36. A Harvest From The Ever Turning

Post 36 of A Journey On Foot

31st August 2013

As the wheels of time roll on, we all turn the matter that we gather into the matter that we are. So it is wise to gather well.

What have I learned from all this? What will I take away? To be frank, I have not learned much I did not already know. But when it comes to the nature of ourselves, and of others, nor do any of us. We just chip away at the disbelief until the underneath is exposed long enough to remember what we always thought was true.

A journey – Life being the greatest of them all – takes you through cycles of daybreak to day’s end. It takes you through landscapes, through textures, through processes. Kindness is offered. We learn much about our natures through how we receive it. We meet people, and they stay in our hearts and minds bound up with the landscape and the resonance of their story. Problems are encountered, and how we deal with them determines how many more cycles it will take for us to learn that lesson.

There is a pulsing silken thread that weaves and wefts the fragments of our lives together. With it all we build a house for ourselves. One that is ever changing – with new material being brought in, and that which no longer serves us well, being cast out. It is strong, variegated, fragile, and beautiful as a wasps’ nest.

On this journey I have had many teachers. Too many to name them all, and some impossible to name. But a few that are burning brightly from my adventures of late:

From the landlady of The Northmore Arms in Dartmoor, I learned to accept kindness when it is offered. I had gone off onto Dartmoor intending to bivvi, almost desperate to sleep outside as so much hospitality had been offered which often meant I was indoors or in a tent. I had gone there to write my blog, and left in the dark & drizzle, having been offered her spare room. A little way down the road, I realised that to accept is as much a part of kindness as to give, so I turned on my heel. She cooked me some supper.

From Fergus ‘the Forager’ Drennan, I learned how joyful someone’s character can be when they spend their lives outside, learning from and eating of what nature has to offer. I learned to make paper out of mushrooms and to not be afraid to try.

Ronnie Aaronson, a natural beekeeper, reaffirmed my instinct to trust what comes into your path, by offering me her mill-house as a base in Devon without knowing me. Such a place of transformation as a mill is a fitting abode for a wise woman who talks to her bees and plays the flute to her willows, which are transformed into wood chip to warm her in the winter. And a fitting place for me to come back to as I turned several cycles up in Dartmoor.

Meeting Rima Staines, I was reminded that the best stories are true, and that healing can come if we are patient and trust that it will.

As I watched a slug, making my way up a hill to the place overlooking the Wye Valley where I would spend my final night, I truly appreciated what it is to cross terrain fully, with senses opened wide.

I have had the good fortune to have two full months, two moon cycles, dedicated to listening to the spoked voice over and over and over again. I finally came to understand the engraving in my wedding ring: TRAUST (Icelandic ~ trust/solidity). Trust, full trust, will give rise to an indomitable solidity of spirit, even while material existence seems anything but.

If there is one thing I ask of you, dear readers, it is to give yourselves the space to wander. It is not as hard as it seems. Once you are doing it you will wonder why you do not do it more often. Do not have a plan. It will be alright. It will be much more than alright. Life is no more linear than the branches of a tree. It is so much more interesting than that. It will be magical.

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33. Brewing Umber

Post 33 of A Journey On Foot

25th August 2013

I feel as if a new colour has been made. With her earthy autumnal reds and my mossy greens, mixed with the liquid light of this Dartmoor summer, cooked for some days over a wood stove and dusted with Perseids, we now clutch in the creased life tracks of our palms a translucent backlit umber – much like the colour of the bracing peaty river in which we bathed before parting ways.

The greatest miracle of this journey began more than two weeks ago. It was the longest, deepest and widest path I have trodden, and yet few footsteps were taken. It has shaped my paths since, and will ring throughout my lifetime. The pattering footsteps of two people meant to meet, yet dancing through and past each other, have echoed for many many years in an empty chamber in our hearts, waiting for the day when we could sit in it together and drink a never ending cup of tea.

Artist Rima Staines and I share a part of our paths that was full of extremes. We were once, in different chapters if our lives, with the same man. That is now an old story for both of us. My relationship with him was full of a darkness and a light that was never allowed to be reconciled. For those of us who feel intensely the tides and trembles of existence, it is a rare joy to meet another who knows it. And, in the alchemy of Rima and I meeting, a new and different colour was made. Like a dark rain cloud meeting the sun, a rainbow emerges from the union.

She invited me for tea as The Wayfarer. Upon reading my blog more closely, pennies started dropping from the ceiling and threads stitched themselves through the patches lying around the room. She realised who I was. A woman from her past, not yet met. She invited me for tea again, as me. The teapot is still not empty, and the tea is not cold. We have only just begun.

I camped in the overflow of an arboretum along the track from her cottage. First one night, then two, then three. We walked. We talked more. We danced. And we laughed. My, how we laughed! By the time I left, the grass under my tent had started to yellow.

I ventured out onto the moor for more adventures and experienced the warm Devon welcomings. But Rima and her lovely man were going to a festival I know to tell a Lithuanian folk tale, and sell Rima’s just-beyond-this-worldly paintings. They wanted the story recording and there happened to be a Sarah shaped hole in the back of their van. So what was I to do?

Pin myself between Arctic bell tents, boxes full of Rima’s wonderful paintings, accordions, and LOTS of food of course! All of a sudden, we shared Hampshire mists and cider and fireside song and workshops on making paper from mushrooms. Another county, yes, but more precisely, another world. One where I would wake to find a stag mask hanging in the trees next to my lantern.

Brewed Umber. A shadow that has been processed and warmed to form a golden unstoppable flow. That is the colour we have made. That is the colour of our friendship. And that is what she carved and painted into my walking stick. Me, the wayfarer, carrying my burden, supported infinitely by a walking stick inside a walking stick, tracing a blood-earthline through a double treed forest into our friendship. The path to the other half of the story is this way.

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