On the shoulders of many
The roots of Domei
About a week ago, a friend reached out to say they felt the work I’ve been putting out about Domei hadn’t adequately acknowledged its influences and lineages.
Throughout my author career, I’ve always been meticulous in citing references in my published works and on my website.
I write with the garage door open. By that, the essays I publish are first drafts, early expressions shared with the community to see if they resonate with others. And judging by the extraordinary amount of feedback they do.
All creative work is influenced by others, both those we know and those we do not.
What follows is an acknowledgement of the people, ideas, and traditions that have shaped this work. Some of these influences may come as a surprise.
There’s often an assumption in the community that I come from pagan, shamanic or plant spirit traditions. I don’t. That’s never been my path.
Domei represents a path rooted in the Western contemplative tradition, which stands alongside these and other traditions.
That said, I offer my sincere gratitude and thanks to all those, known and unknown, who have made this work possible.
As with any creative outpouring, Domei stands on the shoulders of many.
Prelude
Domei arrived slowly, over forty years of contemplative practice and the steady work of undoing myself.
The conditioned human.
I gave it a name. Not to claim it but to share something already alive.
A practice shaped by time, silence, and the subtle pull of things wanting to be remembered.
One that was dismantled, not built. That loosened the twin cages of ideology and belief without replacing them with new ones.
Just a way of meeting the world quietly, again and again.
The thread Itself
It gathered over years of attention, hunches, mistakes and watching what stayed.
A living current of relation, slowly woven through contact.
Between inner life and outer world. Between body and place. Between memory and moss.
Giving it a name was a way of marking what had long been forming so it could be shared, spoken, and deepened.
This practice is not complete. It continues to unfold. Each time I return, it meets me anew. And for that, I give thanks.
The roots
Richard Bach
At eleven, my English teacher read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It landed deep. A bird who refused conformity. Who followed the quiet call within.
That story gave me early permission to trust what I sensed, even if no one else could see it.
Domei is that same refusal to be pinned down, polished, or explained away.
Alan Bain and the Fourth Way
Alan Bain (1931–2006) was a British esoteric teacher who practised as an independent Catholic priest and bishop.
He was known for integrating Christian mysticism, Kabbalah, and grounded inner work.
For many years, he mentored me. His clarity and discipline helped shape Domei at its root.
Through him, I entered Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way. A path of wakefulness within ordinary life. Not retreat, but attention in action, in the everyday.
The mystics
I learned from Hildegard, Eckhart, and the Desert Fathers that silence has weight. That presence can be prayer. That sacredness doesn’t require language; it only requires attention.
Frank Cook
Frank Cook (1963–2009) was an American ethnobotanist and educator who travelled widely to study traditional plant knowledge.
He encouraged me to teach before I believed I could. His quiet trust was catalytic. Without him, Domei may never have taken its first public breath.
Stephan Harding
Stephan Harding (1953–2024) was a scientist and ecologist who studied nature and taught at Schumacher College. His work was entangled with scientific research, intuition, and deep ecology.
Stephan attended one of my sessions at a small festival. We hadn’t met. Afterwards, he said: ‘We’re drinking from the same well.’
He was the first to name the depth of what I was offering. That quiet recognition gave me permission to trust what I was doing. To continue. To deepen.
Goethe
Goethe taught me that perception isn’t passive. It’s participatory.
Not a means of capture but a relationship. To see something clearly, you must enter into a felt sense of contact with it.
His practice of exact sensing, approaching phenomena without dissecting them, remains one of the foundations of how Domei invites us to see.
This way of seeing has been preserved by many within the Goethean tradition.
One significant influence from Goethean science has been the work of Craig Holdrege. He teaches that to understand a being, we must meet it as it lives.
Forest dwellers
In the forests of Southeast Asia and India, I was guided by people whose names I have since forgotten. They lived with the land. They demonstrated it to me through walking, movement, and pauses. Not teaching. Just being.
They revealed what becomes possible when we come to our senses. When attention is full-bodied. Their way of living lives quietly at the heart of Domei.
The quiet shapers
Over the past fifteen years, I’ve taught thousands in my workshops, courses, retreats and walks.
Before I had words like Domei, these quiet participants helped shape what it would become.
Their questions and silences. Their ways of being with plants showed me what mattered. They were and are co-weavers of the practice.
The plantworkers and nature connectors
I stand alongside many others. Plant workers, deep ecologists, community activists, artists, and quiet teachers.
The ones who try to walk with integrity and deeply love this animate earth. Too many to name. Each one left a trace.
For every exchange, every challenge, every shared wondering, thank you.
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros taught me that listening is more than hearing.
Her deep listening practice expanded her awareness to include all sounds, internal and external, without judgment.
I carried that into the whole field of sensory attention. Not just ears, skin, breath, gut, eyes, feet, memory.
That’s how Domei was named. From two Gaelic roots meaning ‘deep’ and ‘to listen.’ Listening with the whole body. A presence that meets the world as it is.
Adrian Harris
Adrian Harris is an ecopsychologist whose work straddles the fields of embodiment, ecology, and consciousness studies.
He mentored me through a crucial period of reflection. Quietly listening and reflecting back as I struggled to find the right words to describe what I was experiencing.
He asked questions, and mirrored what mattered. He encouraged me to codify the teachings that would become Domei, and strongly encouraged me not to rub myself out of the work.
And the plants, always!
And through it all, the plants.
The hawthorn. The chickweed. The moss on a Dartmoor rock.
They taught me to return. To slow down. To be present without needing anything.
They remain the centre. The source. The reason.
I live because of them.