The first thing I notice after my flight to Bologna, train to Pesaro and 40-minute taxi ride is the silence. This is one of the quietest inhabited places I have ever been. On this still, warm day there is no sound at all, except the twitter of small birds.
The intense quietness is a sign of what is to follow, as I take part in a week called The Magic of Breath and Sound at John Parkin and Gaia Pollini’s holistic holiday centre, The Hill that Breathes. I certainly need some breathing space after a hectic few months of property hunting and buying in London. All summer has been taken up with estate agents, solicitors, building and decorating work; I have lost count of the number of trips to Ikea. Now I am so far from London’s North Circular Road that I feel I have gone quite off-piste, and rocked up in a time or space bubble with its own rules. I have arrived on a rest day, so there is time to explore the hill before workshops and any other weird and wonderful activities resume. Accommodation in the farmhouse is clean, simple and shared. I have to climb up a steep metal ladder to reach my ‘mezzanine’ space, and I hope a) that I won’t fall down it when I’ve drunk too much local rosso, and b) that my room-mate won’t snore too loudly (he will). In any case, the point is not to spend time in your room; outside beckons.
A path leads through pinewoods to a swimming pool with stunning views across a deep valley to medieval farm buildings and dense woods. Here I find middle-aged couple Jackie and David sunning themselves in a state of nature (they turn out to be honeymooners, second time around) and beside them a large ginger cat stretched out in bliss. I try to pre-empt their sudden access of modesty by taking a naked plunge myself, and am warned by Jackie: ‘The water’s cold – it sorts the men from the boys.’
Next morning, after a delicious vegetarian supper and healthy (well, mostly) breakfast, the work begins, in a huge geodesic dome looking towards Urbino. First up is a workshop on conscious-breathing techniques. Just beginning to be aware of my breathing, before focusing on particular areas in the nostrils, makes me realise how stressed I’ve been over many weeks. My breathing at first is obstinately shallow, stuck in the upper chest. Only after a while does it begin to deepen. Feelings that haven’t had a chance to surface for many weeks – waves of exhaustion, anger (it must be those estate agents), and eventually pleasure, at being alive, at nearly 50 – rise into consciousness. At previous workshops, I’m told later, grown men have torn off all their clothes (something of a theme here) and women have howled like wolves. Most of a mixed group, typically 30-something professionals, seem happier and lighter after this morning, and ready for chef Ulisse’s lunch, which combines impeccable vegetarian credentials with Italian copiousness and variety.
Next day is devoted to sound. Milagros Phillips leads a workshop in sound therapy. The principle is simple if weird: you stand behind another person, take in their aura and energy (some things must be taken on trust), then begin to sing or make sounds directed at the other’s body. The effect is surprisingly powerful: my partner in the exercise focuses for a long time on my right leg and hip, painful for several months after a fall down an escalator (in pursuit of property, of course). But I haven’t mentioned this, she was intuitive.
There is also the effect of many voices singing in a found harmony, beautiful proof of the way we all interact and affect each other. Milagros’s facilitating style is wisely minimalist: she gives simple if sometimes daunting instructions (‘This is an exercise in 100 per cent trust and openness’) and sits there beaming.
Later, I opt for an individual sound session with Milagros, at dusk in the dome. I feel I am being taken far back to an ancestral past, with a woman prowling round me making strange panther noises. The effect is that time expands; more practically, Milagros warns me, ‘You may get symptoms like a runny nose and headache, and you’ll need a lot of water – don’t worry, you’re not getting a cold.’ She is spot on.
The Hill that Breathes is more than just the workshops. I suspect that some of the deepest work, in terms of letting go of pent-up stress and buried emotion, happens informally, round the camp fire or sipping rosso and tucking into Ulisse’s food. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything, and after three days I feel mysteriously restored and ready to face the London fray. Oh, and the name: pine trees, apparently, breathe and produce more oxygen than other trees, and after my days here I’m prepared to believe it.
A week at The Hill that Breathes (+44 (0)870 609 2690,thehillthatbreathes.com) costs from £595, including full board and all workshops.
