The Blue Mind
Why are we drawn to the edge of the water each summer and why does doing so set our minds and bodies at ease? Could it be because the water can help us reconcile us to ourselves, to complete us, that it wants to play a part in our lives? Does it want us to notice it to try to give it our love and protection?
We can’t know, but we have ten years’ experience of exploring how our lake can be a place of awe and action and ideas. Have we mentioned our lake? It’s a half mile wide lake designed to look like a slow moving South American river. Wherever you camp or glamp it’s hard to ignore and it is an integral part of the reason why spending time with us at ALSO in our natural setting will make you feel happier, wiser and healthier, and this year for ALSO23 we a programming a whole strand of the festival to help you get out of your right mind and into your blue mind.
Blue Mind comes to us as a gift from the mind of the famed marine biologist (turtles a speciality) Dr Wallace Nichols who realised that he could test and prove in the lab (and in the collective unconscious?) that being near, in, on, or under water can make you happier, healthier, more connected, and better at what you do. It’s quite a claim but the research is in, and his best-selling book based on his research and has become a leader in this theory as a global movement of water lovers have embraced his work as the proof of what they already knew was true, a relationship with water enhances our lives.
So allowing his ideas to form the basis of ours we will be programming many, many ways of getting in to the groove of your own blue mind, our lake will become our biggest and boldest stage with many different opportunities to enjoy it and experience this natural and beneficial experience from the wild swimming and guided nature and dusk and dawn swims, raft building and paddleboard safaris. From land you will get your Blue Mind on, through our wellness programme fringing the lake, aquatic walks and talks, blue mind art class, gazing on the lake in a scented meditation, to dancing under the trees at the Rum Shack