The vast, open sky

walls that exist in the mind

Apr 29, 2025

My most precious truth; the only walls that truly confine us are the ones we build in our own heads.

I feel almost uniquely qualified to say this, having spent most of the last nine years housebound in our tiny two-bed terraced home. Try telling the mind it's free, when it knows quite well it’s stuck within four walls.

Frightened and fragmented, your life is fenced in.

You can still count on your fingers in June the number of people you've seen that whole year.

Remember that time we opened the door to the postman?

No, the mind is quite sure and most people would happily agree, you are separate from everyone and everything.

And yet, living inside one for a long time is a hard lesson in an almighty truth; there's no such thing as a cage.

I spend my time grieving my separation from nature. Reliving old days by the sea, its endless lapping swash calming my anxiety. The sun setting burnt gold across a meadow, tall grass trembling around my ankles. The scent of bluebells in a beech wood.

My bare feet are on the grass of my garden, as long as I can stand. Three deep breaths. One, two, three. Lie down.

Old days wandering the paths of forest enclosures, the crisp crunch of dying leaves underfoot.

Tilted at the sky, a rose blooms overhead, filtering pink light into my waiting eyes.

Lost moments walking the dog on our ancient chalk downland, watching him fly against the light.

I lie upon the earth, aching with loss.

I lie upon the earth.

The earth, and I.

I don't know how long it takes before I realise I’m not separate from nature. The realisation doesn't come like a lightning bolt, but a soft and slow awakening to what is real.

This earth. This grass. This body. The tender light.

Where are the walls now?

As the years pass, bluebells begin to grow inside my garden.

They're rare, bluebells, usually only growing in the most ancient woodlands. A bluebell wood in flower feels like nowhere else on earth; holy ground.

It is a calm, quiet sea within a green cathedral.

And here they are, these mellow bells of purple-blue, rising from the ground of my garden.

It is like they have come to visit me.

No walls, you see?

No walls between you and what is real, between you and being free.

This year, I walk in the bluebell woods, this body, this mind, and me. Tremulous and trembling, I lay my aching body down to rest amidst the sheltered sea and gaze at a cathedral sky, tall trees filtering green light into my waiting eyes.

When I return to the small patch of ground I call mine, I go and sit beside the small but spreading clump of bluebells, wondering.

And Mary gathered up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Contained within these walls, eyes lifted to a thin rectangle of sky, my mind is as large as a bluebell wood, spreading on ancient chalk downland under the vast, open sky.

A gift

I’d still be living bound, if it wasn’t for the regular practice of meditation, especially yoga nidra (yogic sleep). This ancient practice dissolves all our concepts of boundaries, resting us layer by layer into the luminous field under all life. It’s deeply needed ancient wisdom; modern medicine.

Below you’ll find my most popular yoga nidra track on Insight Timer, my Divine Feminine Yoga Nidra. It’s almost an hour long, so gather up the blankets, get cosy and settle yourself down into rest.

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