Margaret catches up with Mali Davies at this year's Creative Light Festival to get his insights to the weekend.
Describing the experience as transformative and unique, he explains how he has never seen the beautiful Autumn colours in quite this way before. It was sensory overload!
Meeting with like-minded people, face-to-face, in such circumstances was almost surreal to him. Listen whilst he recalls 'dancing with Joe Cornish" and chatting with Sean Tucker,
Moving on, they chat about the benefits of play and the amount of fun and cries of laughter enjoyed by all. It is so important to 'let go and play'.
Mali tells us his highlights from the Festival and how the biggest message he took away from it is 'togetherness' - nobody wanted to leave this 'huddle' of minds! Margaret took away kindness, community, gratitude and appreciating every day.
Finally, we are given an insight into both Margaret and Mali"s plans for next year.
Mali's Instagram
Mali's YouTube Channel
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
Sign up to my newsletter to hear first about new retreats:
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/margaretsoraya/
Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
Margaret catches up with Mali Davies at this year's Creative Light Festival to get his insights to the weekend.
Describing the experience as transformative and unique, he explains how he has never seen the beautiful Autumn colours in quite this way before. It was sensory overload!
Meeting with like-minded people, face-to-face, in such circumstances was almost surreal to him. Listen whilst he recalls 'dancing with Joe Cornish" and chatting with Sean Tucker,
Moving on, they chat about the benefits of play and the amount of fun and cries of laughter enjoyed by all. It is so important to 'let go and play'.
Mali tells us his highlights from the Festival and how the biggest message he took away from it is 'togetherness' - nobody wanted to leave this 'huddle' of minds! Margaret took away kindness, community, gratitude and appreciating every day.
Finally, we are given an insight into both Margaret and Mali"s plans for next year.
Mali's Instagram
Mali's YouTube Channel
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
Sign up to my newsletter to hear first about new retreats:
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/margaretsoraya/
Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
So I've got Miley Davis with me, we're sitting outside there, we're sitting actually on the sauna steps at the moment I've just got the sauna going on the shore and it's early morning, so I just wanted to have a little chat with him to see he was really generous with his time and came up for the few days to do some filming and just to record what's been happening, because it's quite hard to put what's been happening into words, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you ready for the gruff voice, morning voice and the sound of crackling wood behind me? Honestly, I feel like a cowboy on my ranch. Howdy folks, this morning we're joined with Margaret Suria. Anyway, enough being silly. It's been transformative for me as an individual but, I think, as a group of people. Seeing what's happened this past, I keep calling it a week.
Speaker 1:I know it feels like it, doesn't it.
Speaker 2:I got here on Wednesday at nine I was a bit nervous, didn't know what to expect, and I was quite overwhelmed because I don't think anyone spoke about this the autumn colour in Alvimore and around locking cheese like nothing I've ever seen before. Really, yeah, I've never seen autumn quite like this. Right, and it was really overwhelming because, of course, anyone who knows me, all I wanted to do was get the camera out and just shoot, but picking my chins up off the floor to just see this incredible colour. So you've got the sensory overload, and the group of people that we've had here I don't think are used to Perhaps going that deep into the senses.
Speaker 2:That's right, yes, and it's remarkable seeing people switch on light bulbs in nature, just people becoming quite aware of the surroundings and thinking about sound, thinking about all the senses, and then, of course, yourself. What you've offered, what you've given, what you've brought together, it's been unique.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think unique is a. I think a lot of people came not knowing what to expect, but they adapted pretty quickly, didn't they?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they did. It took me a day or two, that's just me.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was. That was difficult because I didn't expect that. I'm normally pretty good with people and groups of people, but I found myself on the outside looking in. It was a bit surreal.
Speaker 1:But maybe it was to do with that sensory overload as well, as though suddenly you're in this place, you've travelled a long way, it's stunning, and then there's all these amazing people getting together. So that's a lot, isn't?
Speaker 2:it yeah, it is and also meeting people like yourself. It worked.
Speaker 1:Face, to face, like in person, brilliant yeah.
Speaker 2:Brilliant, creatively brilliant personality. And yeah, we forgot, haven't we? I forgot that we've spoke quite a bit, but not face to face, but it's like we know each other. I felt that throughout the whole, even with people. Obviously we've not even spoken. The podcast Meeting Joe Cornish, the epitaph of I dance with Joe Cornish, will.
Speaker 1:That will live on then forever.
Speaker 2:It's not every day you get to say and do that is it. I dance with Joe Cornish and just meeting Sean again. Briefly met Sean once before, but he's so kind and giving, thoughtful and never puts himself first. He really talked a lot about me, to the point where I felt quite greedy. I thought, oh my God, people are sitting around us and he's talking and I thought we've got to stop talking about me. I wanted to talk about him and he's very good at not talking about him.
Speaker 1:He's really good at that, actually, but he's very good at, I think, wanting to help.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's not deflective.
Speaker 2:It was really like he listens and in a day, in a world where we live, a lot of people don't take the time to listen.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely that is a really good point. Yeah, we don't listen so much anymore, and Sean does that really well.
Speaker 2:I found myself doing that. Although I do that in every day, I do tend to be quite mis, I think people think I'm quite, I'm always on it and robust in talking and I'm always, like you know, making some noise or other. But actually when people who do know me, I do sit and listen quite a lot and take things in and watch and look and see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think the way that we sometimes present ourselves online is really different to. There's two sides to you, isn't there what I'm trying to say? There's that side that's always talking and you know you're kind of out there, aren't you on YouTube and your podcast?
Speaker 2:Life's funny, isn't it? Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. We're all talking this meditative and, but let's not forget the fact there's been a lot of laughs here.
Speaker 1:It's a hell of a lot of laughs isn't there.
Speaker 2:It's Carrie and I always say Carrie the Dutch lady.
Speaker 1:She's always laughing, isn't she? She's always smiling.
Speaker 2:Giggles and laughs. We had, I tell you, just wonderful, and that's what we one of the other things I think we're all we got here. That's what we're talking about early on then with this, this way of becoming a part of the landscape. But then the cries of laughter echoing around and the dancing. Oh, I'll not forget that Margaret grabbed me and made me do a gear garden.
Speaker 1:And that was. It was off.
Speaker 2:Never done a gear garden before.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, we did it, we did it, and then you couldn't stop dancing and everybody just just went for it, didn't they? Yeah, it was everyone was brilliant.
Speaker 2:I ended up getting dragged into the rugby and then coming back in there and it went off. Everyone was like oh, I'm like whoa, what happened?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah, I think I was. I was talking about that earlier and it's that letting go and play idea. It's actually really important what we did, because everybody felt in, I think, because we all felt like we're in that safe, safe place kind of safe environment where everybody was in it together.
Speaker 2:So once you sat there and early on, joe Karnesh is lifting his knees to his chins and giving it some. I think everyone thought then right why not? That's a green light, let's dance.
Speaker 1:So what's been the highlight for you? Do you think? I know there's a lot of them, but can you name one highlight?
Speaker 2:I think yesterday morning was. But just Dean Ritchie I've got to give a mention too, because that lady there was a wee accident and a car got bashed on the car park and she just saw it, turned to the group and said let's go forest bathing. It didn't faze her, she kept the meditative experience going, she kept the sensory going and everything, and not once did she scream, shout and she was so calm and that was a big take with that. Taught me a lesson that actually because we react in emotions quite quickly as individuals, I think as I've got older I've got less. But what just Dean did was so professional and quite profound the whole morning was. And then yesterday with Joe and the group and James I spent quite a bit of time with James Kelly. I found a tree on a hillside and Joe called me a wizard and believe me, that was a magic moment, selfish a little selfish magic moment of Joe Cornish.
Speaker 2:Called me a wizard.
Speaker 1:Wow, I enjoy that. And what do you think the biggest messages have come from this weekend?
Speaker 2:Hope it rings a bell. A good night that sadly has to end, and you could feel it last night actually.
Speaker 1:Nobody wanted to go we said goodbye for about an hour, I think standing in the restaurant.
Speaker 2:Putting tables and chairs around us.
Speaker 1:Nobody wanted to leave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it became, not straight away, it was quite a metamorphic experience Transformative again, I'll use that word. I'm going to come away from here with a very much different look on life for myself and I think everyone got that, but in a kind of cathartic joining. There was a real huddle of minds by the end of it and everyone's from different walks of lives, everyone was different cultural backgrounds and you know people who I wouldn't think would be interested in my talk, which I was very proud of at the end yesterday. To finish as well, people said some really nice things about how the energy was fitting for the end of the festival and I thought, well, I'm just a tiny little bit of this, but to have that said, to be a part of this and feel right at the end that I was a little bit of jigsaw puzzle that fitted to make the picture, Wonderful.
Speaker 1:Thank you for doing that, by the way. I think for me the messages became clearer as I kept driving them home to everybody, and that we're starting with kindness as something that we forget is so powerful, isn't it? Kindness, community being together, and we talk about being introverts a lot and how we need time to create a loan and I do as well, you know but what we sometimes forget is that we need this community, people that have our backs and people that want to see us do well, like when you were talking about Sean lifting you up, talking to you, talking through what you're doing. We're so, so needed in this world where we can be quite solitary, because a lot of creators are introverts, you know, let's just face it.
Speaker 1:Not all, and it's not a requirement but it's just a commonality that a lot of people have. So we tend to work solo. So, community, which is why we're here, and I think probably one of the things that came out yesterday was one of the things that was important to me was gratitude, and I can't really not mention that we lost a photographer this week or I lost a good friend, and that brings home to the fact that we should appreciate every day and it doesn't matter what's going on, whether wise or you know whether something we all have small wrinkles, but if we can wake up in the morning and just appreciate one little thing around us, then that's so important and also to live your life. I'm not going to dwell on it too long, but to live your life and to come to these things, you know, take those opportunities. I know that I'm looking at next year and I'm going.
Speaker 1:What am I going to do specifically for my creativity? And it doesn't have to be a workshop or a retreat. It can be something. What do I need at this point in my life? So it could be health, it could be travel, it could be inspiration, it could be whatever it is, and the past two years I've been to Italy with Sean and I went over a treat because I knew that's what I needed. Then, the years before, I went to India to do Ayurvedic treatment because I needed that for my health and also for that time space and rest. Next year I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's an open page though. I like the idea of that, having a thought of what can I do, what can I set my sights on for next year that is good for yourself, yeah, and it's like I set aside a certain amount of money because it's not going to be cheap.
Speaker 1:I know you're just going to face it, but I see it as an investment. So one year I decided, during Covid, to invest in an online course. Didn't have any money Really was like you know, covid, everything stopped, oh my goodness, and I was going really should I do this course, you know? But we were at the lowest point and actually sometimes that's when you need to invest and so I went on. This course changed my life. Changed my life. It's the reason we are sitting here, it's the reason I have a podcast, it's the reason I have a creative human community, because it taught me to do all those things and it gave me the inspiration to do it. And in Italy, I'm going off on one hair.
Speaker 2:I'm just on a roll.
Speaker 1:In Italy, I started writing my book. That's going to change things. I just know it is. I'm going to write it this winter, if it kills me, so next year. Yeah, I'm going to have a think about that, and I think everybody else should as well. Maybe, yeah, maybe you'll think about that.
Speaker 2:I've got me 50 times around the sun, which was a photographic book with a difference. It's every single video I've made. Well, I've done a few extra. Now I cut off was 150 videos on YouTube, two images from each video with a backstory to each and a memory from each, all compiled into quite a nice book. That was my project. Now, whether I'll get it done or not, but the fact that I'm going to give it a go and try, so that's next year.
Speaker 1:You're going to produce it next year.
Speaker 2:I want that finished by probably this time next year.
Speaker 1:So this time next year 50 times around the sun 50 times around the sun Brilliant. That's great, and also this time next year we'll probably be catching up at the next festival.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hope so, and I hope I'm a part of it.
Speaker 1:Excellent, all right. Thanks very much, rally. It's just, I'm just. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, thank you.
Speaker 1:It's right.