Trigger warning: Descriptions of grief, non-graphic mentions of miscarriage.

This August was the 6th annual #NoPlaceLikeKnowle Home Retreat, hosted by the magnificent Bee Golding and the mighty Lucy Heard. Every summer for the last 6 years, Bee has opened up her home and garden to an assortment of Bristol’s finest oddballs for a week.

Each morning we gather in the gazebo in Bee’s back garden, overlooking the hills of South Bristol. We check in, pull tarot cards and set intentions for the day. We do something creative together before scattering to our own workspaces to write, draw, rest or whatever we need to do for the rest of the morning. We reconnect over pot-luck lunch, before dispersing again for the afternoon session. At the end of each day, we reconvene to celebrate our achievements, with an enthusiastic peel of the “well done” bells.

The first Home Retreat in 2021 was a few weeks after my partner had moved out, shortly after our 4th miscarriage. I couldn’t really talk to anyone and I didn’t really want to be seen. So I hid in a tiny shed at the bottom of Bee’s garden and wrote furiously for five whole days. 

These retreats have become an important pause-point in the middle of my year, a place where I notice where I’m at with my grief, re-connect with my creative practice and feel the support of a community of hilarious, tender-hearted creatives.

My Body Is My First Workplace

This year, Lucy Heard created a five-day self-directed ritual to weave through the retreat as part of her ‘How To Live In A Queer Dying Body,’ Arts Council England funded project. The ritual, called ‘My Body Is My First Workplace’ was a series of creative prompts based on the five elements in Chinese medicine (earth, water, fire, air, metal). The flexible prompts were designed to help people explore their relationship with their body and their voice. Here’s Lucy, explaining more about the ethos:

“Any kind of making is welcome here. Writing, drawing, collage, cardboard, voice, movement, stillness, nothing at all. There is no right way to do this. Resting is the perfect thing to do — this work is political, and a body that stops for rest without earning it is already making the point.”

If you’re interested in finding out more about Lucy’s project, or want to try the invitations for yourself, you can find a link at the bottom of this blog. 

About This Blog

I see this blog as the third part of a trilogy, exploring what happened when I took the summer off work. In week one, I attended an IFS Level 2 training, where my oppositional defiant inner Punk raged against the structure and formality. In week two, I went for a Very Long Walk along the Southwest Coast Path, which eventually led me back to my grief. The Home Retreat took place the week after that.

This blog also stands alone, offering poetic descriptions of some of the body and voice explorations I did during the Home Retreat and fragments of the writing that came out in response to those explorations and Lucy’s writing prompts.

Day One: Earth

Bare feet on warm damp earth,
Here, here, here.
Cool breeze on bare skin,
Here, here, here.
Stretching, shaking, twisting, breathing,
Here, here, here.
Soft fingertips meet rough wood surfaces,
Here, here, here.
Arms, back, bum meet shed,
Here, here, here.
Rolling, gliding, sliding, slithering,
Here, here, here.
Body turning upside down,
Here, here, here.
Legs knitting into knots,
Here, here, here.
Warm bench, scratchy blanket,
Here, here, here.
Wobbly table, welcoming chair,
Here, here, here.
My body meets the whole wide world,
Here, here, here.

Earth: My body is my first workplace because…

My body is my first workplace because that’s all I’ve got. I haven’t got an office or a studio or a retreat centre. I haven’t even got a home to call my own. What I’ve got is this body and I carry it everywhere I go. Or does it carry me? We carry each other, my body and me.

This body has been my home, my travelling companion, my way of meeting the world for 47 and a half years. Small and fleshy, compact and comfy, supple and strong, this body was once described as, “a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wallace’s Gromit.”

This body works hard. Circus stamina developed through a childhood of competing with fully grown men. This body endures, carrying, holding, bearing as much as it can.

My dear little meat sack, you do so much for me, I know I need to take better care of you. I’m sorry that you’ve slipped so far down my priority list that you’ve had to communicate your needs in styes and ulcers and exhaustion. I have extracted, exploited, demanded your work, without your full consent. I am here now, I am listening and I’m sorry.

Day 2: Water

Shaking, softening, yielding, releasing,
Curving, spiralling, coiling, oozing,
Molasses pouring into changing shapes,
Amorphous evolving,
Mercurial reconfiguring,
Not knowing, just exploring,
Moved by the beat of the music,
Moved by the sounds of the birds,
Moved by the sounds of the neighbours doing DIY,
By the shapes of the hills, the houses and trees.
By long grass waving, fluffy clouds drifting.
Body responds before mind shuts it down.

Water: What moves through? What won’t sit still?

Movement is my life force, my resilience, my joy.
Movement is my freedom, my autonomy, my power.

You can’t pin me down,
I’m un-pin-down-able.
You can’t put me in a box,
I’m un-box-able.
You can’t trap me,
I’m un-trap-able.

I move because it’s dangerous to stop.
If I stop I’ll feel the grief.
Grief does not move through me.
Grief does not move.
Grief is stuck like a big hard rock
In the middle of a fast flowing river.
Heavy, dense and cold.

Curled up in a tiny ball
in the big blue tent
In the bottom of Bee’s garden,
I held the shape of grief.
Canvass flapping in the breeze,
Women chatting in the kitchen.

Grief is lonely.
Hardness protects.
Safe and isolated.

Day 3: Fire

The three of us picked up our pitchforks,
and forked away the hay,
singing spontaneous call and response,
“lu la, lu la, lay.”

We paused to notice all the parts
Who don’t want us to sing,
The parts that doubt us and judge us and freeze us,
That tighten our throats,
and hold back our sounds.
We thanked them most sincerely
for trying to keep us safe
and hummed a gentle hum
to offer them some love.

We rocked our bodies to a lazy beat
and found a simple tune
We started to sing
the tender words
of the Ho'oponopono:

“Please forgive me.
I’m sorry.
Thank you.
I love you.”

We sang to each other,
We sang to ourselves,
We sang to our parts,
And the tears rolled down.

We bundled each other
Into a three-way hug.
Then turned into teenagers,
Yeah whatever!
We didn’t really mean it,
We were just taking the piss.

But deep down inside,
Our parts felt the love.

Fire: What burns? What protects?

No, I don’t have any kids.
Yes, I did try EVERYTHING!
Yes, I have thought about adoption.
No, it is not my path.
No, I don’t fully get how it must be for you, as a parent.
Yes, I do have swathes of time!
All the time in the world,
To find ever ingenious ways
to barricade myself
from my grief.

My grief is unfathomable,
like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
Tumbling down, down, down,
with no end in sight.

Some parts fear the landing…
They worry I’ll hit the ground with a SMACK!
My bones will shatter into a thousand pieces,
My flesh will smash like a watermelon,
Spatterings of Holly,
Distributed in all directions.
A tooth in somebody’s garden
An eyeball in a tree in a park.

Other parts fear that I’ll never hit the bottom.
I’ll just live the rest of my life
In a state of perpetual free-fall,
Nothing to hold onto,
Falling through space.
Alone.
Forever.

As long as I’m moving.
The hole can’t get me.
As long as I’m busy,
The hole can’t get me.
As long as I’m useful,
The hole can’t get me.

But what if I were to surrender to the hole?
To fully feel the grief?
Maybe there’ll be pleasure in the descent…
A rare somatic joy,
Wind rushing ever upwards,
As I plummet forever down.
Maybe I’ll start to enjoy it,
Twisting and turning,
Dancing balletically,
in the fast flowing air.

Perhaps I should try sky diving?

Day 4: Air

Five of us lay on the ground,
Clenching and relaxing,
Clenching and relaxing,
Until hard earth turned into
Soft warm sand.
Fingertips on sternums,
We hummed until our chest bones shook.
Walking our fingers up to our throats,
Ngahhhh ungahhh ungahhh.
Fingers travelling up to our faces,
Angelic Oooooo’s and eeeeee’s,
Returning back down to our chests,
Full, hearty Aaaaaaaaaahhhh’s.
Deep down in the pits of our bellies,
Big, open Ooooooooaaaaaahhhhhh’s.
Dropping down to my pelvis,
I found nothing.
Sad silence.
I sang a wish for peace
In earnest ancient gibberish,
Eshtackeemo trentackella fuetimina,
trento, trento, trento.
A solo voice in an empty cathedral.

Air: What wants naming?

In my dream last night, I was living in a swanky flat on a ferry. I was telling my big brother Billy how frustrated I was with living on a ferry. As the ship pulled into the harbour, Billy said, “Fuck it, let’s get you out of here.” We didn’t have long before the ship was due to set sail again, so we frantically packed my stuff into boxes and bags and started carrying it off the ship. The boat was starting to weigh anchor, and it dawned on me that I wouldn’t be able to take everything with me. “Meh!” said Billy.

Billy is the ultimate master in living lightly. He’s lived a thousand lives, as a circus performer, a hairdresser, a plasterer, a puppeteer, and a host of a holiday resort on a paradise island… Now he’s a family guy, running a circus school for tiny kids and living the good life in Australia.

Billy sucks the juice out of every phase of life and he always knows when it’s time to go.

It’s time to go. 

I have been “living on a ferry” for a long, long time, unable to set down roots, unable to build relationships, unable to fully participate in community. My parts have had me moving frenetically from place to place, hopping from project to project, in an effort to give my grief the slip.

Today I crept out of my solitary grief tent and joined the others in the garden. 

We have agreed to only write for 10-minute blocks. Then we stop and sing, “Oh, we’re halfway there. Woah-Oh, we’re living on a prayer,” or we sort each other’s lives out, or we make cups of tea, or whatever.

Day 5: Metal

The storm came overnight.
Left an antsy energy in the air,
Chaos in the gazebo,
The altar in disarray,
Buddha’s been joined
By an orange plastic dinosaur head
and a jar of old paint water.
The decorations are looking a little bedraggled.
Today’s ear-worm snakes through the check-in:
“Everybody’s heard about the bird,
bird-bird-bird, bird is the word.”
We MUST dance to this song, RIGHT NOW!
We play it loud and flap our wings frenetically,
Bee’s neighbours rub their eyes and eat their cornflakes.
In the infinite loop of ridiculous permission,
We strut our stuff to “Wild Thing,”
Then the music slows right down,
And we psychically agree
To perform a Clown Butoh about creativity.
We milk the cow of creative process,
And we drink of the creative milk,
We milk ourselves, we squirt each other,
With our creative milky tits.
So much milk pools on the floor.
We mop it up and wring it out.
And drink it all over again,
“RETROSPECTIVE!”

Metal: Remembrance / the wisdom that is left

What on earth has happened this week?

I hung out in Bee’s garden with a bunch of wild creatives for a week. We moved, we sang, we played, we talked, we wrote, we made, we ate, we laughed, we cried. 

I spent time with my grief and the parts who are trying to protect me from it. 

I found the conditions in which my grief best likes to be met:

Together - alone - together - alone

Noisy - quiet - noisy - quiet

Moving - still - moving - still

Wild - tender - wild - tender

I consolidated the week with magazine pictures, scissors and glue:

“Humour, affection and friendship are magical weapons in creativity and life.”

For the final part of the retreat, we each wore a mask (I made mine quickly out of a meat pie box - others were more lovingly crafted throughout the week). We paraded through the house and garden to a soundtrack of loud punk music. 

For the very last time, we sat in a circle in the gazebo, overlooking the hills of South Bristol and shared our revelations of the week. I shouted mine at the top of my voice, in the hope that I, my parts, the other attendees and the neighbours might remember:

PLAY IS IMPORTANT!

COMMUNITY IS IMPORTANT!

NOISE IS IMPORTANT!

DANCING IS IMPORTANT!

LAUGHTER IS IMPORTANT!

HOW CAN WE FACE OUR GRIEF WITHOUT ALL THIS?

HOW CAN I FACE MY GRIEF WITHOUT ALL THIS?

With a final round of gratitude, and Lucy’s closing words, “There was no right way to do this. This is what we made,” We dinged the “well done” bells one more time and the #NoPlaceLikeKnowle Home Retreat 2026 came to an end. 

Massive thanks to Bee and Lucy, of We Are Lab, for creating and holding the Home Retreat.

Big thanks to the epic murmuration of creatives who made the retreat what it was.

Huge gratitude to Lucy Heard for her ‘My Body Is My First Workplace’ prompts. You can find an outline of the project and all the invitations here.

If you want to know more about Lucy’s year of creative research, check out her guest blog from earlier this year ‘How To Live In A Queer Dying Body’

Other Holly-blogs that might be of interest:

Punk Goes Back to School - week one of my recent foray into taking time off work, when I attended an IFS Level 2 training and found my inner punk.

The Embracing Space Experiment - week two of my summer off work, where I went for a very long walk and realised some things.

Conversations With My Body: Rest - written earlier on this year when I burned out.

Rituals For Change - written at last year’s Home Retreat.