Notes from the field

Looking up and out

When guests first arrive at Matilda’s Field, they often look down at the ground. They notice the wildflowers, the path between the tents, the way the grass feels. Then, usually within a few minutes, something shifts. They tilt their heads back. They look up. And then they look out, between the trees, into all the space around them.

The sky here is wide.

We sit in a clearing in Dyfnant Forest, ringed by trees but open above. There is almost no light or air pollution.

We are on the Mach Loop, so once in a while a fighter jet comes through low and fast, and some guests genuinely love that. The rest of the soundscape is birdsong, scattered all across the site, weaving in and out through the day.

Mornings come in low and slow. Mist sometimes sits for a while and you can see how busy the spiders have been overnight with the many silvery webs, thin and silver through the haze.

We have fluffy clouds, thin clouds, wispy clouds. Clouds of all types. We get a lot of weather here. Almost all of it is worth watching.

Evenings can be the best of it. Pinks and oranges that are so vibrant they don’t seem real. On clear nights, the stars curve overhead like you are inside a snow globe. The Milky Way is just right there.

What I notice, as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about feelings and how we work with them, is what this place does to how we feel. Guests arrive carrying things and feeling contracted, and they leave with a sense of expansion. There is a lot of space here and you feel it in your body. You can let your eyes look out further than you usually can in everyday life and that visual expansion can be felt physically.

If you are thinking about coming to stay, I would say this. Don’t plan every hour. Leave space to look up, and out at the wide skies.

I share glimpses of these skies over on instagram if you’d like to follow click here.