, but it can also bring home how tiny we are, a mere speck of dust in an infinite universe. Sadly, most of us live in towns and cities where a truly dark sky is hard to find. I long one day to visit somewhere where there is no light pollution.

It might be fair to say I love the dark. There is something mysterious yet comforting to be found in it. We step out of the bright lights, where suddenly, we can see nothing, yet it doesn’t take long before our eyes adjust, and nature slowly reveals its nighttime beauty, often in shadows and silhouettes, through which we see the world around us with fresh eyes.

If the vastness of the clear night sky inspires you too, then I’m sure you will enjoy

Tiffany Francis-Baker

’s book, Dark Skies. In it, she explores how our relationship with darkness and the night sky has changed over time, and how our experiences of the night-time have permeated our history, folklore, science, geography, art and literature. It’s a beautiful book, and in reading it, perhaps you might see the night sky with fresh eyes.

In the months to come, look up, and marvel at what lies above and beyond.

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I look forward to seeing which slow and simple moments October will bring. Why not let me know in the comments some of your special moments from the month of September.

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