Hi,
Today I'm bringing you on my journey,
A journey that I walked this morning across the fields in the early morning sun.
So to give you kind of like an overview and like a picture in your mind,
The landscape here is really quite flat.
There's the odd little hill and back down again,
But it's more of an undulation rather than a hill.
But because it's flat,
You can see as far as the eye can see,
Almost like you can see a horizon line.
The skies are expansive,
They're really quite immense.
So to get to the walk,
I walked up through a lane to the top where,
The top of all the fields.
And as you walk up this lane,
At the top of the lane,
There's a massive great sycamore that has been home to a hundred sparrows for as long as I can remember.
And the morning chatter this morning was so loud,
I could hear it at the bottom of the lane.
And obviously,
As I got closer and closer,
It grew louder and louder.
And I remember thinking,
What a beautiful way to be greeted on this walk.
Now next to this tree,
There's a field with four horses.
One of them is a young foal that was orphaned at birth called Storm.
And the owners found a surrogate mother for him quite quickly.
Now this mother,
As soon as you approach the gate,
Will come running across to greet you.
And she'll bow her head so you can touch her just gently on her head.
And this young boy Storm follows his new mother's actions.
And every week seems to be getting braver and stronger.
And an absolute delight to watch.
So when I come out with my dog Bobby,
Bobby loves this female horse.
He'll stand up as high as he can up against the gate and lift his head up.
And the horse,
She lowers her head down to him and they just nuzzle her nose just for a couple of seconds.
And then she goes on her way and he goes on his.
So cute to see,
I have to tell you.
So once I got to the top of this lane,
Some of the things I noticed,
The weather was cool,
But the skies are blue.
It's kind of like a pale blue sky today.
A bit of sun coming through.
And actually you can feel that warmth of the sun on your face.
There are clouds which are really quite powdery.
The kind you might draw on a picture as a child.
And about three,
Four fields along there's a load of wind turbines.
And today they are completely and utterly still.
It's the kind of day that you want to whisper.
I'm actually alone,
I was alone today.
But if I did have someone with me,
I'd want to whisper so I didn't intrude on the stillness and the silence that was in the air.
And that brought me to a quote that says,
I crave the silence of home.
The silence that the hushing winds and wailing birds dare and break.
I crave the silence that floods my soul.
Weeping its way into the deepest parts.
The silence that holds me together.
And that was written by Leoma Sparrow.
So I wander down the lane which is a grassed walkway between two fields.
And both those fields are now fully ploughed.
So that grass is really soft beneath your feet.
It was also damp from the morning dew.
And I noticed there were really tiny little baubles,
Almost seeds of water.
Just laying and resting on blades of grass.
As the light kind of hits against them,
They're just sparkled like little diamonds.
This walkway is only about 200 yards long.
And at the bottom you reach a place where you are actually surrounded by fields in every direction.
And then there's fields next to them and fields next to them.
And so it goes on beyond and beyond.
And as I said,
I can feel the sun was on my face.
And I noticed that there was still some warmth in that sun,
Even though it is an autumnal day.
And I stayed in this space about 15-20 minutes.
In complete stillness and silence.
I was noticing birds chattering away in the trees behind me.
Again I noticed the stillness of the wind turbines.
And also the trees just across the field.
I noticed a slight movement in the top corner of the field.
Which I couldn't make out at the time,
But I later found out it was a cat.
And I noticed my breathing had become a little slower and smoother.
As I stayed as still as I could to mirror the landscape.
And the longer that I stayed there,
The more I felt part of it.
I spent some time just simply noticing the sensations that are within me.
How it felt to acknowledge how I was connecting.
Noticing the parts of my body that were directly connecting.
And to feel the Earth's energy merging with my own.
I guess not really knowing or being able to decipher where one started and the other ended.
And it brought to my mind how people quite often,
Myself included,
Use words like grounded or rooted.
However it was really good just to allow myself to feel in the moment.
And to observe the sensations within my own body.
You know those really tiny subtle movements or how your temperature might change in certain areas.
And also how it can flow through your body.
And I questioned as to whether I would call myself rooted at this moment in time.
And maybe that word doesn't actually describe this fully.
But I don't actually have another word for it just yet.
And it wasn't necessarily rooted as that kind of says that I'm separate from and within something else.
It felt more like it was and I was inseparable.
That we were all one.
That we were all part and parcel.
The Earth,
Myself,
The landscape,
The skies.
So as I said,
I don't actually have a word yet that can describe that for you.
But hopefully I will at some point along the way.
So when I had slowed down enough and it felt right to do so.
I took a real slow saunter around the edges of the field in front of me.
And a few things that I noticed as I really sauntered quite slowly.
And when you do slow down enough you notice things that you wouldn't normally notice.
So along one side there's a ditch.
And there was the most minute little fish in there.
And unless they moved you couldn't actually see them.
But when they did move there must have been 30 or so in one small area all moving together.
And you could see the swirl of the bodies.
And then they just disappeared again until they moved.
And you could see them yet again.
And I did stop at various points along that side just to notice that.
When I got to the bottom of the field there was a herd of cows in the field opposite.
And I just observed how slow their natural space is.
How much ease they have,
How much calmness as they just follow each other around.
And just meander.
When I got to the top of the field,
So the third side of it.
This is an area where I call they've got crystal trees.
And that's because I hid some little gem crystals there one year from my grandchildren.
Telling them that it must mean that the Christmas fairies have been.
And they were wild with excitement as you can imagine.
So there's about four trees just scattered along that side with a little ditch in front of them.
Kind of separating the two fields.
And there's a stunning mountain ash there.
And today I noticed a huge fungi growing attached to the side.
Almost like one of them saucers.
So knowing that when a tree is under attack.
And that can also mean when another species is growing on them or attaching themselves to them.
Trees as does all living plants and various trees.
They give off an aroma called a phytoncide.
And when we inhale that we absorb these phytoncides into our body.
Which activates our white blood cells called a MK cell.
And in doing so that can help boost our immune system in the way that those cells work.
So I consciously spent some moments breathing in the air.
Allowing myself just to absorb it into my entire body through my skin.
The last part of the field was a smaller walking edge.
So there was less underfoot.
Less space underfoot should I say.
There was also still some remnants of the haystumps.
And consequently because it was more uneven.
Also there was these little sticks poking up.
It was a lot more crunchier to walk.
And also you had to be more mindful as to where you were placing your feet.
And one of the things that really popped up for me.
Was there was a couple of random poppies.
Two or three in one plant.
It's the 30th of September.
And we've still got these wonderful flowers in full bloom.
I've actually used the photo at the start to show you the poppies that I saw.
I think they're poppies.
And as you'll see from the photo they're quite short in height.
But they're vibrant.
The petals were really,
Really delicate.
But really soft.
They were quite thin but velvety.
And very smooth to the touch.
And then I followed that path back.
To the area where I spent all that little bit of time.
Just connecting in with the earth.
And for one last moment.
I took time just to look up and notice the changes in the sky.
The shapes and the patterns that it was showing me.
I don't know about you but I can see all sorts of shapes and detail in the sky.
I find it absolutely fascinating how clouds can move in opposite directions.
The shapes,
How they transform and evolve as the clouds bump into each other.
It's been very,
Very still here this morning.
But there are still,
From the start of the walk to the end of the walk,
Changes within the sky.
Thank you for joining my journey.
It's a really beautiful way to start your day.
Not just walk,
A to B,
But just to meander.
To meander and kind of greet the earth with your own body.
Until next time,
I hope you get an opportunity to spend some time with Mother Earth.
Be it in your own garden,
Out on a walk,
Or wherever it happens to be for you.
I'll see you soon.
