We were sitting under a giant chestnut tree at the top of a steep field, a quicksilver stream flowing towards the River Dart, curving north towards Totnes and beyond to Dartmoor, its crooked granite peaks looking like thumbs up. Greenfinches were chirping and a songbird was running through its dial-up modem repertoire. A lone seal lay lazily in the estuary mud, waiting lazily for the tidal river to take it back.
“I come into the presence of wild things / who do not tax their lives with forethought / with grief … “, whispered Frank as he led our group on a nature walk. “… for a while / I take refuge in the grace of the world and I am free.”
Frank took a deep breath, as if to absorb Wendell Berry’s poem, and then asked us to recall our earliest memories of nature. In 1969, on my first journey from the city centre, I saw my five-year-old self running up a Lake District hill like an escaped animal.
This contemplation on nature and memory was part of a six-night wildlife exploration and meditation retreat at Sharpham House, an elegant 18th-century Palladian manor house set in 222 hectares (550 acres) of south Devon parkland, high above the bend of the Dart. Sharpham was converted into a charity in 1982 by its then owners, Ruth and Maurice Ash, and is dedicated to helping people cope with the stresses of modern life.
Our days began with 15 minutes of qigong under a large 1,500-year-old yew tree
Unsurprisingly, it’s in higher demand than ever in 2024. It offers a growing range of meditation courses, all with nature at their heart, and four retreats, including the newest, the Coach House. I was staying at the Coach House, a converted Grade II-listed barn, in 2022.
I hoped Sharpham could help with my anxiety: once an occasional visitor, now a constant guest, as if disturbed by each new contraction in our world. Our days began with a gentle wake-up call at 7am – no phone alarms for us, as Sharpham had requested the devices be delivered – followed by 15 minutes of qigong, a series of slow movements and breathing exercises, under a 1,500-year-old yew tree, revered in ancient times as a symbol of death and resurrection. Most of us stood barefoot on the raw grass, the electric shocks of cold shocking.
Afterwards, the group of 12 women, ages 25 to 75, and I walked slowly and silently—retreat guests are quiet from 9 p.m. until after breakfast—to the Coach House meditation room, where we were guided through a practice focusing on the breath by the retreat’s two coordinators, Caroline and Jude.
Breakfast in silence that first morning was uncomfortable. What would normally be an exciting time of communion with strangers, we sat and focused on the food on our plates—the colors, the smells, the tastes. When I touched my knife to the plate, I could hear a train rolling around a tight curve. After a few slow, careful mouthfuls, I was full. As the week wore on, those few hours of silence after waking felt increasingly sublime and spacious, almost divine—a “timeless time,” as one member of our group later described it.
The first morning was Frank’s nature walk (he was a volunteer, like all the other coordinators, and had taken a year off from his normal life). He told us about Sharpham’s fourth year of rewilding work, where crops, vineyards and most of the sheep had been removed, wildflower meadows planted and animals such as mangalica pigs and conical ponies were allowed to roam free. The aim was to replicate the actions of their wild ancestors, the wild boar and tarpan, on the land.
After lunch was always vegetarian, always fabulous – Sharpham’s organic kitchen garden provided most of the ingredients, and during the week the menu included aubergine and tofu curry, apricot and fennel tagine, cashew chocolate cheesecake and cheeses from Sharpham Dairy – with afternoons usually free of formal events.
I spent these wandering through gardens designed by Capability Brown, or through magnificent forests of redwoods, oaks, and hickories, fat and plump in June, walking slowly, breathing deeply, with intention and curiosity. Every few steps I would stop to admire rows of pennyworts or clusters of deep blue alkanets, standing tall as if in procession, offering their delicate little golden bells for inspection.
On other days, accompanied by circling swallows, I walked among the wildflowers that had been planted last year but were already a riot of clover, cornflower, poppies, daisies, and the yellow rattlesnake, known as meadow builders for its role in stabilizing the soil after heavy grazing. Almost always, I found myself by the river for hours, watching the tide breathe as the cormorants passed over their eddies, their pulsating wings like a heartbeat.
Each evening, there was an hour of group meditation, usually starting with the retreatants being invited to share their feelings. There was a lot of talk about grief and loss, the ongoing trauma of Covid, and struggling with the demands of modern life. We were invited to lie down and close our eyes as Caroline gently called our names one by one, asking the group to send us love and care, and to do the same for ourselves. By 9pm, we were all in bed. Who knew being so comfortable could be so tiring?
For several hours after waking, the silence felt increasingly sublime and spacious, almost divine.
Other nature experiences during the week included a wild flower and foraging safari, where we ate daisies, sour sorrel flowers and sherbet-flavoured lemon balm leaves, traditionally used to treat sore throats; and a bug safari, where we ran with childlike glee through the long grass with nets and ran back to proudly show off our loot to Fraser, the insect expert. There were bird walks, focused on trees or moths, or the tiny horseshoe bats that fluttered about at dusk from their nests on the roof of the Coach House and listened to their echoes chattering on the bat detectors. Sometimes we just walked, paying attention to the rhythm of our feet and our breathing.
On our last evening, we gathered in a circle around a fire bowl under the old yew tree. We sang a song together. There was laughter, no judgment whatsoever. Each of us was given a pinecone to reflect on something we wanted to leave behind before throwing it into the flames. My old self would have called this type of ritual “sarcasm,” but I seemed to have grown out of it, so I chose “anxiety” instead, and the group said, “So be it.” Then we sat in silence, trusting in the grace of the world.
Relating to: Restorative in every way: a wildlife-restoring retreat in Somerset
Wherever You Go, There You Are is the title of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s groundbreaking 1994 book on mindfulness meditation, and it’s taken from a quote often attributed to Confucius. Whenever I heard it, it always felt like a curse. As I walked away from Sharpham House, it felt a little more like a blessing.
Mike Carter was a guest Sharpham Foundation on six nights Wildlife Exploration Retreat. standard cost £545despite Guests can choose different prices according to their needs. This Includes accommodation in a single room, all food and beveragesand expert leadership walks and talks