About a year ago I came up with a plan to start working with the spirits of the city, of the place where I live and work. I was really excited about this idea, about making relationship with the ancestors of the City of London, of the River Thames, of concrete and steel - all the things that make up this powerful, chaotic, amazing being that is London.

But at the same time I felt that this could also be quite dangerous. Because London, if you see it as a powerful spirit, is definitely a being that kills. It can chew you up and spit you out and leave your life in ruins if you're not careful. It happens to many people who are drawn to its excitement and anonymity, to its power. So I decided that the first thing to do was to set up a sanctuary for myself, a place where I could be safe from London's darker spirits.

But soon I got side-tracked. By early April my spirits had led me to a new practice, to just sit still and listen. This listening has taken me deep into the suburban landscape around me, and guided me to meet the Spirit of the Clay and some of the Ancestor spirits of this place. And on the other hand it confronted me with a fact that is uncomfortable and hard to admit: I had a really, really hard time just being with myself.

All my spiritual endeavours have had this same end: to improve myself, to make myself a better person, to be different from what I am. Which implies that what I am is not good enough. I really think I've always - for as long as I can remember - believed this, that somehow I'm not up to scratch, inadequate, wrong. I've not only believed that, but also been my own worst critic and judge.

All through my life, I seem to have internalised everybody else's ideas of what it is to be a good person, and my own ideas of what other people expect of me. I can tell you, somehow trying to conform to each and all of those is a very frustrating business. In fact, it makes you very angry. With the added complication that showing anger, or even feeling angry, is not something a 'good person' does, is it? So all that frustration and anger I keep inside myself, using it to judge myself even more comprehensively. And all that makes me feel very anxious about life in general.

Guess where, according to Chinise medicine, people store their anger? In the gallbladder of course. I am pretty certain that my recent health issues have something to do with this dynamic. If I don't change this, if I don't stop judging myself against impossibly contradictory standards and start accepting and loving myself, I fear I might one day just snap. Or get really seriously ill.

What I have learned this past year, and especially over the last few months, is that I am my own worst enemy. If I need sanctuary, it's not form anything bad that my come to me from the outside. It is from my own thoughts and perceptions. In the end, what I need isn't a fortress that I can defend, but rather a place of peace and quiet inside myself. I need to find the part of me that isn't touched by the craziness and anxiety that often runs through my body and mind.

So that is what I have started to construct. An area of peace where I can touch that part of me that is most closely related to Spirit. A true sanctuary.

For a couple of years now, since I went on Bobcat's Living Druidry course, I have endeavoured to maintain three moments of spiritual practice a day. Some days I do better than others, but when my life is in its usual routine, I do quite well. I am now using those three moments to find my peace. What I do during these moments varies from listening deeply to the strong and stable earth beneath me, through meditation, to working with dreams and emotions through dancing.

And the wonderful thing is that, even after just ten days of this, it is already starting to have an effect. As I sit in the garden or in my room, and as I dance my emotions, I can feel an opening appearing. It is only small, for now. But there is a definite opening, a widening in the centre of myself where there is peace between the tension and the mental chatter.

Of course, I've attempted meditation before. And I've had varying degrees of success. I've never been able to maintain it for long, and that's still the case. But this time I intend to be more consistent in my practice. Because this time I really feel the need. And there is nothing that guarantees the assistance of the spirits like genuine need.

Mind you, I have been here before. I get really depressed about something, and then the next day I come up with this amazing new plan of action. And I manage to stick with it, and for a little while, weeks maybe, the whole thing seems to work for me. I really feel that I'm getting somewhere. But soon the feeling of newness and initial success begins to fade and I come up against the challenges of everyday life. Soon, the whole edifice comes crashing down. And there is no guarantee that this won't happen again.

Still, this practice is made up of elements that have been with me for some time now, and that have continued to work. The only reason that I sometimes lose their beneficial effect is that I neglect to practice them. This time, I hope I'll manage to be faithful to this practice, if only because I feel the need for it in my very bones. And in the wounds of my operation, still healing. May the spirits come to me in my need.