Philosophy

I believe that landscape, and our contact with it, materially affects us all as individuals.

This impact comes from how the landscape has evolved. The behaviour patterns and choices of the individuals that shaped each landscape make up its signature and we naturally connect to this environment.  Its force changes how we think, how we understand ourselves, each other and the world around us.

As a landscape intuitive, my role is to sense how the landscape has reached its place and the patterns behind its formation; to identify those that should be held for their positivity and those that have fulfilled their potential. This sense and sensitivity allow me to make design enhancements, balancing the landscape and the needs of the client. Helping individuals and organisations understand the value of this relationship affects their response, not only to the landscape under their custodianship but all landscape around them.

Landscape is the natural and unique relationship that humans have with the land. By embracing this relationship I am able to set up a dialogue with the landscape. I do this by walking in it; listening to it; and exploring its history and the patterns that have been superimposed on it by humankind – both positive and negative. Through this careful, sensitive work I am able to develop a relationship and form a bond with the land. I see this bond as a reciprocal agreement whereby I can read the landscape at all sorts of levels, and allow it to read me; getting the measure of who I am, my intentions and how I work as an individual.

In working this way I connect back into the landscape’s history to understand the role it played for those who have been a part of that story. I use this knowledge and insight in different ways depending on the scope of my work: either as a way of introducing it to individuals or groups who want to connect with the land on their own journeys; or when making design interventions as a Landscape Architect.

I want people to be able to connect into the landscape at a deep level and to use the physical landscape to connect into their internal landscape. I help people to do this by facilitating a space for genuine encounter which is informed by my prior dialogue with a specific landscape. 

Holding a knowledge of the landscape’s history and development in balance with insights into its energies and significance, I guide people as they walk through places such as the symbolic layout of Rousham in Oxfordshire or less managed areas like Blackdown in Surrey. As we read the landscape together, we explore how the features and atmospheres of the place speak to us and opening ourselves up to what it might have to say to us in the moment. I see my role as gently guiding an individual’s dialogue with the land and their own internal connections.