Winter 2023/4

Dear Friends

I hope this finds you well. I have been appreciating the quiet time since winter solstice (with a few notable festivities along the way) and easing myself into this new year at a slow and steady pace.

I have been enjoying this song Wild Sweet - by Starling Arrow - the words especially - “we will cocoon with the season, we will sing without reason and emerge with widened wings’

The new piece of art work above is called ‘Still Winter’, honouring the stillness at this time of year. It is reminiscent of a piece I made a few years ago and inspired by the fallow land and the croaky caws of the crows around Barton End where we live.

The Voice Sanctuary

I invite you to bring your own cocooning and emergence to the Voice Sanctuary at Stroud Sky Yoga. The Winter Series begins on 27 January, the first session will support the inward focus and slow emergence of this time of year, lifting our spirits and feeling our deepening connections in community though voice.

You can find all the details and booking information here.

New Venue in Stroud

In 2024 I will be offering holistic massage and 1:1 Listening Touch sessions from Ownzone, 9 Lansdown, Stroud, GL5 1BB. The venue offers a variety of comfortable, cosy rooms. If you would like to book an appointment get in touch.

Appointments in Nailsworth are also still possible.

Sessions in Oxford

I will be in Oxford at the end of Jan/early Feb and have some spaces for massage at the beautiful Anew Therapies in Iffley Village.  I have appointments available on Monday 29 Jan

Tuesday 30 Jan

Monday 5 Feb

Tuesday 6 Feb

Please contact me directly to book

These session can include voice exploration for anyone who has worked with me before or who may be interested in trying something new.

News for 2024

I am really happy to be working with GARAS, Gloucestershire’s refugee and asylum seeking service. I will be facilitating a trauma informed group for women, integrating voice exploration and vocal improvisation. I have already met some truly inspiring women through the project and am looking forward to sharing this time and these tools with them.

My work at Breast Cancer Now continues, at a gentle pace. I will be facilitating one Moving Forwards group per month for women with a primary breast cancer diagnosis who have finished hospital treatment.

My own integration of a breast cancer diagnosis (in 2022) and treatment is going well, I continue to be supported by family, friends, community, meditation, seasonal awareness, self kindness, somatic and vocal practices.  Last week I was moved to tears coming to the end of the book i’ve been reading, ‘Wintering’ by Katherine May. I share her words here as an expression of myself and with the possibility they may resonate in you somehow too:

“but in the process life happened. Life happened a great deal actually. As if i’d ineptly summoned them, several winters came all at once. My work shrank, literally and metaphorically. I couldn’t do as much as i’d hoped. I couldn’t be the person i’d imagined: cheerful, energetic, summery. In fact, I struggled. I was dragged under by periods of depression, I was gnawed at by anxiety. There were times when I thought that I probably couldn’t write this; that I wasn’t up to it; that doing so would bring some kind of catastrophe of embarrassment, just for having the guile to think I had anything to say on the matter. Once upon a time, this would have engulfed me entirely for a season, and I would have emerged in a year or two, shaking my head and starting again.

But I am here, and here it is. The only difference, the only reason I have finished this - is experience, I recognised winter. I saw it coming (a mile off, since you ask), and I looked it in the eye. I greeted it, and let it in. I had some tricks up my sleeve, you see. I’ve learned them the hard way. When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favoured child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable, and that my feelings were signals of something important. I kept myself well fed, and made sure I was getting enough sleep. I took myself for walks in the fresh air, and spent time doing things that soothed me. I asked myself: what is this winter all about? I asked myself: What change is coming?”

At its base, this is not a book about beauty, but about reality. It is about noticing what’s going on, and living it. That’s what the natural world does: it carries on surviving. Sometimes it flourishes - lays on fat, garlands itself in leaves, makes abundant honey - and sometimes it pares back to the very basics of existence in order to keep living. It doesn’t do this once, resentfully, assuming that one day it will get things right and everything will smooth out. It winters in cycles, again and again, forever and ever. For plants and animals, winter is part of the job. The same is true for humans.”

Sending so much love to you, however you are, whatever inner season you find yourself in. May we endure the cycles and learn from each time around.

Sarah Jane

xxx

December 2023

Winter Voice Sanctuary in Oxford

I have been invited to host a Voice Sanctuary at Anew Therapies in Iffley Village on 2nd December from 2.30-4.40pm. How wonderful! I am so looking forward to returning to Oxford and connecting again with folks I haven’t seen in a while.

If you are local or feel like coming from a distance for what will be a nourishing, gentle afternoon of sounding and singing, you are most welcome exactly as you are.

Please spread the word, bring your friends.

You can find all the details and book a ticket using this link.