COVID-19 Grant from Reaching Communities

“We are delighted to announce that we recently received a COVID-19 grant of £24,048 from the National Lottery’s Reaching Community Fund to support the additional work that we are offering during this period of global pandemic. Many of our programmes have moved online to match the guidelines of social distancing, and we have successfully launched a new online Recovery Retreat programme. Our programmes and work with addiction recovery are now more widely available regardless of geographical location. Our latest online retreat ran in early October and our next one is scheduled for January 2021.”

The last 6 months of Write to Freedom…

As of March 2020 we moved all of our programmes into online support to fit in with the regulations around COVID-19, both for previous and new participants.

Since then we have been running fortnightly online community groups, as well as a 6 month long training in our ‘Creative Pathways to Healing and Meaning’ programme, which often saw 15-18 committed and active participants. We have also been running standalone training and education events with guest speakers.

In June we ran our first 2-day online Recovery Retreat, which saw 14 participants and 9 volunteers attend, to be followed by one in early October, and another in January 2020.

“I felt held and supported even though it was a digital gathering. In some real life circles I participated in, I have not felt this level of intimacy and trust. Everybody was heard and included. This experience gave me a good reminder that things don’t have to be complicated in recovery. Connection to people and nature, creativity and mindfulness - nothing more is needed.”

— Participant, June 2020

In conjunction with each retreat, we run a series of introductory and integration events for new participants, as well as ongoing and regular support for those engaged in our leadership development programme that volunteer on retreats. In July, fitting in with the appropriate social distancing guidelines we returned to our in person monthly Mentoring Days for those participants who have already been through our programmes.

There have been significant challenges in needing to adapt our programmes to meet the current global pandemic situation, and our staff and volunteer teams have fully stepped up to meet these challenges with energy and enthusiasm to create online programmes that are inclusive, relevant, engaging and connecting.

Long time participant Ali Chapman celebrates the stepping up of the community in this way in a recent blog post. Click here to read it.

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In early September our creative recovery team released their second short film, To Know the Difference. It is about the choices we make and the paths we take and was produced by a mixture of industry professionals and individuals in established addiction recovery. 

Following on from our award winning first short film, We Seek the Teeth, To Know the Difference explores the inspiring recovery journey of W2F participant and trainee leader, Laura Hamlyn. Following Laura's own words as she moves through the landscape of Dartmoor, this compelling, intimate, short film explores the three pillars of Write to Freedom's recovery ethos - nature connection, creative expression and the mindful life.

If you haven’t already seen either of our 2 short films (and even if you have!), have a watch here…

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To match the shift in our programme delivery we have done some significant development on our website, reflecting the new programme but also adding in more engaging and interactive elements. We have a new log in section with resources and updates for those who have been through our programmes, and hopefully you have noticed the lovely visual revamp on our main news page.

Coalescing, an Experience Day poem

One of our participants, Jannice Jones, wrote this poem following our recent open Experience Day in a north Devon woodland.

Photos from the day by Caspar Walsh.

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Coalescing

Perspective
The journey to the heart
Hearth Keepers combined
Love of nature
Entwined
Into peace Divine

Laughter
Connection
Deep reflection
The waves of wind
On the shores of our soul
The joy we find
Once more

Green and Brown
Trees and Ground
Swaying our limbs
In time
Muscles taut
To move once more
With the life-blood
That abounds

Grief released
Peace retrieved
Heart awakened in sound.
All at once
At one with all
Weaving natures crown
Divine calls
To us all
Relax
And make no sound

Inner sanctum rejoices
As the walls
Came
Tumbling
Down

~ Jannice Jones

To Know the Difference, our new short film is OUT!

A new short film from award winning filmmaker Caspar Walsh and the Write to Freedom crew…

To Know the Difference is the second film from Write to Freedom’s (W2F) creative recovery team. It is about the choices we make and the paths we take and was produced by a mixture of industry professionals and individuals in established addiction recovery. Following on from our award winning short film We Seek the Teeth, To Know the Difference explores the inspiring recovery journey of W2F participant and trainee leader, Laura Hamlyn. Following Laura's own words as she moves through the landscape of Dartmoor, this compelling, intimate, short film explores the three pillars of Write to Freedom's recovery ethos - nature connection, creative expression and the mindful life.

“A key part of the creative process in W2F is co creating beautiful projects with other beautiful human beings. I left the film business in 1996, knowing I was too sensitive to stay in what could be a pretty brutal, unkind industry. I needed to step onto a more conscious healing and career path. It broke my heart to step away from a childhood dream to work in film but it probably saved my life. It did save my life. On many levels. I’ve returned to filmmaking on my terms, supporting the addiction and trauma recovery process. I’m really proud to offer this to the world to inspire hope and change and maybe a shift in perception. The road is long, the paths are opening up. Life is sweet.”

— Caspar Walsh

Celebrating our Community, by Ali Chapman

By Ali Chapman.

I was invited to apply for a place on a Write to Freedom residential in 2016, not long after my 14 weeks in rehab after 31 years of alcohol addiction. I didn’t know what to expect, but was keen to try everything and anything. Over the ensuing three days I was introduced to nature immersion, story, myth, journaling, poetry and mindfulness. For the first time in many years I regained a great connection with the land, myself and the community of people I was with. I began to trust. A little at first. This beginning allowed me to start believing in myself, and that I had a new community of people that kept their word. Over the last 4 years, Write to Freedom has become my other family. I have grown up with it, rekindled my love of nature, and found my purpose, in sharing this passion with others. It has supported me through all the tricky times in recovery when I have had to look at the gnarly sides of my behaviours and actions. Unlike other recovery experiences I have had, Write to Freedom continues to offer new areas for growth and development.

Through 2020 we were due to run a series of residentials on Dartmoor, which were cancelled due to Covid-19.

As a community we were already meeting regularly online, but there was a great impetus to still reach out to new people in recovery, but how? We were guided by the staff at Write to Freedom to consider if we could offer an immersive retreat online, recreating as much as we could of our life-changing residentials.

As soon as that seed was sown, the community worked closer and more diligently than I have ever seen. Within a month, with the guidance of the charity’s creative director Caspar Walsh, we had created a totally unique online programme. Each volunteer chose to work in one area, either nature connection, creativity, or mindfulness. They then developed that part of the programme, practiced and refined their workshop ideas with the rest of the team, before delivering live to the participants of the retreat. You could feel the passion, commitment and enthusiasm. We also had a team that focused on publicising the retreat, as it felt so important in a time of isolation to connect as many people with our work as possible.

This event took place on June 13th/ 14th, with 9 volunteers and 2 staff members. 12 participants attended, from all over the UK and into Europe.

I want to celebrate the 262 hours that were volunteered by the 9 volunteers over that month. I have never felt such a sense of pride for my Write to Freedom family! Off the back of this success, we are repeating our online retreat again this October.

To Know the Difference - Online Film Premiere!

A new short film from award winning filmmaker Caspar Walsh and the Write to Freedom crew…

To Know the Difference is the second film from Write to Freedom’s (W2F) creative recovery team. It is about the choices we make and the paths we take and was produced by a mixture of industry professionals and individuals in established addiction recovery.  Following on from the award winning, We Seek the Teeth, To Know the Difference explores the inspiring recovery journey of W2F participant and trainee leader, Laura Hamlyn. Following Laura's own words as she moves through the landscape of Dartmoor, this compelling, intimate, short film explores the three pillars of Write to Freedom’s recovery ethos -  nature connection, creative expression and the mindful life.   

Date: Saturday, September 12, 2020, 11am - 12:30pm

Cost: Free admission. Donations to Write to Freedom’s work welcome

Film screening (7 mins) followed by interview and Q&A with Laura Hamlyn, Caspar Walsh and crew.

Please email: info@writetofreedom.org.uk for your Zoom access link. This screening will be password protected.

“There is another side… another way to be.”  Laura Hamlyn

The Warrior Archetype, poem by Caspar Walsh

A series of poems and images by Caspar on the Jungian Archetypes, as part of our Creative Pathways to Healing and Meaning programme.

Old Ghosts

By Caspar Walsh

When to say, yes
When to say, no

To the old echoes
Of an old soldier
Guarding a tiny, sun burnt island
Day and night
Decades after the end of a great war
Guarding old ghosts.

When to say, yes
When to say, no.

We draw invisible and visible lines of protection
Why wouldn’t we? After all the cards we’ve been dealt.

And when the time comes
When death no longer follows us as it did
We step back
And begin to learn - from scratch
To protect now, what is vulnerable
Sacred, vital.

We hold our crooked old sword up
Glinting in the amber light
In service to what we believe
To choose well, that’s it
The choice
When to say, no
When to say, yes
What’s it to be?

Celebrating the Life of Mel Lamb – High Heathercombe Centre Manager

I’ve been feeling angry, sad and frustrated. It’s about not realising how much a friend meant to me until she died.

When I heard the news of Mel Lamb’s death it was as if a spell had been broken around the fear I often felt around her. A fear I now realise was stopping me from lovingly challenging her lifestyle as I saw it. A life lived on the edge of the known world; a no holds barred, non stop warrior of the high moor, protecting the planet and all the people that came into her fierce, huge-hearted orbit. She never stopped, rarely rested and found it hard to put her needs first.

It took some years to realise how much Heathercombe was Mel and Mel was Heathercombe. They evolved together in a tangled web of activity, growth, change and wild, wild weather. Over the many years Mel was custodian of this of stunning site and the landscape it nestles in, she was incredibly focussed and dedicated. The success and profile of High Heathercombe today is largely born out of her passion and commitment.  She rarely spoke of her evident achievements.

I often worried about Mel and her health. For me, as a recovering addict I could see that she struggled with her demons of tobacco and coffee and over working. We spoke about it often. In the final years of knowing her, I felt she was moving from a place of anxiety to deeper peace.

Her endless worry and grief was for the pain and loss she saw throughout the world. Heathercombe was an expression of the love and passion she felt as a protector of the landscape and all beings from all walks of life. So much of the healing that unfolded at Heathercombe over the years, for myself and the many we have worked with, leave us in debt to her generosity and vision. A vision that flowered into thousands of transformed lives over her time as manager of High Heathercombe. Made possible by the compassion and generosity of the Pike family who own the surrounding land and deeply support the work. I’m hoping and praying Mel’s legacy will live on.

In her typical, quiet way, Mel championed Write to Freedom from its first incarnation working with young men in the prison system right through to our current work with mixed gender, addiction recovery. I’m beginning to realise now, just how much she loved and championed what we do. 

The last time we spoke was in June 2020 when she told me about her diagnoses. She sounded tired but strong. Determined at last, as Mary Oliver wrote, ‘to save the only life she could save.’ She had many beautiful people around her in her final days and died in her bed at dawn (read Dita’s beautiful piece on this below). I’d assumed Mel’s determination and stubbornness would mean she would be with us for many more years to come. It was a heart-breaking shock to hear how quickly she went. And it hit me at a deep level how much my experience of Heathercombe, the experience of all our participants and staff over so many years, are connected root and branch to the life force of Mel Lamb.

I find it hard to believe I won’t see her again in this life. But I choose to believe that she’s out there in the elements, the landscape and the abundant life of the high moor. I have faith and love in the legacy of her work, in the spirit of her being, her ferocious, mother bear love for all the souls who have stood on the Heathercombe veranda looking out across the stunning landscape. Who choose to believe, as Mel did, that change, healing and reconciliation are possible for all beings, in this world and the next.

Melanie Lamb. Born July 1965. Died 13th July 2020.

Caspar Walsh
Creative Director
Write to Freedom

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This poem was written on the way to Mel’s blessing ceremony at Epona near Chagford. I wanted the landscape I had travelled through so many times to get to Heathercombe, to inspire the words.

Dawn Light – by Caspar Walsh

We drive steadily on
Bone Hill down to the left
Up ahead, Hound Tor
This road, so many years

Travelling
Through this landscape
Opening up, readying
To so much

Headed through the land you loved
So much
You beautiful, wild eyed witch
Of the high moor

Threshold guardian
Mother earth protector
At the end of this road
So many years and miles travelled

Years that softened your heart
But kept your claws, tiger sharp
For the work
The endless work

New ancestor of these hills
As you shine now
In the eyes of fox. vole
Buzzard and spider -

In the bright dawn light
As you move across
The land you loved
The land you love

Endless, beautiful
Soul guardian
Of the high moor
Rest.

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Dita, Mel’s good friend and part of the volunteer team at Heathercombe, writes about her passing -

“The sun was just rising when our beloved Mel drew her last breath. The birdsong felt like a chorus, a tribute to that mighty and fierce and so tender woman. A green-and-gold moth, which had been perched above her head through the night, fluttered out into the glorious morning. The wind in the tall trees in front of her window felt respectfully quiet, like the wings of a caring goose tenderly closing over a dear goselin.

She looked so peaceful, as if submerging in the waters of a vast river that was to take her, not away from us, not really, but deeper into us. For she's part of my heart, all our hearts, and has now permanent residence there. The loving holding of Tarn, her words that have become a rich landscape in my memory, removed any fear. Her face, her soft small face became a home to a soft small smile in that space of such deep love. She could still see the first rays of sunlight coming through the window, she could still hear the birdsong.

I know this pain I feel all too well, I have been feeling it for months. But now it's got company, it has the immense relief of knowing that she's not in pain anymore.”

An in-person July Mentoring Day - photo blog.

After months of only online events through the Covid-19 lockdown, we had our first in person and socially distanced Mentoring Day in the lush summer green of the wild and wonderful Dart Valley.