An uplifting read

The Big Issue

Here is a link to The Big Issue Rupert Graves interview I mentioned in my last post, it’s a beautiful, uplifting read.

On Awe Walks Part Two

Tags

awe, awe walks, beauty, nature, nature walk, spiritual awakening, spiritual enlightenment, Spiritual experience, spirituality

Rupert Graves- Letter to my younger self- The Big Issue Magazine

Just a couple of days after reading about Awe Walks for the first time (see previous post) I bought The Big Issue and in the Letter to my younger self whereby a famous person looks back (always good and often very moving, and which have now been collected into a book) were the words above from Rupert Graves. Definitely an Awe Walk. Here is another of my own Awe Walks, taken again from the little book documenting my ‘spiritual awakening,’ (available super cheap on amazon)

Let’s go for a walk, Part 2 (or, Heaven on Earth)

I had to go to Wales again for work. It was almost two years since my first trip, when I’d been so scared about driving there. This time, it didn’t even cross my mind to be nervous. I arrived in the sunshine and spent an easy afternoon at the hospital, being shown around and doing the work I needed to do. In the therapy office, waiting for my host, I glanced around the room: overflowing notice boards, information leaflets, resource folders, work boots and shelves of books. I scanned the book titles: two were about magic. Was that just the Universe reminding me, yet again, that magic is everywhere?

Because it certainly was. I finished my work and drove to my hotel. A budget chain hotel, it was situated in what at first glance did not look like a pretty area: close to a big roundabout in a concrete landscape of office premises. It was still light, sunny and relatively warm. I got some chocolate and a drink out of the vending machine and went outside to stretch my legs. I thought about asking the woman on the desk if there was anywhere nice to go for a walk but she was busy checking in another guest. I walked out the back of the car park to a scrubby grassy area, there was a path lightly littered with rubbish, a few trees shading the path. I found a more definite path and then all of a sudden there was a river, flowing over and between big, grey rocks with a waterfall. I went down to the water’s edge. It was so isolated, all of a sudden, even though it was just moments from the hotel.

I went back up to the path and now it was a real path, in a real wooded area, the litter had disappeared. All of a sudden, there was a canal, with lovely little boats moored up, paint peeling, covered in algae, hemmed in by what looked like years of waterweed. It reminded me of when I first met John, and he was living on a boat on a canal. Was it a metaphor or not even a metaphor, a real life tableau, an illustrated live experience of This is your life?

Here we have John, waiting, stuck, as I might have thought. A little way along, the boats disappear and here’s me or rather, a location for me: the water’s surface green with plants and sparkling golden in the light, like Ophelia’s grave. I was here. Despairing, suicidal and romantic.

I followed the towpath. Everything became lighter and prettier. The water was like glass, reflecting the huge green trees that lined the bank.
A group of dog walkers came past with not just one but four lovely, bouncy dogs, who all, dogs and people, stopped for a friendly hello.

Through the trees, I glimpsed a huge cemetery, which gave me a momentary pause: evoking a layer of gravitas to my skippy summer-autumn walk; increasing my gratitude and the urgency and importance of appreciation; reminding me that I was alive. Beyond the cemetery, a rolling vista of green, sloping down towards houses in the distance. It was as if every view imaginable had been laid on just for me.

There was a field with sheep in it, another with cows and then a friendly horse looking over the fence at me. Around each curve of the river, something new and more lovely than the last. I wondered when I should turn back or if I should just stop for a rest: a little bench appeared for me to sit down on.

Bridges, each one quainter than the last, made of roughly hewn pale stone, dinky, just big enough to walk under, it was like being a child. They were numbered 52; 53; 54; John’s age? The future? Tracking the course of our life?

You couldn’t make it up.

My senses tingled. My soul soared.

Silver- really silver- birch, almost gold in the late afternoon light as if it had been painted, washed with metallic paint. Who knew you could get silver trees? Real, silver trees? Not in a royal palace or a rock star’s deluxe OTT garden or on some fairytale film set but just out here, on a walk that anyone could go on.

Hobbit fantasy land like tree roots, travelling down over the whole surface of the steep bank so that I could see them all in all their twisted glory: as if the steep bank was there on purpose.

Like life… it just got more and more beautiful, it went on for how long, who knows, when to stop, when did it start?

I could have asked about somewhere to go for a walk. I could have turned left instead of right. I could have found out all about it, read about it in a guidebook, looked it up on the internet. Maybe I alighted on the only pretty stretch or maybe it was this pretty for twenty miles or more.

I hadn’t had a drink, I hadn’t been meditating and I wasn’t tired. I’d just been working and then driven to the hotel. So what tripped me over into this state of grace? Maybe the chocolate in the hotel vending machine was spiked. I’ll never know.

Thank you very much for reading

Please feel free to share your own awe walk experiences!

Self portrait, Pushkar, India 2020

About the author

In 2018 in our forties and fifties my husband and I sold up, gave away most of our possessions, and went travelling for a year, mainly in India, and also to Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam. My personal/spiritual/travel memoir of the year is completed and out with agents. I live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire UK with my husband and two cats.

Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

On Awe Walks

Tags

awe, awe walks, buddhism, meditation, mindfulness, nature walk, Self realisation, spiritual awakening

Apparently ‘Awe Walks’ is a thing now, I read about it in an online article suggesting ways to feel better about our current situation and the approaching winter. I thought it seemed strange at first, because my own experiences of experiencing awe during a walk were for me the first step on my ‘spiritual journey,’ rather than an end in themselves. It reminded me of when everyone started getting into mindfulness and businesses started using it for their employees; some Buddhists commented that it was being practised without any underpinning theory or spiritual foundation. But I still think most people would agree that practising mindfulness, with or without anything underpinning it, is a good thing. So I’m supportive of the idea of Awe Walks, however they are conceptualised by the person experiencing them!

This description of my very own Awe Walk is taken from the little book I wrote which documented my spiritual awakening (available super cheap on amazon)

Let’s go for a walk… or, How to find Heaven on Earth

I plant my feet on the ground, about hip width apart, my weight equally balanced on both feet and on the balls and the heels of each foot. I soften my knees, bending them ever so slightly so that the soles of my feet seem to stick to the ground as if I am fixed, rooted to the ground as surely as a tree. Connected. I am connected to the ground, to the Earth.

I feel the breeze play on my face, feel the wind lifting and moving my hair. A strand of hair falls across my face, in front of my eyes; lit by the sun, it is tiger eye, spun gold. It is still winter and the sun is white and hazy but I can feel the warmth on my cheek, feel the energy warming me, bringing me back to life.

Everything seems interesting. Almost anything can be of interest if I notice it and pause to observe it. I used to march without pause down the street, across the fields but now I walk steadily and stop often. The sight of tiny leaves of ivy growing up a fence; brown pinecones on a bush silhouetted against a blue sky; a holly bush, impossibly shiny, almost plastic looking; all these and more stop me in my tracks.

The trees… one looks like a peacock, one looks like a creature from Where the Wild Things are, standing guard in front of the village church; one looks like an old man with flowing beard. Best of all I like to stand under their branches and stare at the old ivy limbs winding their way around the trunk, dusty and hairy and beautiful.

Halfway along my walk I come to a stream that runs through a small patch of woodland. I stop, facing along its length. The tall trees are reflected in the water. At the top as far as I can see, the trees disappear down. In the middle, their reflections overlap and join with those of the trees nearest me, giving a sensation of depth. A ripple appears, making the image iridescent with sparkling light. I follow the river down to my feet where the reflections travel into darkness, deeper below than the trees are high above.

I could stare into the river for hours. Even in this ordinary little village, there is so much beauty. The summer evening sunsets. At night, the stars.

Thank you very much for reading

Please feel free to share your awe walk experiences

Self portrait, Pushkar, India 2020

About the author

In 2018 in our forties and fifties my husband and I sold up, gave away most of our possessions, and went travelling for a year, mainly in India, and also to Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam. My personal/spiritual/travel memoir of the year is completed and out with agents. I live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire UK with my husband and two cats.

Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

 

Life update October 2020

Tags

agent hunting, clean living, detox, epicurean, karezza, Minimalism, Narrowboat living, Rumi, Travel memoir, Vegan, Voluntary simplicity, writing

After several days of rain, the sun came out in the late afternoon, lighting up the red berries

The wood burner is going- it’s not that cold, I’m sure when I eventually go out for a walk and get it together to fill up the water tank, it will be okay with a nice warm coat on- but sitting writing it feels a bit chilly.

#NoSextember Year Two (where my husband and I have a month of clean living including no sex) This was completed with no breaches; it was a lot easier having done it last year. This time we approached it more confidently and with more seriousness and it seemed to go better. That said, it wasn’t always easy. Week one we were both suffering from one last blow out in August. Week two we both seemed a little cranky with each other. That can be difficult when you can’t just make up with sex or flirting, or cheer yourself up with chocolate or a drink. The second half seemed better, and even more productive. I got my book done, and even booked a day off work in early October to make sure it got sent off (I think that’s called ‘honouring my craft’)

My husband has been working on planning our new website: Further. As with all things tech related, this has been slower than we anticipated. However, we now have a new laptop, lots of ideas and my son on board to help with the technical side.

We are both increasingly distant from- and often dismayed by- the polarisation which people seem so involved with at the moment- people we know with otherwise quite lovely lives, who could be really happy, full of hate for politicians on the opposite side or lost in particular conspiracy theories and calling everyone else ‘sheeple’ and falling out with friends on social media about whether or not to wear a mask.

Further will be a place for anyone who feels similarly to us, who is able to look at it all without getting completely caught up in it, who values human connection and kindness over ideology. Best summed up by Rumi’s famous quote: ‘Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.’ ‘Seeing beyond boundaries and meeting heart to heart’

We’ve also found the ideal underpinning philosophy, to the Further site and to our lives: The teachings of Epicurus. In a stunning example of synchronicity, as we were discussing this, a boat went past called The Epicurean! Nowadays the term is used to describe a ‘foodie’ someone who enjoys good food and wine. But Epicurus himself lived on bread, olives and the occasional slice of cheese. He devoted himself to the search for what makes people happy, and his conclusion was, a simple life with few possessions, shared with friends, while also having plenty of time for alone time and quiet reflection, and really appreciating what you actually have.

As the videos explain, it can be used nowadays as an antidote to the relentless dissatisfaction human beings naturally seem to have (the craving, addressed in Buddhism) which is mercilessly exploited by advertising, marketing, and the forces of capitalism. People always want more, but material things don’t give you happiness.

So naturally I have abandoned my longing for a stone cottage in Yorkshire and have moved onto a house in Italy whereby to create an Epicurean community- we live there, and people on the same path/with the same outlook come and stay.

Self portrait, Pushkar, India 2020

About the author

In 2018 in our forties and fifties my husband and I sold up, gave away most of our possessions, and went travelling for a year, mainly in India, and also to Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam. My personal/spiritual/travel memoir of the year is completed and out with agents. I live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire UK with my husband and two cats.

Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

Thank you very much for reading

Happy 20th Birthday Black Market Music

Tags

Black market music, escape the matrix, Maggie's farm, Music, Placebo, Run away, Slave to the wage, Special K

Taken from my blog post about Placebo originally posted in October 2017, deep into our decluttering and getting ready to sell up, leave our jobs and go off travelling for a year

A few weeks ago my husband bought me the Placebo album Black Market Music from the charity shop and I have since been listening to track 3 (Special K) and track 8 (more on that in a moment) over and over again in the car.  I’ve had the album for a few weeks but only just started playing it:  Timing is everything; it wouldn’t have meant so much even just a few weeks back.  The song mentions ‘Maggie’s farm’, I don’t totally know what that means, I assume it’s like ‘The Man’ and then yesterday evening with the ipod on shuffle out of four and a half thousand songs it could have played it plays Bob Dylan: Maggie’s Farm.  Did I say timing is all?

Just before we gave up, for the moment at least, listening to other people giving us spiritual advice, my husband found some youtube videos all about the importance of language, where words come from and phonetics.  I was only mildly interested, but for five minutes I did play around with the phonetics of some of my favourite blog titles.  I looked at ‘amazing’.  I wondered what ‘ing’ was supposed to mean, but I couldn’t be bothered to look it up.  I wasn’t even all that struck by A Maze.  As I said, timing is everything.

Track 8 of Black Market Music:

So even though I’m switched off from spiritual gurus for the moment, it seems I’ll make an exception for Brian Molko

“Run away from all your boredom/all it takes is one decision/a lot of guts and a little vision/to wave your worries and cares goodbye/it’s a maze, a maze for rats to try/it’s a race, a race for rats to die/run away, run away“

So, so perfect for right now*.  Thank you.

*This album actually came out in 2000 but there’s no such thing as time, right?  It’s only ever right now.

Advice for writers

Tags

chapter outline, finding an agent, how to write, How to write a book, literary agent, literary submissions, query letter, synopsis, writing, writing submissions

Trust the process…

I’m sharing here my recently submitted cover/query letter, my synopsis, and my chapter breakdown. Even though producing the actual book is the hardest bit, a lot of writers, me included, baulk at the thought of doing all the bits and pieces around the submission. Maybe having a look at some examples might help those in a similar position.

My main advice for writing a book (and for life) ‘You’ve got to keep going, and you’ve got to make it good.’

Good luck to anyone who is in the middle of any kind of creative endeavour

Thank you for visiting

Rachel

Dear

I attach a synopsis and the first three chapters of my book I fell in love with you and I cried, a spiritual, personal and travel memoir of a year in India and South East Asia. Word count 147,500

(Something about why you chose them in particular ‘I see from your profile that you are looking for…. and that you enjoy food writing)

I fell in love with you and I cried relays my journey from deciding to pack up my three bedroom home and career at the age of forty-eight to embark on a year of travelling and writing. It details my outer and inner journey as I find myself in foreign lands, with time and perspective to reflect on my life up to now and to come.

I have a long running personal blog on WordPress thisisrachelann.wordpress.com with readers who are supportive of me personally and have followed my travel journey with great interest, commenting that my travel writing makes them feel as if they are there too, admiring my honest vulnerability, and enjoying the descriptions of different foods.

I have been a dedicated writer for years, attending creative writing classes, self publishing small books and am a published writer of short stories of women’s erotica under the pen name Sadie Wolf.

I feel my book will appeal to people who enjoyed All the Way to the Tigers by Mary Morris, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and The Salt Path by Raynor Winn.

I live on a narrowboat on the Grand Union Canal, an hour and a half from London which I visit regularly.

Thank you very much for your time

Yours sincerely

I fell in love with you and I cried

Synopsis

In April 2017 my husband and I asked ourselves, what would we do if we could do anything? It was scary but we decided to sell up, leave our jobs and go travelling, along the way unpicking the conditioning of property, career and security and exploring what a life with less stuff would look like. We gave away most of our possessions and in March 2018 we went travelling for a year to India (where we spent seven months in all), Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam.

My book documents the trip through the eyes of a relatively inexperienced traveller. The sights, sounds and colours of India and South East Asia, the physical and emotional ups and downs, my anxieties and my increasing confidence. I share the personal challenges, discussions, reflections and spiritual realisations of a year of travel and a mid life rebirth.

I write openly and honestly about the experience of being completely out of my comfort zone and then finding security living out of a small back pack and staying in forty different places. I describe the sensory and spiritual overload of India, the feeling of freedom in India to be oneself and the friends and connections we made.

At the same time, I describe my inner journey. Ever since I was eighteen my life had revolved around my son. I also had a mother with very strong opinions and I found it difficult to fully live my own life outside of her shadow. I had also struggled with suicidal feelings on and off since I was a teenager. The trip was me doing something completely for myself.

Towards the end of the trip, events with my son brought me back to the most difficult periods of his teenage years. More than a decade later, on the trip of a lifetime, I was forced to relive and confront my worst moments of pain, shame, guilt and regret; to return to that place which I had never really left, and find a way to accept it and move on.

My journey is about self acceptance and finding a way to forgive myself. It’s also about reclaiming the life I wanted before it’s too late and about trying and learning to be happy.

I fell in love with you and I cried

Chapter breakdown with word count

Chapter One Following the White Rabbit Harleston UK, Delhi- Goa India 10,000

Arriving in India, first impressions, culture shock, getting sick. Also the journey of dismantling our home and lives in the months prior to the trip.

Chapter Two Happy Hippies Hampi- Goa India 10,000

The sweet sensory overload and spirituality of Hampi, the moment I fell in love with India. Self esteem wobbles, and finding myself as a writer in Goa.

Chapter Three I stand by myself and I am not afraid Kerala India 10,000

A serendipitous meeting on a rooftop at Osho’s guesthouse in Varkala led to an evening of connection with others on the same path, discussing spirituality and our life purpose.

Chapter Four The Rains Kerala India 12,000

The monsoon. A big spider and a mental health wobble.

Chapter Five I fell in love with you and I cried Kochi- Chennai- Pondicherry India 14,000

Staying at the famous amongst backpackers Broadlands Guesthouse in Chennai, visiting a temple with our Indian friend for an unforgettable evening of spiritual bliss.

Chapter Six Yes to Everything Thailand 10,000

A necessary visa and R&R break from India, meeting a friend and my step daughter. ‘You can have a spiritual moment even in a party place,’ a friend said later.

Chapter Seven Not all those who wander are lost Tokyo 9,000

I went to Tokyo alone for two weeks to meet a friend and fellow blogger and writer I had met on WordPress. Descriptions of Tokyo and discussions about writing and the big questions of life.

Chapter Eight Mountains are meant to be quiet Kolkata- Varanasi- Delhi India 11,000

Being overwhelmed in Kolkata, plus train journeys, sickness and doubt in a hotel room in Delhi and the intense spirituality of Varanasi on the Ganga.

Chapter Nine Sab Kuch Milega Pushkar India 14,000

Spiritual reflections, life discussions and self acceptance in Pushkar, which along with Varanasi is one of the holiest places in India. Stories of other travellers we met; ordinary people doing extraordinary things. In the UK, my son had most of his teeth removed, after years of neglect due to him suffering from anxiety. I stayed up talking to my husband half the night, trying process and accept the mistakes of the past.

Chapter Ten Every day beautiful, Everyday shit Kathmandu- Nagarkot Nepal- Kerala India 9,000

Meeting and connecting with fellow travellers. Meditation. Low mood and toilet troubles. A trip into the mountains and a view of the Himalayas. Discussions on life and spirituality with the beautifully named Oasis, manager of the Hotel at the End of the Universe. Returning to Varkala in Kerala to press pause and reflect on what we’d done, what it meant, and how we were going to approach the future.

Chapter Eleven So many things to Love Bangalore- Hampi- Bangalore India 9,000

Returning to Hampi, one of our favourite places, for Christmas. Soaking up the beauty of the temples, the scenery, the monkeys, cows, the food and the people.

Chapter Twelve A string of epiphanies Phnom Penh- Koh Rong- Otres Village- Siem Reap Cambodia 10,000

After India, the fun relaxation of the city, then the paradise beach of Koh Rong, meeting a fellow traveller in Otres Village. Whilst I was on a paradise beach, my son did a television interview in the UK about his side of his teenage years, which was personally devastating, dragging me back through the years to one of the worst periods of my life.

Chapter Thirteen Opposite the clouds Hanoi- SaPa- Dong Hoi- Hue Vietnam 8,000

Descriptions of Vietnam, interspersed with anxiety; my husband got very ill in Hanoi and did not fully recover until we were in Hue.

Chapter Fourteen Lord give me a song that I can sing Nha Trang- DaLat- Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam 10,000

Whilst we were in the modern Russian holiday resort of Nha Trang, another interview by my son in the UK brought me to the depths of suicidal despair. In DaLat, saved from bombing in the war by both sides, I experienced a spiritual high. In Ho Chi Minh City, spelling out my dreams for the future- to write and to travel- realising at last that I am responsible for my own happiness.

Total word count: 147,500