This is the tranquility you need today
Welcome! FLOW: Letters from the Moss is an invitation to stop for a while and to find calm. It draws on the small things that brighten a day, that mood and outlook can pivot around. Small beauty; the extraordinary within the apparently ordinary.
FLOW comes from my home in Scotland, my heart place, to yours.
These letters are my light in the darkness, the candle I burn in the window for you. Moth to flame, the things that draw my eye and my heart. They:
Are a little poetic, beautifully illustrated, not too long.
Show you things you might walk past, or think you know well, in a new light.
Celebrate the local yet have universal appeal.
Are a place to breathe deeply. Each letter now includes an audio voiceover which I record outdoors – nature included. Listeners tell me that they find them calming.
I try to write letters that I would like to receive.
Why subscribe?
By subscribing, you will receive regular evocations of wood and water from the edge of the moss. Moss is the Scots’ term for a lowland raised bog. It doesn’t sound glamorous, but it is beautiful.
Each week on a Thursday (5pm UK time) I share what I see, what inspires me and where this leads. Sometimes I may take you on a walk with me, or I may show you something by another writer or artist that has resonated.
FLOW: Letters from the Moss may encourage you in your own creative endeavours, plant a small seed that you can water, or simply take you away from where you are for a few moments.
Each post is an invitation to dialogue; the format makes it easy to comment on, like and reshare content that you especially enjoy—even from your email.
Free vs. paid subscriptions
Many of us feel a growing darkness as the world shifts from the axis that we knew. I’ve resolved to keep sharing words and images that might just brighten your day a little, and to tend to my own inner light, trim the wick, and let it shine out from this small corner.
Writers are encouraged to monetise their newsletters; it’s the way that Substack makes money. I decided at the end of February 2025 to pause paid subscriptions and to concentrate on giving as my own small act of resistance. I am keeping all of my content, all the beauty and tranquility, ‘free’ for those who choose to trust me with their email address.
I’ll continue to include a link equivalent to ‘buy me a coffee’ (tea in my case, I gave up coffee long ago) so you still have the option to recognise content that resonates and that you value. It’s a lovely way to say thank you and will, of course, brighten my own day in turn.
Who I am
Words bring joy, in reading and in writing. Primarily a visual artist, my writing extends an invitation to you to join me, to see through my eyes.
Over time, I’ve developed a highly individual vision influenced by the qualities of water and nature’s own mark-making. I’m driven by curiosity to make softly fluid evocative art that takes me beyond the conventional photographic image. We commonly think of water as liquid but it is equally vapour and at times may, briefly, be solid. I have learned to abstract even more, to dream a landscape, sometimes mixing the sights with the ambient sounds of this quiet place.
Photography is for the small detail of the moss, sketching for the big sky—I use graphite and ink for these; they are where I park my bit of the darkness.
I committed to a weekly letter, using Substack in September 2023, so that I would have a reason to write and, hopefully, develop a regular habit. It seems to have worked, and there is now a growing archive of visual poems for you to dip into.
This is my sanctuary, my meditation, my place of ease, and I invite you to join me.
I find my place
here
on the edge
between
water and land
liquid solid
life death
beauty and decay
