Loving, Strimming, & Grieving

1 September 2025

9 min read

A Summer at Home with the Spirit of Simplicity

After the sheer immensity of this year’s Long Dance — the prayers, the sweat, the humour, the tears, the music, the details, and of course, the beauty of so many people moving so deep with a shared intention — coming home and some quiet time has been much needed medicine for us.

There’s nothing quite like holding a strimmer after holding a prayer for 72 hours straight. Honestly, the rhythm of strimming is its own kind of dance. And for sure, the music kept coming back as if the strimmer’s vibration was shaking out the memories.

Having time to be on our land, side by side, has been so deeply nourishing and at times, a pure joy. The everyday — a shared cup of coffee, hanging out the washing, cutting grass, walking on the moor with dog and ponies — that kind of simplicity is not something we take for granted. And we have recognised over the years how important it is to use the privilege we have to be able to strip everything back and disappear from the world from time to time. And once again, we want to honour the need for and the medicine of laughter – at times over these weeks, we have laughed so hard, mostly at the shenanigans of our own egos, that the tears have come.

celebration

The Long Dance itself was a triumph. Over £52,000 raised for a whole host of important projects from the Amazon and Africa to the Middle East. Congratulations to all the dancers and big thanks to all those who supported the fund-raising.

And those sweet days afterwards with our Ecuadorian family, Belen and Chumpi were the cherry on top. We told stories, we shared food (and definitely overdid it), we soaked in the afterglow. And then, as is so necessary, the quiet came. The letting go - what Susannah calls the ‘digestive pause.’ The remembering of who we are when no one’s looking and when there’s no-one else to give attention to.

Home-time medicine

Movement Medicine isn’t something we “do”; it’s something we live. And in the quiet days of August, it’s been living us. And just as prayer has so many forms and certainly doesn’t switch off when the music ends, prayer in the form of gratitude and presence is mostly what we are paying attention to. We had so many quiet evenings sitting by the sweat lodge by the stream, enjoying its ever-changing melody. On one evening, after a sudden and heavy rain shower, we were sat for what seemed like hours on our garden bench entranced by the symphony of rain drops as they fell and landed from and on so many different surfaces. Ecstasy can be a very quiet and empty place at times.

Of course, the other side of the coin is never far away. Ecstasy doesn’t come without an awareness of its opposite. When we are present, and listening, even in the blessed peace of where we are, the horrors in our world, the violence and grief, are never out of sight or out of mind. Tears and fury keep their place close at hand. We abhor the cruelty that remains so much part of the immaturity of our species, often fuelled by claims to own the one and only truth from God. To be awake and to desire more sensitivity and connection, is an invocation of the co-arising and parallel need to develop core strength. We need that in order to meet and dance with the multi-faceted, multi-layered and hugely complex realities of life that are always present.

always a two way sword

To be on this road, to be medicine people, is to be broken open, again and again. We don’t get to choose when the heartbreak arrives. We don’t get to choose what we are shown or are asked to listen to. The wind sings songs of grief as well as joy. The sunlight illuminates what we may want to see and what we may prefer to turn away from. The waters slake our thirst and show us where are flow is interrupted. The earth speaks of holding it all alongside the grief of what she herself sees, hears and feels.

As we land more fully and get to being in our 60’s, and the developing role of eldership, we are grateful for the solid foundation of 40 years practice which gives us the ground to both know what we know and acknowledge how much we don’t. We notice how in times of suffering, people reach for certainties like drowning people reach for any piece of flotsam and jetsam that may give a little buoyancy as the ocean swells and falls around them. It's super hard to be confronted by our powerlessness and to recognise that we can only do what we can do. Each of us must find our way to be with that. Our choice is to go on offering the things we believe will make the biggest difference. Life is short. We don't have time to waste.

fuel for the fire

And, as we grow older, we become more aware of the need for rest. And although we both feel better in body-heart-mind than we have ever felt at this point in our lives, the process of ageing isn’t just a joyride. Being 60 is nothing like we thought it might be. We used to think 60 was old. Now it feels like we're just finally arriving. And though we do so much to support our bodies, hearts and minds as time passes, we realise that no matter how many moisturisers, workouts, diets or mindsets we adopt, our bodies are slowly changing.

And one of those changes we notice, is the need for more rest. Because without rest, we won’t be ready for the work that is incoming and the work that we intend to go on offering as long as life allows. Rest is the pitstop. The refuelling. The remembering. Like letting the well become full within us and between us once again. If we don’t put wood on the fire, it goes out and we burn out.

perfume

So having said that, we offer our gratitudes for these few weeks of simplicity at home. As the leaves begin to fall and we smell the changing of the season in the air, there is a powerful blend of melancholy, gratitude, joy and determination brewing inside us. We are ready to re-engage with our offering and the outward work of bringing a little goodness into the world - movement, interoception, embodied ceremony, soul-led purpose, creativity, and the manifold gifts that Movement Medicine has wrapped in its phoenix wings. Perhaps most especially, the space, safety, courage and tools to reconnect to and strengthen the divine well of peace that this world so desperately needs. And we fully know that the journey to that well cannot bypass the the full spectrum of the heart. Watching those leaves lose their summer lustre becomes a more and more apposite mirror with each passing year. None of us knows how long life will give us. And the reality of mortality adds that note of sweet melancholy to the perfume of the season.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading. We hope to see you on the Hub or on the road as we pack our bags once again to continue the life of road warriors and homesteaders, carrying the medicine where we are called to bring it and nourishing the land and spaces it comes from. Below, you’ll find our invitations to join us in the room somewhere or online.

We wish you and your families a safe, healthy transition of season and the most epic of colourful Septembers. Each of us is like one of those leaves – beginning as a tiny bud, flowering, growing, shining and in the end, withering until life drops us and we begin that final dance back to the earth to become part of what nourishes those who will come next.

May our lives be long, healthy and soul-deep purpose-led symphonies of gratitude for the chance to be here in this unlikely miracle of life in a body on earth.

Ya'Acov & Susannah. September 2025.

P.S. We had the enormous blessing and privilege of spending the weekend with family celebrating the nearly birthday of Ya'Acov's mother who will be 85 on September 16th. Those of you who were at the Long Dance met Angella as she came to witness the ceremony for the last night and morning of the ceremony. Thank you for receiving her so beautifully.

Bringing what we have learned back to our family has been a long project 😉 - and this past weekend also had the flavour of harvest. Celebrating the harvest of my mother's 85 years, a visit to King Charles' garden (what a surprisingly inspiring time that was!), and a gorgeous family sharing which will stay with us for a very long time. Healing happens. 💚

yaacovdarlingkhan

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Ya’Acov Darling Khan, is the author of ‘Jaguar in the Body, Butterfly in the Heart...

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