We sat under a giant chestnut tree at the top of a steep field that plunged down to the River Dart, like a stream of quicksilver winding north to Totnes and on to Dartmoor, its curved granite torsos like approving thumbs. Greenfinches chirped and a song thrush went through its dial-up repertoire. A lone seal sauntered on the mud of the estuary, waiting lazily for the tidal river to reclaim it.
“I come in the peace of wild creatures / who do not burden their lives with foresight / of sorrow … whispered Frank, who led our group’s nature walk. “… for a while / I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
Frank took a deep breath, as if he were absorbing Wendell Berry’s poem, and then asked us to recall our earliest memories of nature. I imagined my five-year-old self, in 1969, on his first journey from the inner city, sprinting up a hill in the Lake District like an animal awakened from captivity.
This reflection on nature and memory was part of a six-night wildlife discovery and meditation retreat at Sharpham House, a magnificent 18th-century Palladian country house set in 222 hectares (550 acres) of parkland in south Devon, high above an elbow of the River Dart. In 1982, Sharpham was transformed into a charity by its then owners, Ruth and Maurice Ash, dedicated to helping people cope with the stresses of modern life.
Our days started with 15 minutes of qigong under a vast 1500 year old yew tree
Unsurprisingly, in 2024 it is more popular than ever. It offers a growing range of meditation courses, all with nature at their heart, and four retreat centres, the newest of which – the Coach House, converted from a Grade II listed stable block in 2022 – is where I stayed.
I hoped Sharpham could help me with my anxiety: once an occasional visitor, now a regular, seemingly agitated by each new convulsion in our world. Our days began with a gentle 7 a.m. alarm—no phone alarms for us, as Sharpham asks that we turn in our devices—followed by 15 minutes of qigong, a series of slow movements and breathing exercises, under a sprawling 1,500-year-old yew, a tree revered by the ancients as a symbol of death and resurrection. Most of us walked barefoot in the dewy grass, the electric shocks of cold jarring us.
Then the group, myself and 12 women, aged from about 25 to 75, walked slowly and silently – the retreat guests are silent from 9pm until after breakfast – to the meditation room of the Koetshuis. There we were led through an exercise by the two retreat coordinators, Caroline and Jude, focusing on the breath.
Breakfast in silence on the first morning was disconcerting. In what would normally have been a time of excited communion with strangers, we sat and concentrated on the food on our plates—the colors, the smells, the flavors. My knife against the plate sounded like a train on a tight bend. After a few slow, attentive bites, I was full. As the week progressed, that silence of a few hours after waking felt increasingly sublime and spacious, almost divine—one member of our group would later describe it as “timeless time.”
That first morning was Frank’s nature walk (he, like all the coordinators, was a volunteer, taking a year’s sabbatical from his normal life). He told us about Sharpham’s rewilding drive, now in its fourth year, which had seen the removal of crops, vineyards and most of the sheep, wildflower meadows sown and animals such as mangalica pigs and konik ponies introduced to roam freely, with the aim of replicating the practices of their wild ancestors, the boar and tarpan respectively, on the land.
After lunch, always vegetarian, always fantastic – Sharpham’s organic kitchen garden provided much of the produce and the menu during my week included aubergine and tofu curry, apricot and fennel tagine, cashew and chocolate cheesecake and cheeses from the Sharpham Dairy – the afternoons were generally free of formal activities.
These were spent wandering in the gardens designed by Capability Brown, or through the fantastic forests of sequoias, holm oaks and handkerchief trees, thick and full in June, walking slowly, breathing deeply, with intention and curiosity. Every few steps I stopped to stare in wonder at rows of pennywort, standing tall as if on parade, displaying their delicate little golden bells for inspection, or clusters of cerulean alkanet.
On other days I would walk, accompanied by circling swallows, through the wildflower meadows, planted only the previous year but already a profusion of clover, cornflowers, poppies, daisies and, crucially, yellow rattle, known as the meadow-maker for its role in rebalancing the soil after intensive grazing. I would almost always end up by the river, for hours, watching the tidal breath as cormorants skimmed over the wreaths, their pulsating wings like heartbeats.
Each evening there was an hour of group meditation, often preceded by an invitation for participants to share their feelings. There was much talk of grief and loss, of lingering Covid trauma, of struggles with the demands of modern life. We were invited to lie down and close our eyes as Caroline gently called out our names, one by one, inviting the group to send us love and care and asking that we do the same for ourselves. By 9pm we were all in bed. Who would have thought that being so relaxed could be so tiring?
That silence for a few hours after waking felt increasingly sublime and spacious, almost divine.
Other nature experiences during the week included a wildflower and foraging safari, where we ate daisies, traditionally used to treat sore throats, spicy sorrel flowers and lemon verbena leaves, which tasted like sherbet; and an insect safari, where we ran with childlike glee through the long grass with nets and ran back to Fraser, the insect expert, to proudly show him our haul. There were bird walks, tree walks or moth walks, or the tiny lesser horseshoe bats that fluttered from their nest in the coach house roof at dusk, and whose chattering echolocation calls we listened to on bat detectors. Sometimes we just walked, paying attention to the rhythm of our feet and our breathing.
On our last night we sat in a circle under the old yew tree around a fire pit. We sang a song together. There was laughter, not a hint of judgement. We were each given a pine cone to project something onto which we wanted to leave behind before we threw it into the flames. The old me would have said “cynicism,” especially of such rituals, but I seemed to be free of that, so I chose “fear” instead, and the group sang, “Let it be so.” And then we sat, in silence, resting in the grace of the world.
Related: Restorative in every way: a rewilding retreat in Somerset
Wherever You Go, There You Are is the title of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s groundbreaking 1994 book on mindfulness meditation, after a saying often attributed to Confucius. Whenever I heard it, it always felt like a curse. As I drove away from Sharpham House, it felt a little more like a blessing.
Mike Carter was a guest at the Sharpham Trust on his six nights Wildlife Discovery RetreatThe . standard cost is £545although Guests can select different rates depending on their needs. This including accommodation in a single room, all food and drinksand led by experts walks and talks