Good afternoon.
So you join me in beautiful sunny Shropshire today and the rain clouds are threatening but at the moment it's just brilliant sunshine and I'm about to enter Benthall Woods and take you for a little bit of a meditation walk.
So here we go,
Here's the gateway into the woods and here we are and it's just wow really isn't it?
It's such a beautiful scene.
It's spring here obviously in the UK so the bluebells are out and yeah it really is just so beautiful.
I think they should be called violet bells or violets.
They are so vibrantly violet actually rather than blue.
Anyway let's walk through and down a little bit deeper along the pathway.
What I like about meditation walks is that obviously you are not sat down.
It's a walking meditation and that might seem at odds with some people's idea of what a meditation should be.
What I personally believe is every bit is good if not better than a meditation where you kind of force yourself to sit in the correct posture and breathe in the right way.
You know there's an element of trying hard to do meditation right that I find with a meditation walk.
All of that kind of thinking just disappears.
You are walking which is something that comes naturally to most of us and you are observing your surroundings as you walk and particularly if you go on a walk like this along the pathway through the woods you start to really become immersed in the environment,
In the nature and you start to heighten your senses and you start to become really aware of the different elements,
The different sights,
The different sounds especially.
So you can look over here and look how amazingly beautiful these bluebells are but then look at this tree that's fallen down.
That's sort of probably a hundred years old and is now I guess in a state of decay essentially but is still for all that kind of majestic.
And now we're coming to a kind of a gateway I suppose really a natural gateway that's been formed by again more fallen down tree branches that obviously came down in a storm at some point.
And listen,
I mean just listen.
So obviously I mean you can hear I'm becoming more hushed and I probably really should just shut up and let you take it all in but don't worry I'm going to do that in a moment.
The point is as we go on this journey which is exactly what it is we reconnect and we connect with the moment and our senses are heightened,
Our awareness of our surroundings,
The sights,
Sounds and the smells.
I mean I'm stood next to a bit of swampy ground now at the bottom of the glade really and it has a different aroma.
I was in another part of the disruption yesterday where the wild garlic was out and you could have been in a kitchen with a French chef cooking with lots of garlic.
That's kind of how it smells.
But look at this now.
So I'm walking through the bottom of this little dip and again now the sun is on a different side and I'm looking uphill and you know the way the light is hitting everything.
It's just beautiful.
Here's another fallen down tree.
Next to it a holly bunch,
An evergreen.
Now I'm having to just ease my way past the branches of the tree and then at the bottom here we've got a tiny little stream.
I don't know if you could even call it a stream really but I mean just a little bit of the sound of running water and if I get down here right close I'm just.
.
.
I don't know if you can hear up there somewhere there's a I think it's a crow or a jackdaw.
In fact I can see the nests up there now.
So let's make our way back up to the pathway.
Even the ground feels different underfoot here is really soft and spongy and this quite possibly is I would say yeah that looks to me like a badger's den.
You can see the amount of earth that he's dug out to make that.
Obviously he or she will not be too happy hanging around and won't be coming out till this evening anyway probably but that's a good one to note so I might come back with my night vision goggles at some point and even perhaps filming of her.
So just making my way back up more or less to where we first entered this wood.
And at the top here I've got my own well I like to think of it as my little spot where I can just sit for a while and just take in quietly for a few minutes all of this.
So I'm just going to put you the camera down over here for a moment and leave you alone with this scene for a few minutes.
Perfect.
What's the fancy one?
Yes!
Thank you!
I like this one.
It's showing up with the normal view.
I think it's the one.
What's that?
There you go.
It's got a bit of a circle in it then.
Oh yeah,
It's very,
Very thin.
Yeah.
There you go.
OK,
So there we are.
I hope you enjoyed that.
And I think I'm going to head home before the heavens open.
But I do recommend you take your own walk through nature if you possibly can.
And try and think of it as a meditation.
So until the next time,
Thank you very much for watching.
Stay safe.
Namaste.
You're welcome.
