Where the land guides and the soul remembers
No castle, abbey, stone circle, woodland, waterfall, or gorge — no matter how stunning — can ever match the feeling of being out in the mountains or hills.
I’ve always felt this way. From my very first outing on Dartmoor — my first love, forever close to my heart — I knew there was something magical about wandering through the wild.
Stags Fell, Yorkshire Dales
There’s a special kind of freedom in making your way across the land, veering off the beaten track and finding your own path. It stirs something ancient in me — a distant memory of a time when trails didn’t exist, and nature couldn’t be fenced off. Though I have no conscious recollection of those days, my soul remembers. The moment my feet first touched the Moors, I felt it: I was home.
There was no guidebook or manual, yet my body instinctively knew how to move across the land. I quickly learned to navigate the boggy stretches and marshes, walking in a way that kept me light and steady — lessening the strain on my body and avoiding injury. Before long, I was practically competing with the sheep for agility. (They’re surprisingly swift!)
For me, this way of moving through the wild feels so natural, almost second nature. And yet, I know it’s no longer the norm. Most people have lost that primal connection. We’ve become reliant on signposts, safety measures, and marked trails to guide us — when, in truth, the land itself is our best guide, if only we’d tune into our intuitive senses.
Being out on the Moors always fills me with awe. It’s where I feel most deeply connected to my soul. Throughout my many trips to Britain, I’ve felt as though I was gathering scattered pieces of myself — fragments I’d left behind when I leapt into this lifetime. I often joked that I must have landed on the wrong side of the pond, being born in Holland.
Recently, something fascinating happened. During deep inner work, I uncovered the essence of my longing for Britain. It turned out to be twofold: a desire for hermitage woven into my very DNA, and an ancestral pull. The latter may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for me, it made perfect sense. I’ve experienced countless ‘life memories’ from another time — particularly in Devon and Cornwall — glimpses of places and moments that felt inexplicably familiar.
Awareness is key. Once I recognised these underlying patterns, they began to dissolve. My greatest desire is to live a life of freedom — and I don’t mean making no commitments or having an empty schedule. True freedom is being your own authority: making conscious choices and fully owning the consequences. It’s the ability to live by intuition, guided by a free mind rather than by subconscious programming.
Through deep inner work, I rewired my brain. I overrode the old ‘Hermit’ program, so now solitude is something I can choose rather than something that drives me. It’s still a part of me — one I cherish — but it no longer holds the reins. That’s the beauty of inner transformation: it doesn’t erase who you truly are — it reveals it. The Hermit life was never truly me, and so it could be set free.
Here’s to fresh, uncharted paths and the freedom to walk them with open hearts and wild souls.
Are you one to be found off the beaten track?
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