Free Range Living, Rich Tapestries and Michael Jackson 🤠

For a while, my childhood unfolded like a travelling suitcase, zipped open and shut from place to place, country to country, never quite unpacked, never quite settled. My mother moved us constantly, her free-spirited nature turning our little two-person family into something more nomadic than rooted. The only place that ever felt semi-permanent was the Central California countryside, where we managed two couple-of-year stints nestled among golden hills and sprawling vineyards.

One of those stretches brought us to tiny, touristic Solvang, strangely, the largest Danish town outside Denmark. Quaint, kitschy, and oddly surreal, it was the backdrop to one of the most unusual and beautiful educational experiences of my life.

I was enrolled in The Family School, a Montessori-style school set in the wild heart of the Santa Ynez Valley, in what felt like the middle of nowhere. Vines crept up the walls of the classrooms, and the tables were arranged in soft circles, drawing us into eye contact and conversation. A real wood-burning stove warmed us in winter. We learned outdoors often, I still remember plucking mulberry leaves for the silk worms we studied in the garden.

Rather than being divided into traditional grades, our classrooms had names like The Purple Door, Green Door, Red Door, a colour-coded world where hierarchy gave way to community. It wasn’t odd to have a best friend two years younger or older. We were just a collective of small humans growing, together.

Just across the road? The gates to Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. Every year, one lucky class was chosen to visit. We held exotic animals, sampled treats in a candy room that could only be described as Willy Wonka-esque. This was well before the allegations, of course, a time when innocence still clung to the experience.

I remember holding a giant albino ball python and asking the handler what her name was.

“Madonna,” he replied dryly.

Even at twelve, I sensed there was some meaning in that.

Let me paint the picture. You’re driving to school, winding through miles of dry, sun-bleached grass bordered by rustic wooden fences. Gnarled oak trees rise from the earth like ancient spell-casters, holding vigil over the valley. The wind rolls through the hills and rustles the leaves in a way that feels alive, like the land is breathing. The air smells dry and fresh all at once, especially if you’ve got the top down.

There’s a certain calm in this part of California. A kind of silence that presses against you in the most loving way. The land holds secrets, and if you’re quiet long enough, you almost feel like you’re being let in on one.

Looking back, living in such a wide-open, natural place was the greatest gift I could’ve received as a child. Children need nature. They need space to expand, to wander, to get dirty. They need the permission to be wild, messy, curious. I’m laughing now thinking, we were basically free-range children.

That embodied freedom shaped everything, and it’s why I now hold space for others seeking the same. Whether you’re navigating life in the city, feeling emotionally stuck, or craving a sense of inner expansion, I offer holistic counselling, astrocartography sessions, and EFT support to help guide the way back to yourself.

Reflecting on that chapter, I realise it also revealed something fundamental about my spirit. I need to be a big fish in a small pond, not the other way around. I need breath, space, land. Which is ironic, really, for someone who went on to study a Master’s in Urban Planning.

During my first few months of the program in Melbourne, I wrote a blog on how oppressive cities are for humans. I suppose I knew even then that I was in the wrong course, but at least I spent my research focusing on how to integrate nature into urban life. So maybe it was all part of the plan.

Later, after a year in London, brilliant host, relentless taskmaster, I was reminded again and again just how deeply the soul needs to unplug from the city. Road trips became salvation: Norfolk, Devon, Cornwall, the Cotswolds, the Lake District. The moment I crossed the ring road, my body would exhale. A sigh that said, you made it out.

If you’re longing for something, peace, clarity, reconnection, maybe what you’re craving isn’t more stimulation or productivity or even healing. Maybe what you need is air. Land. A different kind of silence. The kind you can only find where the wind is older than the buildings.

Try it. Especially if you’re in the UK, where you’ve got miles of wild countryside waiting. Rent a little cottage on Airbnb for a weekend or a few weeks. Let yourself roam. Let the land reset you.

Sometimes, the most sacred return to self doesn’t happen in a temple or a therapy room.

Sometimes, it’s just found in the quiet hum of trees. And the reminder that you, too, are nature 🌲