Writer and photographer Tamsin Calidas moved from London to a tiny Hebridean island. It precipitated a life-changing journey which led to a deep immersion in nature. A Wilder Voice By Tamsin Calidas is published by Hanbury Press

It was an idyllic move, but also a catalyst for stark changes that disrupted every aspect of her daily life and made her think differently about the world. ‘Where does a bird go when its home is destroyed? I wonder,’ she writes. All photographs by Tamsin Calidas

For more than a decade, Calidas lived close to the wilds, immersing herself daily in the fierce seas, raw elements and often harsh landscape, irrespective of weather, storms or season. She writes: ‘We watch each other silently until one calls curiously, a singing gurgle, sweeter than a bark’

At times of acute grief, challenge and loneliness, Calidas was struck by how nature sustained her, and was a source of vitality and strength that never failed. She writes: ‘I fill my world with nature, and that feels strangely more peaceful than seeking out my own kind’

‘Every day, whatever the weather, I rise early and head for the shore’

Nature’s regenerative power inspired a creative simplicity that flowed into all aspects of her existence.‘Living wild teaches you to tread gently, to listen, not just with your eyes and ears, but with that finer instinct that lies even deeper than your heart’, she writes

Extracts from her bestselling memoir, I Am an Island, combine in A Wilder Voice with vivid images: ‘The sea flows through me, I am shell-spun, salt-burned, wind-wrapped and kindled like a broken piece of sea tinder that the light shines through’

‘The leaf leaves a green stain on my fingertips, which I hesitantly lick. I want to be sure it is not poisonous’

‘Tufts of fleece snag across the rough grazing, fluttering like torn prayer flags’

‘The grasses are running free in flowing waves over the hillsides’

‘I learn to turn to the gentle and broken things in nature’

The book aims to offer a sensory experience, and encourages readers to find a quiet space for nature in their own busy lives. ‘Each day the sea washes me smooth’, Calidas writes

‘I know from the raw intensity of my own lived experience that when you open your senses and listen deeply to our beautiful earth and universe,” says Calidas, ‘an animate wilder presence is felt’

‘Sometimes this is purely the feeling of the wind on your cheek, or the rasp or salt spit of a gull’s voice. Yet often a deeper flowing breath of interconnection is sensed, instilled within our deeper being. A wilder voice calling our name with love’