If You Go Down to the Woods...

I love the extraordinary colours in the wood....

...oranges and greens

...yellows...

...blues...

...browns and reds...

...pinks...

...golds and purples...

...golds...

and delicate whites.

Silence of Snow

Snowscape in Essex

The falling of snow feels like such a gift when it happens.  The world becomes so peaceful, there's an otherworldly silence that one experiences at no other time.  The air is clear and crisp and fresh.  The bare winter branches are decorated with white crystals, thin grasses bowed under the weight of glittering crowns. 

Bearing a Crown of Silver Crystals

I went out for a walk today after heavy snowfall last night.  It was above my ankles, my boots crunching and my coat and trousers swooshing as I moved.  I stopped often to listen, the silence filled with something I cannot name, perhaps with stillness, expectation, yearning.  Also my memories of walking in the Arctic snow in Sweden. 

Arctic Landscape

I find it hard to quiet my mind but I realised that in this blanketed landscape my head is not full of chatter but feelings and images.  Words are never enough in these moments…

Midsummer Walk

I consider myself to be so fortunate on days like these. I get to walk around the beautiful Essex countryside and watch the seasons change the view.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was struggling to get far through deep snow drifts, and now I’m walking through long grasses, common bindweed, buttercups and daisies, with gorgeous butterflies and dragonflies wafting up in front of me.

I am fascinated by the shapes of the hemlock (I think!) heads that are both in flower, in seed and dried brown/purple on different heads of the same plant. I wonder if the weird weather has made them turn early as I am sure I usually only see the browned heads in late summer.

Many photos later, I move on following a well trodden path along the side of a field across a tiny footbridge and into a patch of wild meadow.

Lots of purple vetch...
... and giant field mushrooms predominate here.

Passed the little wood and round to cross the lane and into the great patchwork of fields and woods in which I often wander. I’m followed by numerous bees and butterflies, good to see!

It’s so hot that most of the mammals and birds are hiding quietly in the woods, it’s silent and vast and I can feel the warmth coming from the wheat fields. The stems are a little short perhaps but the heads seem fat and full of promise. Shadows and colours, textures and clouds fill my vision, the smell of earth and vegetation rises up, a light breeze touches my skin; this is truly soul’s balm.

Walking always clears my mind, earths all the stresses and worries I’m carrying and invites inspiration in. Sometimes I come away with simply a renewed peace of mind; at others I am virtually running home with ideas flapping about in my head. I find that if I carry pen and paper with me I end up writing a rather dreary diary entry so now I only take my little camera along. It goes with me everywhere!

Over 2 hours later I turn for home...

Elemental Walk

At the weekend I went for a long walk with one of my Snow Sister’s that turned into a wild and elemental wandering.

I just love walking and have many favourite walks of varying lengths around my home and near my parent’s house.  One particular walk has become a sacred way to journey - time stretches, paths change and that which is familiar becomes wonderfully strange.

The first time I came this way was as part of a Day Walk, an adventure to be told in another post no doubt.  I have taken a few of my Snow Sisters and Soul Sisters with me since and each walk is contemplated in silence or peppered with conversation as needed.  It is a road to inspiration where I enter the realms of the imagination.

Silver Fox and I walked up the hill to the corner of a tree-lined field, where the view is glorious and the sky seems vast.  We were drawn to a place I have named Foxwood after the foxes den and skull I found there on a previous walk.  One of the many woods in this area yearly transformed by bluebells, we entered the shady space among the fading blue remains of the flowers.  The fierce wind was tamed and all was calm within.  I led the way further into the wood down towards a trail that I had walked several times.  Yet now it is overgrown and full of nettles, thistles and briars. Hawthorns with fierce spikes tore at our skin and brambles curled around our ankles to bind us to their will.  Silver Fox was draped in silver spider threads and it felt as if we were in the lair of wild wood women sitting along the path with twig needles and bone pins, gossamer, silk and harsh twine.  In the end the only way out was through the smallest gap in a hawthorn hedge.  I ploughed through with my coat over my head and Silver Fox following.  We emerged bloody and scraped into a sea of oil seed rape with no way through to be seen. 

The tractor road had been planted and so we had to follow the tracks as best we could.  The oil seed rape was no longer yellow but pale green and thick. We moved through as gently as we could towards the dark tree on the hill, while attacked by a crazy wind and hidden thistles.  When at the tree I noticed that the action of my walking through the field had felted my leggings at the front!

Oftentimes I notice that a journey or walk can mirror the path of one’s way of living in the world.  For me it is often that I enter a period of intense difficulty followed by great ease and good fortune.  I have learned that often the joy is found in that moment between struggle and calm.