Writing Through the Wheel of the Year with Nicola Smalley
From Corporate Burnout to Ancestral Healing: One Writer's Shamanic Journey
In this Writing & Thriving conversation, I’m joined by Nicola Smalley, my very first and longest-standing book coaching client, for a conversation about weaving ancestral healing, shamanic practice, and transformational writing into a life-changing creative journey.
Nicola and I worked together through the Wheel of the Year to bring her book The Path to Forgotten Freedom: Healing Unresolved Ancestral Trauma into being. She set her intention to write at Samhain 2019, I reached out to her at the Winter Solstice, and we began our book coaching journey at Imbolc. By Lammas, we had completed the first draft, and the book was later released at Samhain—a powerful full-circle moment that honoured the ancestors through both her writing and ritual practice.
But our connection began even earlier than that. The story of how we found each other involves ancestral dreams, a shamanic drum made on the full moon, a little red camper van purchased to visit ancestral sites, and the mysterious web that weaves our paths together when we follow spirit’s guidance.
In this rich conversation, Nicola shares her journey from corporate sustainability to shamanic practitioner, how writing her book became an act of ancestral healing, the physical pilgrimages that shaped her manuscript, and the transformational practices she now offers through her work at The Way of the Buzzard. We also meet Blue, Nicola’s 20-year-old cat who has become her writing companion during the creation of her second book, Severance.
This is a conversation about the power of setting intentions, trusting the invisible forces that guide us, and how committing to write a book can change not just your own narrative, but the ancestral patterns you’ve inherited—offering transformation to your family, lineage and community.
About Nicola Smalley
Nicola Smalley is a shamanic practitioner, author, and creator of sacred tools who lives in North Lancashire in northwest England. After a career in corporate environmental sustainability left her burned out and searching for deeper answers to the ecological crisis, Nicola embarked on a three-year shamanic training that transformed her life.
Together with her husband Jason, she runs The Way of the Buzzard, where they teach indigenous British spirituality, nature connection, and shamanism through their online mystery school and various programs including the Ancestral Healing Masterclass, Ancestral Echoes.
Nicola is the author of The Path to Forgotten Freedom: Healing Unresolved Ancestral Trauma and is currently working on three more books: Severance, exploring the separation from land and spirit that was formalised through the English Enclosures Acts; Heartland, following Nicola’s intention to walk the Dales 30 Mountains challenge; and Mountain of Light, about reconnecting with ancestral wisdom through her intentional pilgrimage to Ingleborough Mountain in the Yorkshire Dales.
She also creates bespoke shamanic drums, rattles, and ogham divination sets, weaving her spiritual practice into every aspect of her work.
In This Episode We Discuss:
How Nicola’s intention at Samhain 2019 to write a book manifested within six weeks when Sally-Shakti contacted her husband Jason
The synchronicity of the shamanic drum made at the full moon on the previous Winter Solstice that connected them
Why Nicola didn’t even know writing mentors existed—and how Sally-Shakti appeared exactly at the right moment
Connect with Nicola:
Website: thewayofthebuzzard.co.uk
