Disconnected

I had a good very slow walk. Somehow I felt lonely and disconnected. The forest was all damp from yesterday’s rain. Full of tears like myself. I sat down at the stream and listened to the song of the water.

I felt like the autumn leaf. It lays fallen, waiting to return to the source and to turn into nourishment.

The sun came out and made me warm. On my way down I met my friend the ironwood tree and asked for reconnection and guidance.

A few meters further a dog ran up passed me, panting heavily. It was lost and running the path up and down, with panicky eyes looking for its master. I knelt down, tried to catch it to bring it to the SPCA. It did not trust me enough. Memories from survival training I once did come to my mind. The golden rule is “Don’t panic” rather sit down, calm down and assess the situation. Look around and discover the options given to you.

I said thank you to the tree for the message, sat down and listened to the forest.

After a while a woman passed me with an exhausted but happy dog. 

Reconnected.

Weaving

Last week I had a body-de-armoring session.  

I am still processing this amazing experience and Friday and Saturday I did draw a mandala.

When it was finished I saw some elements of a Celtic infinite knot pattern in it.

Saturday morning was cold and mixed weather, sometimes sun, sometimes rain. On my long and slow walk it was exactly as I felt inside, full of tears and full of laughter at the same time. Crisp, fresh and new.

I am a weaver and I am a trained textile technician. In my limited tantric understanding (if one can understand tantra at all) I am the thread and the weaver. I am allowed to constantly weave my life force into the most amazing ever changing fabric.

I saw the forest weaving its own web.

 The roots are weaving amazing infinite knotted patterns.

Roots

For the first time I walked with a friend yesterday. On the woodcutters path we stopped for a moment and I showed her the roots of the trees exposed by the erosion of the little stream.

Roots holding the tree in place even in the torrential winter rains, we can have in the Cape.

Rocks are grown in and embedded in the wood of the root.

The tree is steadfast, does not move, no matter what comes down the stream. The roots hold it securely in the rocky earth.

I ask myself, where are my roots? They are not tangible as the root of the tree. They are in me. What are my rocks, which are grown in my roots, holding me down?  What is it, that is so hard and grown in, maybe also giving me something to hold on?

As a human being I have the ability to move, even, to move my roots. I have the choice to hold on or to let go.

It takes courage to let go and grow new roots. The new roots give new nourishment to let me flourish and grow.

Sensing the Light

Sunday morning was so beautiful, full of light from the morning sun.

Sensing the world in a new light. The universe celebrates its creation.

It shines a spotlight even on a simple stone.

Illuminates a bush of dry twigs.

Lights up the path forward.

A festival for my senses. I am so so full of joy and as John O’Donohue calls it, I feel the mystery of my presence and the Eros of the Earth.

Blessing for the Senses

May your body be blessed.
May you realize that your body is a faithful
and beautiful friend of your soul.
And may you be peaceful and joyful
and recognize that your senses
are sacred thresholds.
May you realize that holiness is
mindful, gazing, feeling, hearing, and touching.
May your senses gather you and bring you home.
May your senses always enable you to
celebrate the universe and the mystery
and possibilities in your presence here.
May the Eros of the Earth bless you.

- John O’Donohue in Anam Cara

Green World

After a night of rain the forest is a green world. I remember from my training as a textile technician and dyer that the human eye can distinguish more shades of green than of any other color.

Green is all around me. The leaves absorb all other frequencies of the light and only reflect the rays making up green. Blue- yellow- green.

Green the color of the heart chakra. I am bathing in it. I sit down at the little stream flowing down Ascension Gully. The sound of the water lets my mind drift away and I see with my inner eye and only feel green.

Absorb the love of the universe in myself, expanding my heart.

At home again I had to draw a mandala for the heart chakra.

Life Energy

This morning I visited my old friend the ironwood tree on the Fernwood trail.

It was overcast and I was missing the sun, which I like to absorb into my body. I brought some tobacco as an offering to the spirits of the forest and had some fruit as a snack. Touching its ancient bark, I could feel the energy that connects this tree to the web of nature. Warmth filled my body.

Thankfully the tobacco was poured on a stone. I sat down and took a banana for a snack. The first bit was broken off to give to the spirits and I started slowly eating.

My German ex lover is a shaman and she once taught me to eat mindful and slow to honor the food. I did remember and let the banana melt in my mouth.

It came to my mind that we owe all energy in our body to the plants which absorb the rays of the sun and store them for us. Everything living in and around us originates from this sun energy. Even the petrol driving our cars comes from the oil created by organisms millions of years ago.

I was filled with thankfulness. Looking around I noticed all the plants striving to catch the sunlight, climbers climbing up and branches growing straight up as high as they can.

As I now consume the energy transformed by the plant, I feel a need to give it back, radiate it out as love and let it vibrate in a touch energising my beloved.

After the first Rain

Thursday it was raining hard. This morning the forest is awake with a firework of green.

Dormant springs start flowing. Water gives life in abundance.

A spider’s nursery survived the rain.

Mushrooms are growing where the rain collects in the cracks of dead wood.

A forest monster rests across the path, waiting to come alive in the twilight of the moon.

As I leave the forest I am greeted by beautiful flowers.

Decay and New Life

We had a little rain a few days ago. Enough to give the forest a foretaste of the winter rains.

This morning there was more life in the forest. Birds were out and busy. Fresh green comes out of the ground.  

As I look around to absorb the mood I am struck by all the decay. 

Leaves, dead wood and mushrooms feed the new life.

I remembered a word from a Sufi master, which I read the night before:

Everything in the world of existence has an end and a

goal. The end is maturity and the goal is freedom. For

example, fruit grows on the tree until it is ripe and then

falls. The ripened fruit represents maturity, and the fallen

fruit, freedom.

The final goal is returning to one’s origin. Everything

which reaches its origin has reached its goal. A farmer

sows grain in the ground and tends it. It begins to grow,

eventually seeds, and again becomes grain. It has returned

to its original form. The circle is complete. Completing

the circle of existence is freedom.

NASAFÎ

Everything in the forest slowly returns to its origin, loses its form and gives new life.

When the sun comes through the space created by the fallen tree, new life comes out. 

The cycle begins again.

Full Moon

Friday night I tried something which I always wanted to do. Walk the magic forest at night.

I startet going up just before 19.00. It was a bit scary; everything looks different in twilight.

Just below the contour path I turned left on a wider path, because it was very dark.

The city lights were shining below and the bright flood light of newlands stadium were nearly blinding me.

I sat down on a rock and started listening to the rhythm of the cricks. Sometimes close sometimes far away. Suddenly I noticed some clouds at the horizon becoming illuminated from the back.

Moon rise. I sat and watched until the full moon was up.

Everything was painted in a silvery light. Slowly I walked down again. The grass was high on the path and I was scared of snakes.

Under the trees it was really dark and I could not see the ground before me. I came to Newlands Stream and sat down in the middle of it on a rock. The water was telling stories. Ancient voices in a strange language. I sat at this stream many times before during day time but never heard it in such intensity.

The path through the rocks was well illuminated. At the pool are two benches. Leaning on a bench was a strong freshly cut branch. A walking stick or a weapon to defend me as a gift from the forest.

I took it along and it made me feel better at the most dangerous part of the walk. The path along the M3 back to my car.

I had a dream that night and draw a picture later. My Newlands Forest dream.

Spider’s Webs

I walk in Newlands Forest at least once a week.

It is a meditative walk. Usually I begin just after sunrise. I try to pay attention to the small things around me, that’s part of the meditation.

This morning I decided to go up the Fernwood trail, through my favorite enchanted indigenous forest. Walking brisk through the pines below heats me up.

I like to take of my T-shirt, which I do. I feel the air around me, smell the smells.

As I walk up the path and listen to my steps, I close my eyes for a few seconds at a time.

The steps sound like the shamanic drumming I have on a recording to use for meditation.

I have the idea to record a walk. The rhythm of the steps, the sounds around me, the birds and the sound the wind creates moving the leaves.

At the end of the pine forest I stop for a moment, feel my breath and my heart pounding.

I am alive and well. Sweat cools me down.

I walk further up. Watching my steps. Stepping on the ground hard, to announce me to any snake around.

I notice the fern and the grass touching me with a moist lick. Moisture as a gift of the night.

At the end of the lower growth and the entrance to my enchanted forest some lilies flower.

There I feel it for the first time. A tingling feeling across my chest.

Cobwebs which I break as I go up.

The spider has been busy at night, spinning thread across the path. To catch its prey.

I feel sorry that women cannot walk like me through the forest. Feel the thin thin thread tingling me on my bare breast.

Every opening has been spun closed with thin tin threads. One can only see them at a special angle. One has to look out. The light has to be right.

Whole nets with the hunter in the centre are there. Or only single threads waiting to be touched and signaling a catch.

I walk on, do not care, there is a walk to be done. What is in the way will be broken. But it touches my skin. I feel it as I walk on. The work of the night. Done to feed the hunter and save me from a nagging fly or a biting mosquito.

I am breaking the web but tonight the spider will start over again.

If I come tomorrow and feel the threads and will know, no human being was on this path before me this morning.

I can break it again.

How difficult must it be for a fly or mosquito to fly through the enchanted forest?

Traps are everywhere. Open spaces between trees are booby trapped. The hunter lurks waiting for a meal.

As I walk on the contour path I meet two butterflies playing in the sun.

I shout at them, be careful don’t get trapped.

They play around without worry. Enjoy every moment. And every moment disaster can strike.

Cought in a web. Prevented from flying. Sucked dry by a hunter.

A hunter spider spinning threads in the dark of the night.

But I am strong and can walk through the web. Just feeling a tingle on my skin.

As I walk down towards the parking area, I see a spiders web, high up above the well walked path.

The fat spider sits in it above the hikers. The web is old and dusty. More visible than the fresh ones.

No butterfly will fly in it.