The Hollow In The Tree: Lesson From The Land

What the Kite Taught Us

Dawn Nelson — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 15:35:29 GMT

Over the last five years, the red kite population in our village, and the surrounding area, has grown considerably and now rivals, if not has now overtaken, the buzzard population.

It’s wonderful to see these birds that were once on the brink of extinction back in their numbers. There are of course the stories of how they are doing too well, how they threaten livestock, become a nuisance to picnickers and barbecuers, but I for one have never had a problem with a red kite. Red kites may be opportunistic, but like their buzzard cousins they prefer carrion to live prey.

So what stories has the red kite taught me, or rather on this occasion what did it teach us?

Milk & Motherhood

Dawn Nelson — Sun, 25 May 2025 09:00:32 GMT

The dairy herd is back in the fields. The gentle chewing of the cud, the lowing and the huffing. This year, the farmers will struggle to find enough fresh grass to feed the cattle given the extremely dry spring we have had here in the UK.

Photo by Hans Ripa on Unsplash

A while back I volunteered as a Cub Scout leader for a year and during that time I arranged for the group to visit the local dairy farm. I feel passionately about knowing where our food comes from and this visit would give us an insight into just that. It was a great tour and taught the kids (and me) so much but the one thing that stayed with me from that trip is the way the cows traits are bred into or out of them, through artificial insemination.

The farmer has a huge catalogue from which they can choose the semen from a bull that will mean the cows udders grow straight making milking with automated machines easier. They purportedly can also breed the mothering instinct out of the cows and I was told that this means that if you leave a dairy calf (particularly a Holstein Friesian) with it’s mother for more than a few weeks, it’s likely to lose interest and may even lie on it, endangering the calf.

This makes taking them away from their mother seem like the right thing to do, after which we can benefit from the milk the mother is still producing. I’m not sure where the evidence for this is though and regardless, many of us have become desensitised to this fact and so it seems has the cow.

So what stories did the dairy cows tell me and what lessons can we learn from them?

Song Thrush: The Medieval Poet

Dawn Nelson — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 09:01:16 GMT

The Song Thrush started calling at the beginning of the month. I have a love hate relationship with this once red listed bird’s call. In the evening’s there is nothing sweeter, but at 430 in the morning when you are sleeping with the window open and the song thrush starts up, it’s hard to filter it out. It’s the over-exuberant morning person that frankly, I dread.

Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash

There’s nothing subtle about this bird, from its bright white dotted chest, puffed out when it sings to its violent eviction of snails from their homes, this bird is loud and proud. So what has the song thrush taught me and why do I think this little wonder of the ridge tiles is in fact a medieval poet in disguise?

As The Gull Flies

Dawn Nelson — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 18:01:20 GMT

A pair of seagulls have joined us in the village. Herring Gulls to be precise. Seagulls are not strangers to our village. Those of you have read ‘Stories Of The Sun’, will know that I have often watched the Mediterranean Gulls fly over the fields in the mornings, mewing like new born babies. I recently heard them in the background of an episode of Death in Paradise and immediately knew it was the med gulls.

But these are Herring Gulls and for a while they took up residence on the roof line opposite the study window. They have now moved a little further down the village, perhaps due to the Mexican standoff I had with them as they stamped, squawked and strutted along the ridge tiles, whilst I attempted to record audio. Or it may have been the longstanding resident male blackbird who made a fierce and unruly neighbour even by Herring Gull standards.

Photo by Thanos Pal on Unsplash

Sat on the roof in our village these chip snatchers are a mere eight miles from the coast and will think nothing of flying 100 miles a day during nesting season to collect food for their growing broods. It stands to reason then, that these birds must carry with them a few stories and so it is that I will share with you the stories they told me.

Magnetic Declination

Dawn Nelson — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 10:00:57 GMT

There it was, dashed against the concrete, one single upper left wing in the mulching leaves by the side of the garden path. Beauty lost to the earth, a flash of colour in the dark, bringing lessons from the air to remind us that sometimes life is fleeting and intangible. Sometimes we must surrender ourselves to the unknown.

I picked up the tiny peacock butterfly wing, no more than 3cm in length, between my thumb and forefinger, and placed it in my journal pushing it to the back of my mind to mull over its symbolic nature at a later date. I was not sure when that would be, but certainly when I was not rushing to feed the chickens and guinea pigs, before doing the school run.

This one took a little while to ponder but the words came to me a few weeks later: ‘Magnetic Declination’. Magnetic declination is the distance between true north and magnetic north, more specifically the angle. Magnetic north responds to the earth’s magnetic fields and true north is geographic north. So, the north we find on maps.

Photo by Jordan Madrid on Unsplash

Some animals, including several species of butterfly, use magnetic north to migrate. And so it was that there was the true message. That little wing, was pointing me to magnetic north, reminding me that we may feel compelled, as the rest of society does, to follow true north, the course mapped out as the right way, but we also may find ourselves instead drawn to magnetic north. A liminal space between the two, that looks likes its going off course, lost and disorientated but actually it’s just magnetic declination. It’s still north.

This lead me to the stories of those who move from the geographical path set by society and follow their magnetic north. If you read on I will share them with you.

The Stillness Of Grey

Dawn Nelson — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 19:01:05 GMT

The grey of January mornings have brought me quietude and stillness after the busy days of Solstice. There have been some very thick mists and fog first thing and whilst the days are getting longer, the sun is still taking its time to rise and even then it rarely gets high enough to burn the mist off the land as it does in the autumn. If there’s no breeze to move the mist along, then we are shrouded in a quiet, cloud soft land.

It is on one of these mornings that I heard the mist’s lessons: take a moment to reorientate; lose yourself in the now. Around me commuters hurried on, fog lights pierced the hazy morning and dog walkers shook the damp off their Gortex jackets, as they returned to the comfort of their houses.

Having the courage to stand still should not be underestimated. In this moment of grey stillness the land is offering us its stories and if you read on, I will share with you the stories I heard that morning.

Photo by Tomás Robertson on Unsplash

Mycelium

Dawn Nelson — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 13:49:23 GMT

We passed this beautiful velvet shank on our walk yesterday. One of the few winter mushrooms, this little lovely is identified by its brown, velvety stalk and white spore print.

Velvet Shank mushrooms

We're only four and a bit days into 2025, but mushrooms have already played a big part in this year pointing me to what lies beneath and offering up their stories.

C J Cooke's book 'The Ghost Wood' , which I read over the new year, features the cordyceps fungi (review coming in January's Storytellers’ Library, later in the month), and Fia's song Mycelium has been played a lot in our household.

In my ponderings, I see the mycelium as a representation of not only connectedness and community but as a symbol of how there is a lot more work going on beneath the surface before you see the results. A theme for this year, as I grow and deepen my knowledge of story, runes, and the landscape around me.

The little velvet shank that appeared in my periphery yesterday was definitely there as a gift from the land, offering up its stories and I shall show you how so that you too may hear the message of the velvet shank …

The Winter Solstice

Dawn Nelson — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 08:33:39 GMT

The winter solstice is at 9.20am on 21st December this year in the Northern Hemisphere. A this point in the year the sun stands still for a few days, low slung in the winter sky, and the darkest days are upon us before the gradual return of the light.

Photo by Mekht on Unsplash

To celebrate the solstice, I am stopping by with a reading from the December chapter of my book ‘Stories Of The Sun’. Enjoy!

Snippets Of September

Dawn Nelson — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 07:19:44 GMT

The autumnal equinox is at around 1:43pm on 22nd September this year. The point where the sun is directly above the equator and the night and day are of equal length, or thereabouts. We are also around half way between Litha (the summer solstice) and Yule (the winter solstice).

I know many of you have read or are reading my latest book ‘Stories Of The Sun’ and for that I am very grateful. Books need readers after all, or they become dusty tomes on a forgotten shelf.

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

To celebrate the equinox, I have created an audio below with some snippets of September’s chapter that I hope you will enjoy. A little offering to the autumnal spirits and you, my ever patient subscribers.

Folklore Of The Chalk Streams

Dawn Nelson — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 09:00:46 GMT

This month I’ve been facilitating creative writing workshops inspired by the chalk streams of Hampshire, as part to the Hampshire & Isle Of Wight Wildlife Trust’s, Tales From The Riverbank Literary Festival.

A Festival Of Story

It’s been real privilege to be a part of a series of month long events from talks to workshops and I was lucky enough to hear Li…

Of Hearths & Halls - Beltane

Dawn Nelson — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 11:56:09 GMT

Merry Met One And All!

Beltane is here, it’s May’s Eve and sliding in on my heels, I have for you a twenty minute Tudor treat of a vlog. This month we are travelling back in time to c1500AD to celebrate May Day, maypoles, May Queens and even riots with Henry VIII in another whistle stop tour of history. Watch the video above or listen to the audio below …

Walk With Me - London

Dawn Nelson — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 09:00:37 GMT

For April’s ‘Walk With Me’, we’re off to London where I recently visited with a friend to explore the British Museum and various esoteric bookshops.

The April Altar - Weathering

Dawn Nelson — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 14:45:45 GMT

Merry Met Folks

Welcome to ‘The Seasonal Altar ‘ a chance for me to share with you some of the spirituality and practice that informs much of my storytelling and gives you a little insight into how nature feeds into my creative practice. This is a very personal practice so I hope you will enjoy these posts as something a little bit different in amongst the events and story related posts. April is the month of weathering and so without further ado, let's have a look at what's on my April Altar.

Of Hearths & Halls - Ostara

Dawn Nelson — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 10:00:56 GMT

Merry Met One And All!

Huzzah for Ostara the return the light and balance in the world. Well, we can hope. This month we are travelling back in time to 449AD to celebrate hares, Eostre and egg hunts with the Saxons. Watch the video above or listen to the audio below to find out more.

The March Altar - March Hares

Dawn Nelson — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 17:01:20 GMT

Merry Met Folks

Welcome to ‘The Seasonal Altar ‘ a chance for me to share with you some of the spirituality and practice that informs much of my storytelling and gives you a little insight into how nature feeds into my creative practice. This is a very personal practice so I hope you will enjoy these posts as something a little bit different in amongst the events and story related posts. March is the month of the hare and so without further ado, let's have a look at what's on my March Altar.

Walk With Me - Farlington Marshes

Dawn Nelson — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 17:00:43 GMT

For this Walk With Me, I joined my lovely friend who is walking from Portsmouth to Brighton as part of an art and writing project you can read about here.

We visited Farlington Marshes for the third leg of her walk, a wonderful haven for wildlife tucked in between conurbations and industry, and bordered by the A27 and the A2030, Eastern Road that takes you down into Portsmouth.

It is an important migration site for Brent Geese and we saw a plethora of coastal birdlife whilst we were there. Sightings are recorded on a board by Hampshire and Isle Of Wight Wildlife Trust, and I have included a picture of the board under the video as well as a list of the birds Sue and I saw during our walk and some links to some stories I was reminded of.

The February Altar - February Fallings

Dawn Nelson — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 20:07:47 GMT

Merry Met Folks

Welcome to the first in a new series of posts for paid subscribers. I’ve been living mindfully in line with the seasons for ten years now, with the natural world being central to my spiritual path, although I have always loved nature and the outdoors ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper.

The Seasonal Altar is a chance for me to share with you some of the practice that informs much of my storytelling and gives you a little insight into how this feeds into my creative practice. This is a very personal practice so I hope you will enjoy these posts as something a little bit different in amongst the events, folklore and story related posts. Without further ado, let's have a look at what's on my February Altar.

Of Hearths & Halls - Imbolc

Dawn Nelson — Sat, 03 Feb 2024 16:45:51 GMT

Merry Met One And All!

Here we are at Imbolc, a little later than planned, thank you for bearing with me, and I have my third Hearths & Halls vlog to share with you. This month we are travelling back in time to 1000BCE to celebrate sheep and woad as part of our Imbolc celebrations with the Britons, Celts and Picts. Watch the video above or listen to the …

Of Hearths & Halls - Yule

Dawn Nelson — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 19:05:34 GMT

Merry Met One And All!

Here we are at the winter solstice and I have my second Hearths & Halls Vlog to share with you. This month we are travelling back in time to 43AD to celebrate Saturnalia with the Romans. So Io Saturnalia! Watch the video above or listen to the audio below to find out more.

Below is an audio version of the Vlog if you would prefer:

Of Hearths & Halls - Samhain

Dawn Nelson — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 15:11:12 GMT

Merry Met One And All!

The wheel turns again and we arrive once more at Samhain. For this seasonal year I shall be exploring the Sabbats with vlogs that look at different points in history and how they relate to the festivals celebrated in the Wiccan Wheel of The Year.

At the beginning of this video I explain a little more about the project and then we t…