I missed last week’s Substack post because I was on the road — or, more accurately, in the middle of an overgrown apple orchard, by turns sweaty and chilly depending on whether the sun was behind or in front of the clouds, with a 25 foot measuring tape! My partner and I run a campsite in the Himalayas, and we are now in the process of moving to a new location that gives us a 20 year lease and many new possibilities. And I am so enjoying all the thinking, learning, and conversations about what physical spaces can enable for individuals and for creative community.
Let me back up. We have been doing writing workshops, arts jams, and other events at the campsite for the last 4 years, in addition to hosting regular travellers and tourists. And I have found that there is something very particular about the communities and conversations that can be formed out in nature, witnessed by millennia-old mountains, nurtured around bonfires and by candlelight and under starlit skies. The Craft and Courage writing workshop, which has defined my relationship to facilitation over the last few years, was born in these mountains, and I’m very sure it cannot be replicated in a conference room: In order to do the inner work to write with bravery and honesty, you need a holding space, and nature provides it (PS: Registrations are open now for Round 6 of the workshop — do have a look if you might want to join us!)






And yet, it isn’t just nature. A close friend told me once that I was the most intentional person he’s met, and I have to say that that feels like the most accurate compliment I have ever received. It’s true: every single moment this workshop, but also in every other space I work with, has been thought about and intentionally created. Let me give you some examples:
Every morning, you begin with a journaling exercise taken from narrative therapy practices, with a cup of a tea and a view of the sunrise, because I believe there’s no better time to go inwards and yet feel held by the mountains.
We do our hardest intellectual work in the Craft sessions after breakfast because the bright mountain sunlight and spectacular views wake the brain up like nothing else does. But then, after lunch, we take whole afternoons off so that folks have time to continue their mealtime connecting, go off on hikes together, or take a nap — whatever helps them replenish.
Our “courage” circles— the more vulnerable and potentially raw writing and sharing — take place at sunset, when the light begins to change. We write by the last of the daylight, and we share by bonfires and candlelight because I find that the change of lighting allows for an intimacy and safety in the sharing.
We actively plan for joy throughout the workshop. So you might come down from an intense emotional session into lively folk music, or have a lovely hike through apple orchards before settling in to vulnerable writing, or laugh under the moonlight till 1 AM, because I want folks always to have access to all of their emotional worlds, not just the difficult ones.
You get the idea. Every hour of the day has been thought through with an eye to location, emotion, and craft, and I’m confident that that’s why this workshop holds a particular, powerful place in the hearts of anyone who has been part of it.
And now, back to that apple orchard with which I began this entry. As we transition in space, we are also transitioning in possibility. I’ve always been very much an architect’s daughter — I recently found a 7th grade notebook where I had drawn to-scale floor plans of my bedroom, just for fun! — and I’ve also always thought hard about how physical spaces influence what takes place there. Now, with a 20 year lease, and a wide open canvas, I have chance to build the retreat space of my dreams.


I’m not going to romanticise it too much — it’s backbreaking work, even when we aren’t actually doing the building ourselves. But it’s also so full of possibility and excitement that all the backaches, stinging nettle, insect bites, and sprained ankles are more than worth it.
I’m studying A Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander and thinking about how place determines activity— he uses the example of how, when I saw medieval European town, you think of a church square, a small local market around it, maybe little lanes that lead to individual homes with small gardens, and when I say Los Angeles, you think of freeways and malls. In both cases, the place tells you what is possible to do here. I loved this way of thinking about space, and I made a list of what I wanted to make possible at the space I’m building: rest, community, wonder, work, daydreaming. Then, I began asking myself what would enable each of those: a window seat for daydreaming, a viewing point for sunrise over the white mountains for wonder, benches under apple trees for people to gather for community, and on and on. It’s a really interesting beginning for mapping out a site.


Then, we come to values. Inclusivity and access is super important to me, so we are building a wheelchair accessible retreat — probably the first one in the mountains in India (please correct me if I’m wrong, I’d LOVE to know about others!). Being in conversation with the local community matters to me, so we are building a small playground for local children because they tell us there isn’t one anywhere around them, and also because when children come to play, you automatically get into conversations with their mothers. Sustainability is super important too, so we are building traditional mud houses in addition to our tents, doing a proper rainwater harvesting setup so we don’t draw on scarce water resources, desperately learning permaculture so we can transition our apple trees to organic fertilisers and build living fences of flowers that attract birds and butterflies. I want to work with both traditional and modern knowledge systems, so we have a chartered engineer working with us on land contours but also we are listening to local farmers about how wind patterns affect which way to place a door so it doesn’t get blocked by snow in the winters. It’s so much learning packed into so little time, but it’s terribly exciting.
We hope to have our new space up and running by April, and we really hope to host all kinds of arts events, workshops, and retreats there. If you might want to be part of one, or better yet organise one, shout out. But in any case, do follow along on this new creative journey as well, thinking about how space can foster creativity. Let’s figure this out together!