The Importance of Being

'The importance of being what ?' I hear you ask 'and while you're at it, where have you been?'
In answer to the second question - busy, hectic, rushing and not present; tired, hormonal, stressy and exhausted all rolled into one, which is not a good place! You know the sort of scenario when you wake up at 2.31 in the dark lonely hours of the morning for a good worry about something that happened in 1987.... Pants isn't it? 
Fortunately I found a map and the path back out....

Campfire For Just Being

Fire? No I haven't turned into a pyromaniac, although I've always had a penchant for the flickering light and heat of a good fire, don't worry I haven't been roaming round setting light to things in the wee small hours.  But yes, fire. I knew I was stressed and exhausted; and tired so bloody tired but I didn't realise how much until the weekend when I had the blessing of being away with friends at local micro festival and we were sat round the campfire.

Snuggled in my stripey warm poncho, looking like an extra from the hippy remake of the good, the bad and ugly, I gazed into the fire and a friend asked me I was ok as I was so quiet. Nodding, I turned to him and said 'I'm just being.....' As he nodded and smiled in understanding, I realised that for the first time in a long time I was literally just being... not doing, not talking, not sorting something out, not organising something, not rushing this way or that way, not planning anything, but just being and it was wonderful!

Camp Goddess Altar

It became our phrase of the weekend. I chose all the workshops that involved me doing as little as possible! Gong baths, meditations, Soundscapes with didgeridoos, a spontaneous birdsong 'walk and listen', listening to some amazing music and just being. There was chatter and laughter, so much laughter, that might have been fuelled by my homemade mead to be fair! Absolutely what the Witch Doctor ordered. 
On the last day I walked round the stalls to treat myself to something, looking for something that would sum up and represent the essence of the weekend for me, a reminder of the beautiful peace I'd experienced. On the crystal stall run by the wonderful chap who had taken us on the impromptu bird 'walk and listen' surprisingly called Derek (I was expecting him to be Dusty Moon or Nebuchadnezzar or something) - an unusual stone caught my eye and one hand shot out for it and the other for my purse....crystal bingo!

Moss Agate

Moss agate - never heard of it before let alone seen it. Guess what it's healing properties are especially? Yep - Stress reducing, balancing and healing the soul. That'll do me then! Isn't it beautiful? The moss like effect is either manganese or iron in the quartz. Awesome.
Fortunately I've had some more time off to just be... so feeling a bit more like myself I took myself off out for a walk through the horse fields today - I've been 'too busy' for the last couple of months, well I thought I was.

So today I strolled down to the woods and sat listening to the silence, admiring the lush emerald carpet of moss covering the rabbit warrens, listening to the creaking of the trees and the treble calls of the song thrush (I listened good and proper to Derek) then tap tap tap.. I heard the woodpecker again. Sure enough I saw a flash of black, white and red above me in the boughs. Too quick for my camera, but I saw their nesting hole and could hear them drilling out the tree from inside, which made a wonderful hollow 'donk' sound!

Where there is a Greater Spotted Woodpecker - There's a way!

Such a beautiful quirky triangle of woodland, it has a magic feel to it, real time doesn't seem to exist there. Perched on a fallen branch I closed my eyes in the sun and sat there relishing the mossy green sanctuary. Checking the time I laughed at myself - I'd been lurking in the woods for an hour! Walking back I watched the breeze blow the last of the may blossom from the hawthorn trees like confetti, smiling to myself I imagined a grassy knoll as an altar for the animals or the May Queen or The Goddess and The Green Man at a Beltane wedding. A startled rabbit ran across my path and laughing I imagined him as a drunk reveller left over from the woodland wedding, trying to find his way home having lost his friends and missed his lift....

A Woodland Beauty

A line from a poem kept running through my mind 'And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul' (attributed to John  Muir)
Just as I was about to leave the woods I saw this beauty and it made me gasp, Goddess, May Queen, Woodland Spirit - or even just a tree! It's wonderful the things you find when you are just being...

Have a Blessed Week x x