You might describe Nick Mayhew Smith’s spirituality first and foremost as immersive.

Driven by a desire to touch, see, and experience, Nick has travelled the length and breadth of the UK, seeking out Britain’s holiest places. In each place, he did as the monks and hermits did – whether that’s sleeping in a remote cave, feeding the animals, wading naked into an icy sea to pray, or rowing out to isolated islands.

What is it about nature based practices that draws us? Why were they so central to the Celts?

And why has mainstream Christianity conveniently forgotten about them today?

Join us for a rich/fascinating conversation where you’ll discover:

 🔹 The spiritual significance of skinny dipping

 🔸 The Celtic ritual for putting right your relationship with creation

 🔹 How the landscape influenced Celtic culture and practice

 🔸 What drove the Celt Christians to embrace sacred trees instead of cut them down (like they did in continental Europe)

 🔹 The saint who influenced (and instructed) early monks to pray in the nude–and why

 🔸 How to recover a sense of the numinous in your own life

Nick Mayhew-Smith is a theologian and travel writer whose work is dedicated to recovering ancient Celtic wisdom. His books include The Naked Hermit, a book on Celtic spirituality, Landscape Liturgies, Britain’s Pilgrim Places (a walking pilgrimage guide published by the British Pilgrimage Trust), and Britain’s Holiest Places, which has been turned into a BBC series.

He is an honorary research fellow at Roehampton University, where he works with the Susanna Wesley Foundation on a range of environment and theology projects, and lives in London with his wife Anna.

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✨ WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST ✨

Contemplation.

Embodiment.

Mysticism.

Mischief.

Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life.

Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.

✨ For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spiritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out spiritualwanderlust.org.

🌱 HAVE SPIRITUAL QUESTIONS? 🍃

Leave us a voicemail at spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

What do dancing and playing have to do with theology?

Join us for a rich, embodied conversation with our very special guest today, Cynthia Winton-Henry. Cynthia is the co-founder of Interplay, a worldwide “movement” movement - a community of practice that uses dance and play and spontaneity to unlock the wisdom of the body.

Tune in to learn:

  🔹 Why *ease* is essential for both the body and the spirit

  🔸 The exact techniques she uses to detach from heavy group/cultural dynamics (so important for all us HSP/empaths out there!)

  🔹 Why sensitive folks (HSPs/empaths) need “credentialing”–and why it has nothing to do with degrees or letters after your name

  🔸  The forgotten practice of the ancestors that helps you regulate your nervous system.

  🔹 The key to unlocking our tendency to control

  🔸 Why you need a spirit team–and where to find them

  🔹 Why play is the secret sauce for everything

–Plus 2 embodied exercises you can do with us live!

Cynthia Winton-Henry is a dancer, celebrated teacher, artist, and life-long mentor in somatic spirituality. Her books include Chasing the Dance of Life, Dance: The Sacred Art: Discovering the Joy of Movement, Move: What the Body Wants, and the soon to be published The Art of Ensoulment, which accompanied her popular year-long course by the same name.

Cynthia curates a community (complete with creative arts/spirituality courses!) at the Hidden Monastery (found at https://cynthiawinton-henry.com), and writes on Substack (https://substack.com/@cynthiawintonhenry).

Her book, The Art of Ensoulment, a creative workbook/art journal/*experience* is out August 1, 2023.

It’s not a stretch to say Dave Denny is what Thomas Merton would have looked like today, had he lived.

Both avid writers, teachers, interspiritual pioneers, activists, and hermits–they share a depth of wisdom that is borne of silence.

Join Father Dave Denny and I to learn:

🔹 How living in the Middle East changed his life forever

🔸 What steaming hot tamales can teach us about the sacramentality of the world

🔹 What, in his 13 years of teaching mysticism, his students were most surprised by

🔸 What it might look like to be a contemplative activist

Dave Denny describes himself as “poet, priest, and desert rat.” Setting out to be a journalist, Dave’s life took a turn when he became a Carmelite monk at the Spiritual Life Institute for 30 years. Since then he has dedicated himself to writing, interspiritual dialogue, and teaching, while living the life of a hermit.

Dave is the co-founder of the Desert Foundation, which invites people of all walks to explore the intimate depths of their own heart. Find out more about the Desert Foundation’s retreats and contemplative workshops at sandandsky.org.

Recommended book:

Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

_______________________

✨ WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST ✨

Contemplation.

Embodiment.

Mysticism.

Mischief.

Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life.

Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.

✨ For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spiritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out spiritualwanderlust.org.

🌱 HAVE SPIRITUAL QUESTIONS? 🍃

Leave us a voicemail at spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!