Empowerment. This photo captures for me what 180 days immersing myself in the cold Atlantic at dawn has done for me. I see a strong woman in that photo taken in dawn's glorious light next to my favorite changing rock that has become my shadow play backdrop. In this photo I sense and feel strength, confidence, openness, power an...
When I wrote this on Day 60 I had no idea that I would still be swimming at dawn every day and now be close to Day 300 as I publish this. I am proud of my journey as I look back and see how far I have come and what I have done since then, a day I thought might be the last. Keep surprising yourself! Keep trusting the journey! The phot...
A violent dawn sky on the windy day. A cloud man swirls his arms blowing the wind towards the ocean.
It was just 'wind' when I wrote this on Day 16, just the beginning of my sea pilgrimage. From my open water swimming experiences I knew of course that different wind conditions can make swimming a great challenge. Also local weather knowledge tells us that wet storms blow from the SW and the cold wi...
365Tears upon the shoreLaughter into the windJoy in the wavesA year swimming at dawnA gift of a lifetime! In mid-March 2021 swimming at dawn for one year came full circle. I swam or immersed myself every day, at least once, for 12 months, four seasons, 52 weeks, 13 moon phases, 365 days. I am not a numbers person but I am proud of this empowe...
Even with the windows closed, I can hear the deep, powerful resonance of the ocean, a 20-minute walk away from my house. I live on a hill that looks down upon the sea. It's too far to hear individual waves crashing but close enough for the collective roar to float up and surround my consciousness as a constant presence. Even though I am often not a...
I feel boundless respect and admiration for winter cold water and ice swimmers who brave the harshest elements to immerse and swim in extreme conditions. Many cold water swimmers experience powerful mental and physical well-being by exposing themselves to ice and cold and the temporary discomfort is amply compensated, and even relished, as part of ...
Helen's @artallotment was one of the first wild swimming Instagram accounts I began to follow when I started my @dawn_swimmer account in July 2020. Her artistic photos and often simple yet profound words struck a deep chord within me. Then I learned that Helen's wild swimming wisdom comes from her unique sensitivity and way of p...
With her wild heart, joy in nature's bounty and watery worlds as well as her desire to dig deep into the dark roots of the soul, Sara is a kindred spirit. Her photos, commentaries and video clips of her experiences in the northern UK captivate me and move me to continue my own exploration of the wild heart, the wild beauty. Than...
Cold. Knives. Edges. Water. Creativity. Pushing limits, pushing boundaries. Why do we do what we do? In this strikingly creative and powerful piece by the South African native and now Scottish Highlands resident, The Elaborate Swimmer takes us on her journey from cold to creativity and the power of the extreme to bring us into sharp reality wi...
It's hard for me to imagine a more moving personal challenge than swimming at the edge of the open Atlantic from the island of Sálvora to the fishing port of Aguiño. One day in summer 2020 I overcame both real and irrational fears to do this swim, a swim I hadn't even set for myself as a challenge. Many layers of meaning un...
Joy in life and the waves is what South African artist Lyn Northam transmits in her Wild Swimmer piece celebrating her life on this glorious planet enveloped in the salty richness of the sea. While many things change over the course of one's life, Lyn demonstrates how a love of the sea is an eternal affair and off...
Yesterday, 10 October 2020, was World Mental Health Day. Depression and anxiety are terrible bedfellows. They haunt you, perturb you, rarely leave you in peace, and hang over your head like a veil of despair tinging with darkness the brightest of days. On the surface, one can appear okay but the storm within may rage darkly, sadly, i...
As I've entered the world of swimming, as in any discipline, I've discovered the worlds within worlds. One of the major distinctions is pool vs. wild or outdoor swimming. Sara Solnick, a lifelong pool swimmer from the UK, shares her moving story of transformation from fear to flow in the sea and how she has also become ...
Ángela Lavilla Cañedo's moving Wild Swimmer Story explores how wild cold water and embracing her wildish nature have saved her in body and mind during some challenging years. Embracing our wildish nature means to awaken our inner worlds, live life and our creativity fully, reject confining social norms that stigmatize ...
Today's powerful Wild Swimmer Story is a woman's discovery of herself, her worth and her decision to live. Many women (too many) allow fears, habits and hang-ups to keep them from embracing what their souls yearn for and need, ignoring what instinct and inner wisdom shouts at them to do. B...
It's hard to imagine nature mirroring more profoundly a common mental, inner process than this morning's walk and swim in the sea. Who doesn't experience 'mental fog' from time to time, ie, a lack of clarity, vision or feel overwhelmed by doubt? This sequence of four photos focused on the same view show my descent into the fog....
Swimming at dawn started many days ago, from need. It started from restriction. It started because I felt I must do something, something to keep myself alive when the world around me seemed to be going crazy. I must go to the one place, outside my front door, that resonates life, bounty, mystery, joy, fear, passion - the sea. I must greet it each d...
Swimming at dawn also signifies for me swimming towards the light, ie, towards discovery, inner understanding as well as simply being, experiencing joy and living in the moment. At the same time there is an implicit swimming away from something - the dark, the night, the doubt, the hidden, unclear parts of th...
The idea of La belle sauvage or the wild beauty came to me as I looked at my footprints disappearing into the tide pool. Then the words, "....and then she was gone" came into my mind. And, "Where does she go?" Like my footprints, creative ideas emerged from within tiptoeing out into my watery magical world where I have found such joy...
Bubbles captured at sunrise amidst the liquid aqua as I float and feel myself adrift in the sea's power. That's my desire; to merge with the aqua atoms and feel myself enveloped in the substance invisible to the naked eye. I like how this camera (Olympus T3) allows me to slow down the rushing movement that I somehow instinctively feel whe...
