Medicinalmeadows

THE PLACE WITHIN

Tag Archives: storytelling


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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 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.

 

 


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The Forest….Part 2 The story continues…..

I hear voices and look skyward. The light through the leaves streams yellow into my vision. I squint, the hiss of the rain has stopped. I hear birds and movement from a subtle breeze waffling the greenery. The path I came along is adjacent to a banking of terraced trees. In the darkness it looked dense and dark. In the skimming light I can now see the boarder of the trees at a high level.

“Maybe there is a wall under the foliage? I definitely hear sounds, speech or breeze? I don’t know.”

I am unable to move without pain. My feet feel as if all circulating blood had been replaced by ice. I wriggle my toes stabbing axon to axon. Cold wet and fragile, I move, yes… I move one foot with a pained gasp, my lips splutters the wetness out into the air from my soaked face. A deep inhale and the other foot is free. I flip sideways to a more solid area of grown grass. My thighs ache into my knees and this sudden movement races into my pelvis shooting metal rods into my hips. I stop, stand and bend the knees and then straighten completely to free the cramped joints.

“Do they know I’m down here are they coming to rescue me?”

I stand for what seems like an hour. I have no way of knowing how long I have been ridged into this mud. Now more alert, I have kick started a powerful force of adrenaline which now arrows through my veins. My mouth wet, now dry, tongue engorged, lips pitted and crack, I taste blood.

I’m alert, my senses have gone from exhaustion to hypersensitivity, now a different trembling is upon my muscles. There is a loud drumming in my ears, percussion on my chest wall. My eyes now are failing to see through light and give false double images, I try to blinking rapidly to regain my sight. My wet skin now pins as pores heat up the more I move. I feel my bare feet change to full dexterity but I stumble. The forest floor feels like pine needles that stab into the soles of my waking feet. The smell is becoming overpowering as if someone has thrown a damp pine branch onto a fire and the scent is carried into my brain and my nose is aching all the way through into my sinuses with the pungent poison.

I hurry, bent over, scurrying, up ahead I see a shed,

“I know this forest” and without hesitation I heavily fist the latch and shove the door open.

One room, one single room inside, one table one chair. There is a blanket on the chair as if left just for me. Someone… knew…. I was coming.


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The Beauty of Urbex

“Urbex (urban exploration or UE) is the exploration of man-made structures, usually abandoned ruins or not usually seen components of the man-made environment”(Wikipedia).

These buildings are often abandoned hospitals, asylums, and industrial buildings, areas that look desolate. I am always intrigued by such photographs. To me they hold a history of a bygone age, a story of our society from an era now removed from our existence. These buildings often served the community and held a workforce of many in our towns and cities.

The images are often taken in black and white, to me this is to represent the historical value what is being captured, but what I ask,  is the onlooker to see deeper into the psyche of urbex pictures. Try to imagine the time and motion of the buildings in their working form, such as a busy hospital ward, workers in the factory and life within the picture, not just the abandonment of its current existence.

The beauty of these pictures is their past to present portrayal. I have tried to take some urbex photographs recently on a visit to Lancaster Castle.  The history of the Castle is thought to go back as far as Roman times as a fort and in the 11th century came under Royal possession as a medieval castle. It has a dark history of executions and the Lancashire witches trials in the 17th century.

The Castle is also known for being a Prison until 2011, but now it is a historical monument, open to the public as a visitor’s attraction for tours.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: What is beautiful to you

Here are some Urbex Experts;

Urbexunderworld

Americanurbex

BehindClosedDoors