This newsletter was first sent to subscribers on Friday 7th August 2026. It goes out the first Friday of each Month, so next one will be sent 4th September. If you'd like to subscribe and get it first, you can sign up here:

Wow, it feels a long time since I saw you!

I hope you've been keeping well, staying cool and sane in the heat and the holidays?

I know it can be both a joy, and a massive disruption, to the rhythm of your life and sense of balance.

So what is there for you in this month's issue?

Firstly, the 3 ways you can join me. Because, and big happy dance - I went live with Move Together with Nature on my website a few weeks ago!

Secondly, I've written around 3 F's:

• Following Curiosities - what the old Lammas festival can tell us about synchronicity in society and our relationships.

• Formulating Hypotheses - what if evolving our relationship with Nature helps us symbiotically be better in all our human relationships?

• Finding Edges - what is the root of the discomfort that appears between creating a space for people, and people joining?

   

This month, I'm blending my personal reflections with something useful for you. Each section has reflection Q;s for you. I hope you find something in this for you, or at the least, feel in touch with me.

I always love to hear from you. Whatever this stirs up, or if you feel drawn to come down to Poole, hit reply or drop me an email: felicity@bendtheriver.org

3 Ways to join me in September & Move Together with Nature

• The group walk with a light coaching touch. Multiple stages as we walk the Dorset River Stour, Source 2 Sea. Max group of 15. Small fee and free volunteer places. Choose your date and stage or come along to all of them. Booking links go live w/c 10th August. Just reply to this email and tell me you want the links and I'll send them straight to you. First walk: 11 September.

   

• The 1:1 90min guided walk exploring the 5 Invitations. Register to receive your invite for the next block of invites for The Experiment. Dates and session bookings are only visible to those who have registered. Sept & October dates invites sent out by Friday 21 August. INVITES NOW CLOSED. Register for November.

• The peer supervisory style circle hosted by Ashley Crocker and I. The UnFurling is a 10 month, 5 session space for coaches, therapists, counsellors, consultants, space-holders for others, to come along and evolve relationships.. with themselves, with nature, with their work. It's for deepening presence and practice. It starts with a conversation...respond to this email or request one here Starts 24 September. Option to start 26 November.

Message Me felicity@bendtheriver.org

Following Curiosities

Did you know it was Lammas on 1st August? Do you know what Lammas is?

No, me neither.

It was highlighted to me by two fellow coaches who know their pagan festival calendar and weave it into their work. Call it a way of acknowledging the roots of how we've lived on our land.

Here's what I learnt...

Lammas Day (celebrated annually on August 1st) is an ancient cross-quarter festival marking the first harvest of the grain. The name derives from the Old English hlāfmæsse, meaning "Loaf Mass."

Rooted in the pre-Christian Gaelic festival of Lughnasadh (honoring the sun god Lugh and his foster mother Tailtiu), the holiday was later Christianized. Farmers would harvest the first ripe wheat, bake it into loaves of bread, and bring them to church to be blessed. These loaves were then used in rituals to protect the remaining crops and home for the rest of the season.

My curiosity went further: How did this Seasonal Synchronicity support Society & Relationships?

In agrarian societies, survival depended on shared human timing—aligning labor, social life, and law with natural rhythms. Lammas acted as a vital communal anchor in several key ways.

• 1. Breaking the "Hungry Gap": Late spring was traditionally a time of scarcity as winter stores ran low. Lammas marked the end of the lean months, bringing collective relief and communal feasting that reinforced trust across the village.

   

• 2. Powering Mutual Aid: Grain had to be harvested fast before weather could ruin it. Lammas synchronized labor—neighbors pooled their hands to bring in each other's fields, opening up private lands into shared pastures once the crop was cut.

   

• 3. Fostering Romance & Connection: Lammas fairs drew scattered communities together for trading, games, and matchmaking. It was famous for "handfasting"—trial marriages lasting a year and a day that allowed couples to test compatibility before committing permanently.

   

• 4. Structuring Society & Contracts: As a key quarter-day on the calendar, Lammas was an economic reset button. It was the traditional time to hire seasonal labor, settle debts, and renew land leases based on harvest yields.

The Bottom Line: Lammas was a masterclass in alignment—by syncing hard work, celebration, romance, and commerce with the natural cycle, survival became a shared team effort rather than an isolated struggle.

Sounds pretty cool! So much less choice. Maybe like me, you think that's a good thing too?

We live in an increasingly asynchronous society. Convenient, huge choice but not necessarily optimal for our bodies, brains and well-being. It's bought with it huge complexity, to which we can then offer it more individual convenience and choice as a solution.

What if we all just need more 'Movement Together'?

Reflective Q's for you:

• What synchronicity do you notice in your relationships and communities?

• What's your preference for which activities are synchronous and asynchronous? (keep your mind out the gutter!)

• What can you experiment with today to bring in more synchronicity and alignment in your home and work?

Formulating Hypotheses

A few have come to mind these last few weeks, but this one feels the clearest....

What if evolving our relationship with Nature helps us symbiotically be better in all our human relationships?

As the work and offers within the Move Together with Nature landscape become clearer, and my LinkedIn feed suggests to me other people's content, and I expand my reading ... this is the question that comes to mind.

It's a different angle to that offered by someone who is primarily focused towards the health of our planet, and sees good working relationships as critical to do that.

I see it this way...

If we can improve and evolve our relationships with Nature, and that supports our relationships with each other, then as an indirect benefit, we become more mindful of how we acknowledge, value and care for Nature.

Humanity relationship first. It's where more people feel more pain and I believe, have more desire for connection and change.

Here's the language I've heard myself starting to use around evolving our relationship with Nature.

I'm going to give it a go and share it here first...

Getting Outdoors 

• Knowing that you like being out and about on holiday, eating, drinking, exploring.

• You like that there's more space.

• You see colours, shapes; smell the roses, the bakery.

• Hear the birds, the leaves, the wind.

  
  

As a coach, you know it feels more spacious and generous for your client than a small enclosed office. It's away from the other, the known environment.

Using Nature

• There are sports and outdoor pursuits galore only possible by the outdoor elements.

• Welcome to my world of water sports, winter sports, cycling and so on.

• Only possible because Nature provides the elements for man to work a way to use.

  
  

As a coach, you may find yourself on a bench or walking, and pause to use Nature around you as a metaphor, a mirror. Something that creates a shift in perspective. Helps joins the dots, opens up new possibilities. You may take the outdoors indoors to support your work. Images, items and so on.

With Nature 

• Nature becomes a partner, and like any other partnership - there is exchange.

• Maybe you're a gardener, tending to the eco-system, nurturing the hedgerow and woodery to be a home for others.

• You speak to her, and hear her messages.

• You notice what she offers, and how she changes through the seasons.

• How she feels when it's hot, and you're burning up. How hot must she feel?

• You allow her to impact you, to ease you, support you, oxygenate you.

  
  

As a coach, you're tuning into the land you walk on, you tread with care, and encourage others to do the same. You invite her in as co-coach to hear what she has to offer to you, your relationship, your client. You support your client to be with, not in, and to not use/consume without care.

As Nature

• The separation dissolves - you acknowledge that you are Nature.

• We are of each other - mineral, oxygen, water, matter and so on.

• Like the hedgerow, you are a home for others - millions of microbes

• You take care of yourself, you take care of Nature, because you are part of Nature.

• Maybe all parts of you are in touch with Nature, not just a part of you?

As a coach... this one is still shaping for me. If you're further along this journey than I am, I'd love to hear what this shifts in your practice. If this sounds bonkers, then I'd love to hear your questions.

I'm on a personal journey here. I'm currently experimenting with connecting to the belief that I am water... and my purpose is 'to water'.

And if that is the case, then how do I look after the flow, quality and levels of water within me, in order 'to water' others?

Reflection Q's for you

• What is your relationship like with Nature?

• What small step could you take today to evolve it?

• What element of Nature do you feel is most within you?

Finding Edges

I found an edge of discomfort. Eeek!

Ashley and I had enjoyed our chat, agreeing the shape and form of our peer group space, The UnFurling for practitioners (coaches, therapists, counsellors) and were in the full flow of the excitement of what it would be like to hold space together.

And then... who would come, would anyone come, when we would know who's coming?

It suddenly became real.

Here's how my 'edge' played out...

I was totally thrown when 3 people in one day told me that they wanted to come along.

I was so focused on who might come that I wasn't turning into those who were already on their way to coming.

The first time, I genuinely lost my words and said... 'that's nice'. Cringing as a I said it.

The second, I improved my appreciation and said something like... 'how fantastic, it will be wonderful to have you in the group.' Still feeling awkward but aware I wanted to be welcoming.

By the third, I welcomed, appreciated and inquired.... adding on 'what do you hope the space and group over the 10mths will bring you?

What was the root of the discomfort?

I suspect that this discomfort arose because it was out of context to the rest of the conversation. When I start a 1:1 relationship, I can see the person on their way to me. We email, we set up a conversation, I ask a reflection question and so on. I create 'ground' for our relationship. Then we have a conversation specifically designed to establish if we were a fit for each other. This is definitely a comfort zone flow and conversation for me.

The pathway to The UnFurling feels a little different. So I missed those who were already on their way to me. It threw me.

Someone kindly reminded me, that this is the same, just a little less structured, more adhoc. The pathway is wilder. People will come because we've had conversations that welcome, appreciate and inquire and establish if there is a good fit. That feels familiar! I'm learning to tune into what the pathway looks like.

 Reflection Q's for you

• What edges bring you discomfort?

• What is the root of the discomfort?

• What similarities and differences can you tune into?

Sending you joy from my local area of Poole,

you can just see Corfe Castle behind my head!

Thank you for joining me.

All the best, Felicity x

Move Together with Nature

This newsletter was first sent to subscribers on Friday 7th August 2026. If you'd like to subscribe & get it direct to your inbox, you can sign up here: