She is fierce…

Where do we go in search of peace and solitude? Where do we go to relax and connect? Where do we go to find answers to the questions we weren’t even sure needed asking?

Hawnby Hill, North Yorkshire

 

It depends who you are I suppose. Some find solace in noise and bustle. Some find solace in the molecular bonding of a stadium full of like minds.

Some sweat in a gym. Some run, walk, dance, meditate. Some do all of those things. Some medicate.

Some find, through choice,or lack of choice solace in the unfathomable depth of the mind.

I am one of those who heads into the countryside. I know that the meditative step step crunch crunch squelch squelch will free my mind and help me to balance and work my mind in a way that allows me to find peace. I might not find answers to everything. Not all problems can be solved immediately. But, even with those ones, I am able to find perspective and an acceptance of the situation.

Lets say I have a certain problem which is preying on my mind. It’s easy, so easy to think and keep on thinking and get lost in the worry.

The moors save me from this, every time, they save me.

The meditative walking helps a huge amount. And peril. Peril helps me a great deal.

I remember having a walk with a friend last year, and we got to talking about how every walk we had together always ended up with a certain amount of peril. Genuine peril.

Enough to make me think, even for just a second, “oh, this might be painful or, possibly, terminal.” (usually in a more sweary way, if I’m being completely honest).

So in those situations, two things happen. Firstly, I totally forget about the bill or stressful situation. Completely.

Secondly, my mind connects totally to my body and lives in the moment. It’s Zen I guess. I become hyper-aware. Switched on and full of purpose.

And afterwards, well, my mind looks at me, and waits, like a patient parent, waiting for me to come to the realisation all by myself. My problems, while they may, on occasion be very difficult and hard; they aren’t as bad as others have it, nor will worrying about them solve them.

Take away the power that unkind and toxic people have. They won’t occupy my mind, except on a very fleeting basis. Also, and this is vital. Forgive them, even if it is hard. In fact, especially if it is hard.

After that, I take a pretty photograph and enjoy that hot cup of tea from the flask and sit and drink in the sheer beauty of the world.

Now, of late, the North has been given a stark reminder. Peril and disruption, as well as a reminder that, yes, She has teeth. We don’t own the world. We are tolerated but can be evicted at the snap of a finger.

Glenridding, Lake District

 

We have been reminded, starkly, terrifyingly, viscerally for many, that we have stewardship of our world. No more.

The green valleys. How did they get there? They were carved by water, pounded by rock, boulders and storm-torn trees. The land is scarred by the power of water. The world is shaped by water.

And the world, our Mother Nature, is taking it back. We have failed in our stewardship and we are being reminded about this.

So what can we do? Plant trees, conserve energy, recycle, reduce CO2 emissions, dredge our rivers & stop spending money on exploding orphan-makers.

We are on our final warning.  What are you going to do? If we don’t do something soon, the decision will be out of our hands…

The water reclaiming a tree.

It’s lighter in the dark…

This wizened bough bent and hollow

Willow waving  and whipping

Twisted Haw-

-thorn May bud and holly berry

My footprint is silent

My footsteps are loudly

The church she sings proudly

warmly bell ring

The lane it is

silent yet far in the village

A laugh runs towards me

A laugh lights the darkness

Warms the silence.

Walking in the night. I followed the glisten of the puddles and the sky-pointing arms of the hedges. It is dark. Night. December night. But walking without light from a lamp, well, it doesn’t take the eye long to realise the secret of night.

It’s not dark  at night.

Light makes the night dark.. It pushes and condenses it into a choice. Here is the bubble of light; there is the sea of dark. This makes it a constant struggle as the night leans into the glow. The light makes it harder to see out of the bubble.

No light means that there isn’t a line, there isn’t a state of here or there.

It becomes light enough to see, navigate, walk. And it opens your ears, heightens all the senses. And it gifts you a glimpse of a vole; or a hedge pig. The sounds from afar come and go but, and this is true, the ears work better when they are not lulled into lazing by the vigilant eyes in light. This is much more of a co-operative effort. The body working as it should, with every part doing it’s fair share of work. I sensed a little obstacle, didn’t see it, but, sensed it. So I stepped over it without a thought.

So what can I learn from this? That the world isn’t made to work to extremes. It works in shades, graduations. There is room for people to have different points of view and both people can be right. Or no one can be wrong. And the other point of view- if you create a bright light, you will create darkness.

Take from that what you will.

And let me know what it is.

Here we go again…

Here we go again,

Living at the same address,

Picking up the same old mess.

Here we go again,

Shouting at the lying press

Touting store-bought happiness.

Here we go again,

MPs cheering  their ‘success’

War’s boots forced acquiesce…

Here we go again,

Sickened at the bombs progress

Making worse this worlds distress.

(Now I’ve had my fill)

I’m talking to you

I’m talking to you

Can’t you hear me?

(This is what you’re causing)

A shout-

“Bring out your dead!”

“Bring out your dead little sister.”

“Bring out your dead!”

“Bring out your dead little brother.”

(This is what your bombs cause)

He cries-

“I’m the one feeling alone

I’m the one sitting on stone

I’m the one without a home.”

 

This is what we are causing. There will be people dead now that were alive yesterday. Killed by bombs that we paid for.

What’s a life worth?

How many families would each bomb have paid to look after if we had spent the money on them, rather than building something whose only purpose is to kill and destroy?

Each bomb we are using costs £800 000.

That’s per bomb.

What’s a life worth?

 

 

 

I see you…

I see you

Tree from the old days

Guarding the byways

You see me

You tree from the old days

Watching my hair grey.

 

I see you

Road from the old days

Making the highways

You see me

You road from the old days

Feeling my gait sway.

 

I see you

Stone from the old days

Marking the old ways

You see me

You stone from the old days

Hiding my shade away.

 

This post is about looking. The gaze. Eyes. The eyes within the mind.

The idea that, as we look, so we are being looked at.

We rush through our lives, ascribing varying amounts of import to the concerns that are whooshing though our grey matter at that moment in time.

I live in an old place. The Romans were here; they buried their dead below the windmill a quarter of a mile away. They built the road less than a mile from me. This road was called Dere Street, running from York up to Scotland. It was built in the 70s AD, after Boudicca was savagely dealt with.

It’s humbling to know that history marches through the lanes and streets that I wander. Lives will have been made, lost, broken, saved and joined right where I stand, looking at the undulating road surface.

Trees watching me, each breath they take a month in the inhale, seasonal exhalations. What concerns the mind of a tree? Do they notice the scurrying people, flashing by in their rushed lives? Or is each week long eye blink of an oak too ponderous and serene to even notice the day I walked by, lost in grief, or the day I strode by, found in love?

And yet, even the Romans were new to here.

This road, this march, this ribbon of trodden earth has the age of an eon. Ten thousand years. For ten thousand years people have followed the line of the lane, Sneck Yates and the high drove road to the right, skimming the curves of the river Ure. (This river, once called Jor or Yore has gifted (in my opinion), the once capitol of Viking England- Jor-wick. The town on the Jor.)

Marking the way, the old folk left stones. Up on the tops, there’s a long barrow I visit, where rests someone from then. I sit and look out, overdown on this place I call home.

On the route, the Devils Arrows pierce the earth; standing proud, so tall that they hide my shadow when I stand under them. A short walk takes me to Thornborough. The henge there is special. Three henges, linked.

The number 3 is sacred to the people we call Celts. It represents the three-fold marriage of earth, sea and sky. The trinity, so central to Christianity, was taken by St Patrick from the Celts, appropriated as a marriage between the old lore and the new. We keep them still.

On the count of three.

Three is the magic number.

Weave a circle round him thrice.

The stones watch, their inhalations so slow that they barely register the sapling as it grows into a half centuried oak. Do the stones remember the forming? The heat and the flowing?

The worries of a stone are nothing to the earth; the worries of the tree are nothing to the stone; the worries of the man are nothing to the tree. Next time you look; look through the eyes of something older. There may be wisdom. There will certainly be a different perspective.

The road marches on. The river washes stone. Time to look anew.