Rise and Wild

11/01/2026

In the depths of winter, when the weather is dark, wild and blustery and we’ve been hunkering down for a couple of months (other than weekly yoga classes, indoors! And a couple of walks)… I can’t tell you how much joy it brought to see this post in my drafts.

A tiny snippet into some of our Rise and Wild offerings from the second half of last year. Wellbeing with Nature programmes and weekend retreats in Wales, days in the woods and dips in lakes & the Irish Sea. Community yoga classes, indoors & out, as well as walks and gentle wanders. Nature Connection courses for conservationists & community facilitators, and mindfulness trainings for mental health professionals. And all the rest that I never get round to photographing or posting about because I’m there in the midst of it all. Community is at the heart of everything we do, and what I offer is often in collaboration with people and organisations who feel like family.

I’m so blessed to call this my life’s work and to have met so many inspiring, humbling, resilient, playful and kind souls through this way of living and working. So many people who have been through so much stuff, who share their tears and their challenges and their journey. And I’m so ready for all that the months ahead will offer, the adventures we’ll go on together and the space that we create when kindness, rest and nature truly leads. I wonder, what are you most looking forward to? 🌿✨

19/11/2025

Throughout Spring, Summer & Autumn I teach free, community yoga & mindfulness classes for the Green Angels - The Land Trust community 🌱🦋 They are always outdoors, with the shelter of our volunteer-built roundhouse. Being with nature supports us to slow down, notice wildlife & the cycles of life, and settle our nervous systems. Weaving in nature-based practice enables us to deepen our relationship with the environment and in doing so, take better care… of one another, the land, and our communities.

We welcome all ages (18+), and support folks with different abilities & disabilities too.

We’ll be back in Spring 2026! 🌍🙏🏼

13/11/2025

Join us for our last Reset day of the year 🧡 Sunday 30 November, 10.30am - 5.30pm. All the details in the post below 🙌🏽🍂

Reset Day Retreat · Sunday 30 November · Mellor 💙
A one day reset for your body, mind and nervous system.

This year has been an incredibly tough one for so many of us.
Before December gets busy, give yourself one day to pause, breathe, and come back to yourself.

During the day you’ll:
🌿 Enjoy gentle yoga and a mindful walk in nature to get you out of your head and back into your body
🌬️ Experience Dynamic Breathwork to both calm and energise you, so you feel steady and strong
🧊 Try a fully supported ice bath experience, to meet your edges safely and discover just how resilient you really are
🥗 Share a nutritious, home cooked lunch, with simple ideas to keep your energy steady long after the retreat
✨ Learn practical nervous system tools you can start using the very next day

You’ll head home with:
🔋 Simple ways to refill your own energy tank (without needing a week off work)
☀️ Go-to practices to lift or soften your mood, depending on what you need
📆 Small, realistic habits that fit into a real life, not an ideal one
🧊 A new relationship with courage, fear and discomfort (yes, including the cold)
😌 Short micropauses to help you breathe out stress and breathe in calm, anytime, anywhere

Retreat details:
📍 Mellor, Church Road, SK6 5LX
📅 Sunday 30 November
💷 £95
👥 Small group, so you feel seen, safe and supported

Come on your own or with a friend. If you’re brand new to breathwork, yoga or cold water, you are so welcome. If you already practise, this is your chance to go deeper. Expect warmth, kindness, laughter and those quiet moments that change how you feel about yourself.

We’re co-hosting with our wonderful friend and facilitator Rachel (Rise and wild ) and we’d love to look after you for the day. 🤍

If your body is whispering “I need this”… this is your sign.

👉 Book your place: www.thebreathconnection.org

Big LOVE,
Sam, Miranda and Rach ❤️❤️❤️

09/11/2025

The Sūtra Circle 🤲🏼🤍☕️🧘🏼‍♂️ Introducing something new, and thousands of years old 🌱📜

Let’s gather on the second Wednesday of the month (7.15pm - 8.30pm).

Fifteen years and more ago, yoga became the guiding principle of my life. It began as a postural practice, and soon became much more. The teachings of yoga philosophy support us to cultivate a way of living mindfully, present and in the now, compassionately, aware and honouring connection with mind, body & all other. Yoga became an anchor through the grief of losing my dad in my early 20s and alongside life, offered grounding perspectives on suffering, balance, attachment, energy, health, breath and unity. It’s a pathway that’s rooted in whole being, awareness, Ayurvedic & earthly living.

The Sūtra Circle calls to the Souls who would like to go a little deeper into the teachings and texts. A space for reflection, wonder, contemplation, growth and meaningful connection. With a brew, we’ll gather in circle once a month to explore a thread of wisdom from ancient philosophy, reflecting and talking about it’s relevance today and how we might integrate it into our day-to-day lives.

I will also guide us in a chanting practice, which you’re welcome to join in or simply listen, be and breathe as part of the group.

Our first circle is on Wednesday 12 Nov and has 4 (of 12) places available 🙏🏼 You can book through the link in my profile, or my website: www.riseandwild.com/yoga.

Upcoming dates you can also book:
Weds 12 Nov
Weds 10 Dec
Weds 14 Jan
+ ongoing

There’s no need to have any experience or knowledge & you’re welcome to come along for one evening, or make it a monthly ritual ♥️

26/10/2025

It’s an honour to guide these wellbeing and nature programmes with and for the Green Angels - The Land Trust programme 🙏🏼🌳🌱

25/10/2025

🧘🏼‍♂️🙏🏼🍂 Community classes…

This is yoga like you might not have imagined. It’s functional, accessible, slow & steady, a really grounding practice for autumn and a lovely way to reconnect with yourself during the week. There’s no need to be flexible and everybody’s welcome 16+ inclusive to all.

If you want to feel less stressed, more balanced, and a bit stronger & relaxed, this gentle approach to embodied movement & rest is for you.

Weekly classes are 1 hour:
⊛ Mondays 6pm
⊛ Mondays 7.30pm
⊛ Wednesdays 6pm
⊛ Fridays 9.30am

If you have any questions or hesitations, get in touch for a chat and if you’d like to come along, please book here: https://www.riseandwild.com/yoga

Rach x

Gentle and grounding classes for living well day-to-day. Combining functional movement with mindfulness practices; breath connection, yoga philosophy, rest and relaxation. Rachel includes modified postures and shares options for people to make the practice their own. These are gentle classes and we....

22/10/2025

Rising early, meeting under starlight and being with the becoming of another day ✨

There’s something really special about doing things a little out of the ordinary & sharing experiences with others. Getting up early and gathering with like-minded and kind folks, journeying through forest and up hills with one shared intention: To be here and see the sun rise… To have a sense of the earth turning 🌍

To be here 🙏🏼♥️

I originally organised a sunrise walk after somebody on one of my nature and wellbeing programmes told me that, in all her 60 years, she had never seen the sun rise. Since, we’ve walked to raise money for charities, to gather outdoors, to share stories & morning brews, and address limiting fears, and most recently to embrace the darkening days of autumn. Here’s to the wild ones, and the becoming-more-wild ones. It’s an honour to guide and share moments & mornings like these with you 🤎🌲

16/10/2025

I was walking with Chai 🐾🌳 through the woods the other day, meandering along a route where wild lives were growing, sporing and decomposing in all their glory. Finding our way alongside river and rock and tree roots, following footsteps of folks who have been taking care of this land for generations, and more recently, young souls who have been creating earthly sculptures and river crossings and all kinds of imagination-running-free things.

Tears filled my eyes. Present, entirely in the now, senses alive and taking it all in. Feeling part of something truly wild and at home in the family of natural, living things. To be here, breathing, being, experiencing wonder and joy, peacefulness & intrigue. The creak of dry wood and the moo-ing of cows in a field nearby. Mushrooms, everywhere, tiny bonnets in the undergrowth… white-gilled & red spotted fly agaric cushioned between the blanket of moss, and brackets in seemingly open relationship with birch trees. I walked slowly, pausing often to stand with great big oaks & so many other. Meandering, humming and watching my happy little dog explore all of this new and ancient land. I felt elfish, gently & playfully finding my way.

The birds were singing, calling, and the wind teased the autumning leaves… some falling, lightly through space. I often wonder what freedom that brings to the branches after a summer laden with leaf, berry and seed. My feet, too were light, traversing a path which had only recently been made, space now within the overgrowth for new life to rise up and grow.

Here’s to the wildwood, the wild ways, and experiencing wonder on a cool, autumnal mid-week morning dog walk 🙏🏼🌳✨

12/10/2025

~ Being as nature intended 🌱

In our bodies, with the land and inherently connected. Finding balance and rhythm and honouring the cycles of life, the seasons & energies within and around us. Life often changing... Morphing, creating, deceasing. Resting before we’re on the floor & flat out exhausted, not as a reward for getting everything done, but because that’s how nature designed life to be. See the leopard in the tree. Watch sun rising, sun setting. Notice plants through autumn and into winter. Learn from the little ones, life honouring life.

We feel it in our bones, this ancient knowing that we are nature, although it isn’t really the story we’re exploring in our technological evolution. Computers, light bulbs, phones… they’re always on. As a species we’re indoors, all of the time (on average, 22 hours a day here in the UK). These feet were destined to journey over plains & climb trees and to be free. Overly structured play defeats the point, folks confide with AI whilst sitting in silence side by side friends, and convenience seems to overrule connection. Is it just me or is “modern-day life” starting to feel a little bit bizarre. The disconnect that comes from all the tech and too many hours sitting at a desk. Motorways, traffic jams, 10-hour work days, plastic in the food we eat and… I won’t go on.

As this stuff becomes more & more real, we’re here remembering another way… a wilder way, guided by our intuition, the wild within and mother nature’s teachings. What would it be like to live a little more as nature intended? In sync with our circadian rhythms and feeling inherently part of something so much bigger than you or I. To have kin within the natural world, to befriend your body and feel alive and well, most of the time. To feel at ease, with peace and wonder and a tribe around you. And a belief that this is real, it can be real. I wonder, are the majority living what’s truly right for us, rather than just what’s prescribed for us? And where do we go from here?

Come, let’s find a way 🪾🌱 🫁👣🙏🏼🌍♥️

01/10/2025

Join me on Wednesdays, 6 til’ 7pm for a gentle yoga practice, honouring these autumnal evenings 🍂🍄‍🟫🧡 in a warm and inclusive space in Macclesfield town centre.

Weekly, book as you go or explore a special offer for a free class ☺️ More info & to book: https://www.riseandwild.com/service-page/wednesday6pm

Rach xx

26/09/2025

🌱 It’s great to be supporting the Green Spaces for Wellbeing team this week, delivering some refresher training in nature-based approaches to wellbeing. I lead these as really experiential days, putting facilitators back into the seat of being a participant as well as developing their community facilitation skills. I’m looking forward to Monday as we explore another green space and approaches to greencare and social prescribing.

We welcomed the autumn equinox with some amazing refresher training and Wild !

The sun shone and we enjoyed slowing down to reconnect with ourselves and the important purpose of the Green Spaces programmes, focusing on session delivery and quality - ensuring we continue to bring the relaxing and mindful element to all our sessions. 💚

20/09/2025

Wellbeing with Nature 🌱🌿💚

These six week programmes support folk to explore & deepen their relationship with nature. With the natural & living world, and with themselves. We gather for one day a week over six weeks and throughout that time begin to nurture relationships with one another too… so many stories, joys & tears that come up along the way. I know that M doesn’t like spicy crisps (which another soul shared one week when he forgot lunch), but also that he loves frogs and can name almost any bird or being we meet on site 🪲 I know how often S worries about her children and the deep care she has for hedgehogs in her garden. B loves roses and is going to be a grandmother, and T lights up when talking about nature & recent adventures ~ she listens too with a deep compassion. P learns best visually and has found her place sitting under & with a great big oak. We gather as a community and get to know the ups & downs of one another’s lives.

On these programmes, which evolve over the years and change with the seasons, we explore pathways to nature connectedness. I weave in wellbeing support for both human & environmental health, with creative and conservation-based activities, nature knowledge, ancient wisdom, movement, mindfulness, herbs, stories, folklore, breathing practices and rest. And loads more over the 30 hour course (+ additional time outside the programme and along the way).

Being well doesn’t happen in isolation. The heart and the head, the liver and the legs, the mental & the physical, the me & the you, the earth & the air, the environment and us. Everything is connected. These Nature and Wellbeing programmes are for remembering, care taking, communicating and reigniting a sense of wonder, kinship and reciprocal living 🌍 As we come toward the end of this summer-autumn programme, I’m exploring a couple of new partnerships and sites to add to a winter-spring series 🙏🏼🌀