For a long time, I had a picture in my head of taking my sound baths outdoors.
Not to a festival or a busy public space, but somewhere quiet and beautiful. Somewhere surrounded by trees, fields, hills and open sky. A place where a small group of people could gather for a few hours and leave everyday life behind for a while.
This summer, I finally started doing it.
There have been evenings in gardens and countryside near Comrie, time amongst trees and beside water, Qigong outside, cups of tea, conversations, moments of silence and sound journeys as the daylight slowly disappeared.
And it hasn't always gone exactly to plan.
One of the first things you discover when you take a sound bath outside is that you have absolutely no control over the soundscape.
There have been helicopters.
Motorbikes.
Dogs and birds.
Wind moving through trees.
And, most memorably, a farm bird scarer deciding to join one of our quieter moments.
At first, I think part of me still wanted everything to be perfect.
The perfect location. The perfect silence. The perfect journey.
But nature doesn't really work like that.
And perhaps that's part of the reason these evenings have meant so much to me.
You stop trying to control everything. You hear whatever is there. You notice the breeze on your skin, the changing temperature, the birds somewhere beyond the trees and the light slowly disappearing from the sky.
And amongst all of that, somehow, a different kind of stillness appears.
Not silence.
Stillness.
More Than a Sound Bath
Something else has been changing for me through these gatherings.
When I first began Bothy Sound, understandably, I thought mostly about the sound.
Which bowls should I use?
How should a journey flow?
Where should the gong come in?
How can I create something beautiful for people to listen to?
I still care deeply about all of that. I love these instruments, and sound remains at the heart of what I do.
But I'm beginning to understand that the instruments aren't really the most important part.
The people are.
Some of my favourite moments this summer haven't involved playing anything at all.
They've been people standing around with a cup of tea. Someone talking to somebody they hadn't met before. Walking quietly through the trees. Doing a few simple movements together. Sitting outside as the evening changes.
Or that moment after the final sound has disappeared when nobody seems particularly keen to rush away.
Looking back through the summer, I realised I hadn't actually taken many photographs.
Partly because I didn't want to get in people's way. People had come to switch off, and I wanted them to feel comfortable doing that without wondering whether they were about to appear in a photograph.
But also, I was in it too.
I was playing and listening, having conversations, noticing the light change and experiencing the evening alongside everyone else. I was holding the gathering, but I was also part of it.
I'm glad to have a few pictures to look back on. There were simply so many moments I wanted to experience fully, without reaching for my phone.
Those moments have started to change how I think about Bothy Sound.
I'm becoming less interested in simply putting on another event and more interested in creating gatherings.
Small enough that people don't disappear into a crowd.
Slow enough that there is actually time to settle.
Beautiful, but not polished to the point that everything feels staged.
A little movement. Nature. Sound. Silence. Tea. Conversation.
Nothing particularly complicated.
Just some space to be.
Following What Feels True
The last few years have made me think a lot about how I want to spend my time and what kind of work I actually want to put into the world.
I don't want Bothy Sound to become something I simply repeat because it works.
I want to stay curious. I want to keep experimenting.
And I want the things I create to feel like an honest expression of what matters to me: nature, creativity, community, music and bringing people together.
That's why the feedback I've received after these summer evenings has meant so much.
People have written to me about feeling peaceful, connected and rested. Others have simply told me that there was something about the evening they didn't quite want to end.
Those messages give me confidence to keep exploring.
Not necessarily to make things bigger.
Perhaps the opposite.
To make them more thoughtful.
More personal.
More real.
Where Next?
I don't know exactly what these gatherings will become yet.
And I quite like that.
There will still be sound baths. There will still be bowls and gongs and drums.
But perhaps there will also be walks, movement, music, fires, food, conversations, mornings, evenings and places I haven't discovered yet.
The format matters less to me than the feeling underneath it.
Creating places where we can step out of everyday life for a while, spend real time together, reconnect with nature and ourselves, and remember some of the simple things that make life feel good.
That's what I think Bothy Sound is becoming.
And to everyone who has come along this summer, particularly those who joined me while I was still working some of this out:
Thank you.
You've been part of something that has quietly changed the direction of Bothy Sound for me.
And I'm very excited to see where we gather next.
— Douglas