Medicinalmeadows

THE PLACE WITHIN

Tag Archives: mental health awareness


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The Forest ……chapter 6… Storytelling for anxiety and all those feelings…..

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This morning I heard voices. I clung to the table in front of the window and eyed out into the daylight as I saw two people walking briskly by, I remember that, they walked side by side. I froze, they laughed, as they snaked the path into the greenness and were gone. It seems so long since I fixed my sights on other people. They were dressed for hiking with sturdy foot wear, like mine, I remember them stuck in the mud.

You know I wasn’t even sure at this moment that my voice actually still worked, I hadn’t spoke for so long. I hadn’t even talked out loud to myself, not a word, not a hum, a song, a phrase, nothing. I’m now aware that I need to be ready, I need to rehearse my vocal cords.

I have been following a set routine to last the day, finding comfort in the conformity. The cabin now seems familiar and I feel I have come to know every floor board, the ones that creak, where the drafts come in, where the sun rises, the sound of the birds, the stream running at the back of the cabin and the wind and the sound it makes brushing the leaves.

Something is not right within me. I see the world outside, people walking, talking and laughing, I stay quiet within, I hold my breath within, I keep myself within. There is fear within these walls and fear outside of these walls. I no longer have the presence of comfort. I feel I can not rest. So why do I stay hidden when I want so much to be found, to be rescued?

So what is it that I fear the most?


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The Forest…Part 3…stuck in the mud…

I hear the birds at sunset as they gather themselves high in the trees. In the cabin the light fades from hues of orange, to blues to black, mesmerising me, enticing me to close my eyes. In the last light I push the table in front of the door, position the chair ninety degrees, my arm on the table top, I rest my head, my eyelids too heavy to lift…all is dark anyway. The cabin is now my shelter, a square shack, old and tired, draughty too. I have not heard the door handle rattling at night so I now sleep some hours in the dark. The wall opposite the door is made of stone and after pulling boards away from the centre to reveal a fire grate, I can light a small fire. In the grate was a tin pan, a cup and a spoon and camping flint. My feet are still so cold and I use the blanket I found here to wrap them at night. But they are so terribly cold. The fire produces some heat but it loses to the draughts eventually. The floor is made of wooden boards and the spaces between the slats means only the chair can be slept on, but dawn breaks with sun, always the sun.

My days have been spent venturing outside of the cabin. I wake to the sound of the birds, such a noise…and hunger pains.  Only a few feet away is a stream, just across the path, a safe distance to collect water I heat in the pan and drink. I found berry bushes at the side of the shack too, probably planted by the previous owner. I can survive on this for a few nights as I am sure people will be looking for me by now so if I just stay… they will come. Occasionally at midday I think I hear voices, like on that first day. I am unable to climb that embankment it seems too steep and wet  from the rain. People are close… I know it, so it will only be a day maybe and I will be found. I feel I need to remain here near the shack, to wander into the woods again would be so foolish. I would only enter the muddy paths again and the rain would purge down… like that first day. I am resolved…resolved to being found. I have no map, no compass to find my way back …I can’t be stranded again like that frozen day. No, staying here is the only option now, soon they will come…I know it.


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The Forest…..storytelling in a modern world

 

This is a repost of a blog from a while back….now the story continues. I have finished  the journey, a metaphor and metaphysical story……so far. Please check back next week for part two….

Thank you for stopping by..

jungleLoneliness is an interesting feeling. Out here I never felt so alone. I followed the river and the water mesmerised my vision as if it was being siphoned into a spiralling hole underneath my gaze. My feet sunk into the dark wet mud. The cold covered the skin like small cuts of a knife into the flesh and the colour of my skin was no more than of bone. The iced feeling chilled every part of me. Legs to torso, to jaw to scalp, all rattling like an old escalator, but going nowhere.

The rain bulleted from the darkest of skies. It filtered through branches, leaves exponentially poured onto my shoulder then stopped, wittingly collecting again awaiting to restart. My hair was heavy, eyes cloudy, as my forehead drained upon my face and my chin streamed a river of water onto my chest. I posed with knees together, fists together but no warmth exulted from this angle of arms into breast. Here in the mud, the moment, I was frozen.

My clothes tightly wrapped around legs and arms as the cold cloth stained into my body unmoveable. The fall sustained further back had splattered earth to my hands and face that bit into flesh. The shoes lay somewhere cemented into the ground on the path, so bare feet chilled into bone, to marrow.

I couldn’t hear birds call, or traffic nearby nor human – animal movements due to hissing of the rain. Foolish to venture these muddy paths of riveted blackness, stoops and drains like treacle. No saviour will come this way, I and only I can make my way out of this dissented climate. I have been here too long. A lift of foot, a step, a bleeding pained first step is required just one, just rise and step away.