Medicinalmeadows

THE PLACE WITHIN

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The Quest – Arrival at the Gates of the Abbey

The road to the Monastery reminded Godfrei of childhood fireside stories. Of landscapes belonging to the Faery Queen and tribes of old. Her whispers in the hedgerows that enchant the riders from their horses into the thicket. Beyond the world of living and into the worlds of the hills and mounds. The twisting lanes, oaks that appeared as old men standing with twisted limps and shadows of those long gone. As they journeyed into the valley, they descended under the sun line, as if heading towards the core of the earth. The horizon now disappearing. As the hazy light obscured his vision, he just closed his eyes and was absorbed into the sounds of the land. The rhythmical chant of the horses, the gentle thud on the earth, the birds singing in his heart, an ensemble of nature.  They all seemed to move now as One, not six riders on horseback, but One instrument.

The scuffing sound of the horse hooves brought Godfrei into the world again directly opposite the gates of the Abbey. He had suddenly re-entered the world, his ears unable to adapt to the bustling villagers. The locals with their carts and commotion of deliveries, was a sight he hadn’t been accustomed to for so long. The journey from the Bay had been in secret, in the dark of night, until now. His heart raced within his ribs. Was this real?

Was that his name?

There again!

His riders were all dismounting!!!  

He knew this voice calling in the crowd, now arms stretched out towards him.

He was slower, wearier, than the others, his hearing too dismissive from the long time alone in his own thoughts, and now, the back-and-forth noises.

“Godfrei, dear Brother, are you well? Come, come we have been waiting for so long to welcome you, come”.

As he looked with pinpointing precision a brown sullen figure with the familiar voice emerged as if from the walls of the sandstone bricks. It was Adam. Their eyes connected and Godfrei felt the highest zeal of energy. Joy flooded through him. He leaped down off the horse, in one long lurching movement. His legs unflexing from the sleepiness felt like blocks of wood, and pain rose to his hips, with stiff staggering steps he lumbered forwards. Adam with the same furry of excitement stretched out and wrapped his flapping brown sleeves over Godfrei like the wings of a swan, a shout of praise, streaming notes of a psalm, both in rapture abound one another.

Godfrei was home. His legs buckled and Adam lifted him upon his chest with cries of “home now Brother you made it. We have you now, all is well.  There will be a feast at Heaven’s order, to welcome you this day.  Come, come Brother no more does your body need to wither and wane in the tests of Our Father.  Be inside the dwelling of Our Mother’s House, for you are truly a blessed sight, come, come, dearest Brother”.

Godfrei could have sworn that he had passed out then spent the day wavering without his faculties. In the proceeding hours the Brothers took care of his bodily needs as expected. They washed him, inspected his wounds, delt with his injuries, dressed him in robes of their Order, fed him, prayed over him.  After the blessing by the hand of the Abbot, he was granted rest in a private dormitory, Adam would reside with him also, taking care of all his needs. Tomorrow would be a day of the first transcriptions, but right now he could not even grasp the first words to describe what had begun so long ago. And all he wanted was rest… all his body wanted was rest. The only thing that kept him going was the picture in his mind of this Abbey.

He would not see his Brethren travellers until the transcriptions were complete. Just as protocol dictated, for fear of merging details and inaccurate misgivings.  Beyond that, he still needed to deliver the charge in his possession, which remained with him all day, always within arm’s reach. The task was not yet complete. He let out a long sigh and heard Adam stir nearby, “will this journey ever end”.

Photographs taken by JT Salmon and recreated with Copilot.


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Burning Times

When you burned, I burned with you

When you buried, I burned for you

In passion in flame in Holy name

I am Forest Father

The nature’s Pater

I burned for you

From ground to up above

Our essence of vapour and resin through the sky

To all sea, bird, creature and pebble nearby

As you changed to spirit on air

With wind and rain

I held our our branches to hold you again

On the arm of Grandfather Oak

Passed down to Mother Doe

To pine to ground

Gathered your spirit around

By branch and heather

In ash and soil in Gods own power to mycelium medicine

Within those resting hours

We hold you in woodland, nature’s roots

We carried you there to earth’s repair

We carried you over through the mighty air

Now sheltered with a canopy

Embedded to sacred ground

To oak, ash, yew and birch

Of Kin and Kith

Dwelling in arms of bark, heart of trunk

Of deer foot and bird above

Held by ivy

Entwined

With earth beneath you

Water to greet you

Wind to change you

Light to recreate you

Ancestors of root of seed and bud

Growing earthly

Living on

Forest of my blood, evergreen

Forest of Fatherhood


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The Menopause, the Matrix and the Moon

For Christmas I gave myself adrenal fatigue. This feeling of minimal activity and maximum fatigue is not a new thing for me. I am well versed in how this goes. I am also well attuned to deep rest, hydration and good food to begin with, from a well oiled radar to the early signs. The “Holiday” in deep winter has me thinking that I am not as attuned to the seasons as I thought. My preparation for Christmas was not at all prepped appropriately. My inner vision was covered. I did not see the wood, literally, for the trees and here is why.

I got swept into the tangibility of it all. The Matrix was there with its all seeing eyes and I was lost to it. I got moved along with the to-do-lists, helped my elders with their food preparation, the lights and the tinsel. I colluded to buy and messy wrap the presents and all the time my energy levels waned and I knew it. I felt it, I recognised my bodily signs saying, slow down. I went out again and again when the fire side was calling with its soft golden glow and its warming invites. I left for one last trip with the Christmas cards.

All this was done out of love, but was it love for myself! And where do you draw the line with your loved ones at Christmas to say, I am done! I am menopausal, my instincts are saying I need to go inside and withdraw not do more. I am listening to my body and my answer is just one more thing! But the body knows the limits and has no cajoling from the mind, the body doesn’t say ok, let’s finish all this and high five. No, the body has a limit and when the limit is overstepped it shouts now, now is the time for rest and no more.

All this came home to me yesterday as we sorted, cut and piled the wood from the pruned trees in our garden. Here I was again, but this time the realisation was of my sacred rhythms with the trees and the land. As I over stretched once again I had this vision that my ancestors worked with the rhythms of the seasons. I thought I was doing so well with my menstrual practice cycling like the earth with my inner landscape then it occurred to me, what do we do when the cyclicity is gone.

Here I was without the clock, without the dial, the rhythms all gone. I was chopping wood in winter when this could have been done in preparation. My ancestors would have prepared for winter, just as I had prepared in the autumn of my cycle, my premenstrual phases, listing and smoothing things over so I rested in winter. My inner cyclicity had been musical even, never mind rhythmical…..and now as I arrive in this space of no cyclicity it began to look more like no-womans-land.

My world was not prepared for the winter. If I had looked, really looked at myself and my nature this would have been all in good timing. The cutting, pruning and gardening would have been put to bed weeks ago. If my body had been in a menstrual cycle I would have been prepared for this! But is it just me, or is the outer world out of sync? As I sit here typing, the window is open the hedges are green and it seems the earth herself is in a great flux of menopausal seasonal crisis of no-womans-land too!

When I close my eyes and think of my ancestry I see the high stocked wood stores, the jars of pickled fruits and veg, the importance of the harvest festival and the fire flickering and tended to day and night. Frosty mornings and sleet showers with streets of leaves piling up the brick walls. Houses with the lights on early and no more to do about the gardens but witness and welcome the returning of the light in weeks to come. Nothing kept for keeping sake and nothing needed but stillness and the flame.

My awareness is bringing up that familiar nervousness that all is not right with the world. I am aware of what has occurred on the inner landscape and I can accept that and find my path again. But what can be done about the outer landscapes, how do we assist the cycles of the season of this planet? Is this a greater task that we have as a collective? Is this a task for all women at menopause, as we sit in nature to nurture ourselves can we be in reciprocity at this time? Is it time to nourish both? If the earth is also out of cyclicity do we now look to the moon for our rhythms and reflect deep into our old ways, the wise and the well, the ancient and ancestral knowing once more?


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Everything….

There is time for everything and everything has its time…..

Into this place I send my soul song streaming and the elements return the sound into my own. I am here without time and in no place. I have space between the particles of my being and my bones.


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Inner sense

Big energies levelling off with this potent moon. I feel it growling into existence. Like a dominant force of animal energy pleased to see the inside instead of the outer shell.

The inner home is in need of “getting ready” the old just won’t do….boldness is required.


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Spirit of Place

What if my thoughts on land energy clearing are not on point? What if there is a fault in my thinking? What if some places have energy clearing all adhered to through spirit?

You see certain places have an energy keeper the “Spirit of Place”. This is spirit that is a guardian, to be Keeper of the Land Place and Space. Maybe we should be calling upon “Spirit of Place” before we enter into any rituals or ceremony, out of good intention, but maybe we ask first?! Maybe this way we get connected, reconnected to that Keeper.

My thoughts recently have been that we have a duty to clear spaces on the land, our natural spaces, our sacred spaces so that energies are not held on the land, and yes, we are talking land trauma here. But what if this is not always necessary? What if rituals and ceremony, specially in sacred ancient sites is already taken care of by the other realms, the unseen.

I recognise that some places have that “feeling” right? This makes me think that land is like clearing any space. You know when a room it just needs a clearing of energy, that dense feeling after a tense meeting or a building after a trauma event, so why is an outside space any different! Do we have a responsibility to take care of the energies in just the same way? And on that note, do we recognise that the same respect for energy to flow is also a clearing we need to respect within ourselves, the body. After all a spirit resides within us too, we are the Keeper of our body.

So my point here is do we seek consent? Do we ask for consent and listen, inwardly and outwardly? We may just connect to the Spirit of Place if we do.


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The Forest… Part 5…Night..

 

The fire is a necessity for warm but it plays on the walls and disturbs me. I keep the back of the chair against the wall and my feet up. My breathing is that of a creature in the forest running from a predator. Every rib over extending, aching from back bone circling to breast with a final stab at the sternum. My stomach tightens pulling inwards bringing a secondary duller pain in the core of me. All muscles from feet to throat pulled to contraction even my neck gripped so tight it was painful to swallow.

The wind, the leaves, the rocking of the branches above the cabin all as if just behind me. I turn sharply. “Nothing, think, think outside not near, it’s all outside not in here. Wind, whistling behind me, not in hear, outside.  I wake an hour or so later. “What happened”? I am tightly wrapped in my blanket, I listen again. Chest tightens, round two begins.