RESToration is a exploratory ecosomatic & geosomatic and movement-based project considering the relationship between rest and restoration.
In 2023, I took an unpaid sabbatical to rest in order to restore. Experiencing the early-signs of an oncoming burn-out in my work as a psychotherapist I decided to take some time off, take the chance to travel, and begin a grounded-research enquiry into what rest looks like in times such as these, and how it relates to deep restoration that enables practitioners in the field of human and planetary care to become more sustainable in their work.
I am particularly interested in uncovering the parallel needs of humans and landscape. For years, I have held a substantial part of my psychotherapeutic practice outdoors on a semi-woodland site in Derbyshire; itself a scarred and recovering land. I have walked with clients within the eyeline of quarries that open, extract and leave lasting wounds on the limestone landscape. I see first hand the way people restore and heal outside. But I am also a passionate rewilder with a long-standing interest in recovering landscapes of Rewilding Europe. I began visiting rewilding sites in 2015, and in the autumn visited four more landscapes across Spain, Italy, Croatia and Scotland. I became especially interested in what it might mean to rewild my listening. How could I learn to listen well again, recognising the way that burn-out steals your ears.
The emergent field of Ecosomatics is a practice of body-based, deep listening to self and world and the relationship we co-create. Geosomatics is a term I have coined for the branch that explores somatic engagement with rocky landscape and the abiotic foundations of the earth. I am interested in how both practices can help us rest and restore while staying connected to the mutual need for rest that exists with humans and landscapes overworked by intensive agriculture or development that has left them depleted and ‘unproductive’.
I am currently writing up my explorations in rewilding and in 2024, I am seeking to complement this work through residency and/or sited embodied exploration.
