It’s been a tough ol’ couple of weeks. Finishing up a project that was bigger than I expected, fine-tuning it now, and two bouts of lurgy – the joys of children returning to school and building their immunity through playing together…
I needed a break today. From my computer, from creating products, and courses and videoing and editing…
I needed some magic… And to recharge. To rejuvenate my heart and my soul.
So I went down to the forest.
And found it waiting there for me. Misty, soft rains falling through the pine needles, wandering lost into the larch forest, birch tree leaves shimmering as their colours change… Mushrooms re-appearing when I thought their season was past. Streams burbling and ferns dusted with silver drops… Moss so green it took my breath away… Paths meandering and disappearing, old walls of tumble down stones and seedlings sprouting from old stumps and decaying log piles…
I was only there for an hour or so. I don’t quite know. I lost track of time a bit.
But I was reminded – once again – of how much we this wild, marvellous aspect of the world around us… This resource which is Nature.
Not just for the resources we harvest, but also for those magical times we spend meandering through the forests, or over coral reefs, or watching the flowers dance, or the movement of the sun as it slips over the horizon… That simply being in Nature has the potential to re-inspire, to fill us up, to nurture and to nourish – and that this is a resource which is so incredibly precious to us.
I will never forget the first time a friend, wanting to connect more with trees and mindfulness practise, told me that they didn’t know how to feel the wind on their skin… Couldn’t feel the world around them… Just didn’t know how to see this beauty because they had never been exposed to it. Never been invited to walk barefoot on the grass… And the frustration he felt at wanting this sense of connection so much – and the frustration he felt at trying so hard to reach for it – and not finding it. My heart hurt for him!
I so feel for all my friends who have never wandered through an old forest, never felt that soft rain and mist on their skin, never gotten lost and yet are still confident of finding their way out… Or who are unable to access green spaces where they live, for whatever reason…
There is a precious richness to wild spaces that I sometimes feel is beyond my words to describe – this sense of coming into a wild space and being at peace, finding peace, finding a deep sense of connection, awe and wonder at the beauty around themselves… And filling me up with a precious resource – awe, beauty, wonder, respect, awareness..
I came back filled up. With a bag of wild mushrooms, pinecones for my fire, and a heart full of inspiration, energy, beauty and a desire to create more, to share more… Into the world around me…
Ready and willing to sit back down to my computer, the sense I have of the “Work” I am here to do in the world redefined, strengthened somehow…
Feeling so grateful for Nature, and for the Wild Spaces – both inside myself, and in the world around me…
#mindfulness #beauty #inspiration #gratitudepractice #gratitudeattitude #natureconnection #seeingbeautyeverywhere #seeingbeauty #heartandsoul
Heart. Soul. Earth. 
One response to “I went down to the forest today… And I found magic…”
Oh your words, Morag. Yesterday I was walking in an ancient forest beside a fast flowing stream in Caithness with my family. My grandson Charlie, at 13 weeks old, looking out from his baby carrier so fascinated with the trees. Driving through the Lake District today and back home, seeing the beauty of nature and fast flowing waterfalls, water so badly needed after a long summer drought.
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