Someones Found It!!!!

There has been a human visitor to my secret nature place! I went there last night for a little chillout, the evening was perfect...slightly fresher air, but a still warm sun...little fluffy clouds and everything a brilliant green after the recent heavy rains. I had to wait on the path for a few minutes as a golfer was taking his time putting, then when he had moved on to the next hole i jumped the gate and sprinted across to the woods, where i walked up the steep undergrowth bank to the lower meadow...i followed my path through the 7ft willowherb ,brambles and grass , moved through the next wave of trees, up the slope and alighted in my circle. Didn't notice anything at first but then i noticed, my saw was not where i had left it...i searched around, and sure enough, it had gone!! mmmmmm...its been discovered...i checked my blackcurrant bushes, ok..my saplings, all ok...in fact if it hadn't been for the loss of the saw i would be none the wiser that anyone had been there..the good news is that no damage has been done, the mud hut is still there, still as it was...but someone has discovered it! I will have to watch this space and see what happens, maybe nothing...but i will let my current path grow back and revert to a lesser know one..(maybe i should use stilts.lol,and not disturb the approach!! Anyway, i paid dearly for my journey last night, as i had foolishly gone out in shorts and sandals..these do not go well with brambles, nettles and the like and i was awake for a good while last night with inflamed and badly scratched feet and legs! i was even getting paranoid i had blood poisoning or something as my legs were burning hot..but i was ok in the end, i just have some deep scratches and red marks today.. so, two lessons learned, one..make sure i don't leave such obvious approach paths, and two..wear jeans and boots next time!!

De-Westernising The Head

So, I go into nature to relax, unwind..not to switch off, but rather to detune..and then to switch on to something else. I have observed the relaxation process once alone in nature, and it is quite revealing..I call it the 'de-westernisation' of the head. In the silence and embrace of nature i can observe the initial 'monkey mind'..the chattering away, the masks, the tensions, the defences..even so far as the surface 'sub personalities' which i obviously use throughout my day in the world of my work and everyday stuff such as driving and buying petrol and the like.These pop up,layer after layer..and i have learned to simply observe them, then let them go...i used to try and analyse them, understand them, but that done years ago, i bypass all that and let them go, like clouds passing across the sky..a form of meditation i guess.There comes a point, where a stillness is reached..at this stage i feel a 'blending' taking place between me and the natural world..i feel a part of the energy around me and i sit like this, in a state of 'no mind' for as long as i feel the need.There is no need for thoughts, it is a blending, a relaxing, a healing..it allows the western wires to unplug, and plug into something far greater. As i leave the place and return to the fray, i hope to take some of the natural medicine with me, in my energy, my outlook, my aura..maybe i do, maybe i don't...but whether i do or not..it is a medicine i need...

Close to its Beating Heart

It is all around us...more or less every location and zone is in sight of at least some of it..it gives us air to breathe, it contains insects that pollenise, that aerate the soil...its a web that WORKS..but we have forgotten it here in the west haven't we. We travel to work in cars, we sit in air conditioned rooms all day, we then drive home and engage in various forms of media, the television, games consoles, and computers...well a large amount of us do..many are changing, or were not wholly absorbed to begin with..and CHANGE WE MUST! I hate it when i start to feel 'preachy'..it gets boring and makes me think i am being self righteous..i will give you my position now..i have given it all one heck of a lot of thought, i have spent a lot of time in nature, and my last job (10 years) was litter picking in rural areas...BRILLIANT!! so i feel that i have one foot in the right place at least! So what have we forgotten? we have forgotten that nature deserves respect, and i don't mean dressing things up in a 'green agenda' just to make money..i believe that by now we should have moved on from that mentality.but alas we have not! all they are bothered about in power is getting powerful and/or getting rich! It stinks..their whole reality that they pump out is tainted..its not even their fault..its evolved like that over many generations..they are just simply the latest layer of the problem.So what do we do? Well....what I do is to create this nature shrine where i can sit and reflect on nature and my place in it, be close to the soil, and learn from closely observing it. It is a focal point, where i can get to know the nature in my locality..and get involved in local issues/meet up with others of a like mind..also i can write about in on here and share it with YOU..and if it strikes a cord then BRILLIANT! I want to be close to its beating heart, i want to reconfigure my psyche around it..because i see the evolved human system as deeply flawed and unworthy of our potentials and our grace as evolved humans COULD be...so i do what i do:)

Thankyou New Age Travellers

The above are photos from the avon free festival (1991, chipping sodbury) taken by Tim Aldiss. I did some reflections today about my life and the influences on it that helped nurture the path i have trodden regarding the natural world and nature reverence. In the very early 1990's my path crossed with a few people that were dubbed by the media at the time as 'new age travellers'.These were an eclectic mix of people that largely shunned mainstream society and bravely attempted to live an alternative way of life, travelling in convoys of motorhomes and other vehicles and living on the edges of cities and towns as close to nature as they could.Influenced to a large extent by the hippies of the 1960's, their ethos was freedom, freedom freedom and the right to explore alternative forms of living. it is hard and also not fair to 'lump together'or try to pigeon hole them but i discovered a fascinating mix of people who were both intelligent and dynamic, often interested in society,philosophy, ecological concerns and mind expansion. I was attracted to their stance on many issues..I was young and keen, keen to explore and keen not to be bored! conventional reality to me seemed dull and flawed, deeply so, and these people seemed to offer a beacon of hope. I started to hang around with them, i adopted their dress and expressions...i wore army boots and tie dyed tops..i grew my hair longer and dreadlocked it, i explored new mental horizons with them. To me it was an age of discovery, a renaissance where we attempted to forge new relationships with the nature around us. I sat round fires with them, got stoned with them and eventually, did acid with them. It was a unique time..the travellers had been holding summer gatherings for donkeys years..meeting up at festivals, such as the avon free festival.The year was 1991..i travelled all the way down from the North of england to find the mythic avon free festival, which was in a place called chipping sodbury. So, it seemed, had many other people...the place was packed..the dreadlocks were everywhere, the acid was everywhere and the sound systems were booming. It has gone down in history as an important cultural event that led to a meeting of the burgeoning 'rave' movement with the hippy/traveller convoys. The dreadlocks met the ravers..and got married:)..To me it was revolutionary..all these people dancing till the sunrise like our distant shamanic ancestors had done..AWESOME! there were fires..friendly faces...i danced, and i found a friendly fire to sit by, alongside wizened older travellers..i was forever changed. The movement grew until the ill fated castlemorton common festival, wher the illegal ravers met in colossal numbers and raved on big time for a few days...it was too big to be stopped!! we had won..we were drawn to this, and portals were opened. Of course, the controlling forces had to ruin the party and the convoys were banned..silly laws were brought in making illegal gatherings of more than a handful of people listening to music of a repetitive nature...they tried to stop the shamans!! but the holes had already been made in the fence..and little did they know it, but many of us forged freedom paths from out of those days, that have now become highways...WE did it!!! Anyway, this is a thankyou to all of those people i met during those important days..i see u still in my mind, and i wish you all the best of luck and love in life...u helped me forge my path, gather my intent..and maybe i would not have ever created a secret nature shrine if it hadn't been for the influences of those days!!

If I had to survive there

Theoretically speaking, if I had to survive at my secret nature shrine how would I go about it?..how would it be possible? Well, the way the need to survive came into existance would have a bearing on the outcome. If there was a sudden apocalyptic event which led to a breakdown of society then it would be a case of grab what i can and head there fast, however, if it was through choice, this would be different, it would allow more time to prepare, gather and store..it would make life a lot easier. There is one thing I would definately take with me though, and that is the amazing book 'the new complete book of self sufficiency' by john seymour. Full of hints and tips and practical advice, it is an essential part of kit for an urban dweller with very little practical experience of self sufficiency. Packets of seeds would come in handy...ok, it takes time to grow crops, but worth a start, and for fairly fast growth, vegetables like radishes are super fast! so get planting!!! i have already planted a few blackcurrant bushes which are doing well...but its early days yet, they have years before they are fully grown. I think i will plant some gooseberry bushes at the weekend. Actually, lets talk the wild stuff, thats already there...ok,,there is a wild apple tree in the lower meadow, and another down in the public area..the apples are eating apples too, a bit odd tasting compared to what u buy in the shops, but fresh and vitamin filled straight from tree...there are elderberries everywhere, as they make up one of the main 4 or 5 tree types in the area. hawthorn trees abound (leaves and berries), and birch trees do too (sap)nettles are everywhere (brilliant blood tonic and alternative vegetable)and there is wild garlic too. Ok, so we have a bit of salad, and natural growing veg..but what of meat or fish? well, the river is minutes away and is stocked with all sorts of fish. being tidal there is a mix of sea and freshwater fish. sea trout, salmon, flatfish,eels,perch, roach, rudd...and pike. plenty there. one could catch and cook them there and then, or make a rack and dry them out in the sun thus enabling supplies for the future. On the land there are rabbits...more potential food. The big problem is water! every time it rained i would have to catch as much as possible, otherwise it would involve a walk, or boiling and treating of the river water!!! the only natural stream i can think of in the area is 6 miles away...a bit of a trek, but if i had to do it, i would do it! obviously, the way water was collected would depend on what happened to bring the survival into practice..if it was a personal decision then i could easily walk into public toilets and fill my water bottles from the sink taps, but if there was a disater and there was no water from any taps, then it would be the rain and the stream option! think i'd better get in some water treatment tablets! So, survival could be achieved..food, water wise. I have my shelter, so thats ok, and if i wasn't prepared to spend ages rubbing sticks together, i would need matches for fire..but the main thing is, it could be achieved!

my fantasy of solitude

I have a growing desire...its going to be hard to pull off as i am a busy parent with a full time job, but this desire won't leave me..i don't really want it to leave me either so one day i am going to have to do it. That desire is to head to my nature place and spend a long, long time there. I want to feel the peace that comes from a long immersion in quiet nature, I want to experiment with my mind and see what happens when i do this..i want to access deeper selves, deeper rhythms..i want a total connection with the natural environment. It is impossible to say whay exactly would happen if i undertook this quest, but i can guess at some of it. I would imagine that it would be great at first..then the mind would probably chatter away and i would feel a bit unhinged maybe after a while..i imagine a coming in and out of focus and awareness, clarity and confusion, ups and downs, peaks and troughs.I imagine that deep emotions may come to the surface, tears maybe..after all, ther ewould be no distractions, no other people, no roles, no interactions...it would be me and nature and whatever spirits showed up...time would be irrelevant, it may even be quite challenging...but i want to try it...i am talking maybe three days or so...it doesn't sound much but believe me it is..after all it is only a small circle surrounded by high plants, trees and bushes....where nobody else goes....has anyone else thats reading this undertaken such a quest before?

The summer storm

i walk the green, its turning yellow grasses, straw, it s all so mellow. Up to my shoulders in the sea, waves of green are soothing me. Up above the clouds they gather, building up they're getting blacker. the air is warm, the heat it rises, it dreams my mind..it hypnotizes. The seed filled air it slowly moves, downy airborne drifting grooves. i feel my spine in tune with it, the energy of my chakras lit. Suddenly the sky it flashes, i see it even thru closed lashes. distant rumbling thunder drums, the promised storm at last it comes. An electrical pause and then the rain, pounding down upon my brain. Natures thirst at last is slaked, floods upon the land thats baked. The air cools down amidst the pounding, all the energy now is grounding. The sky is dark, the grasses wet, the summer storm today i met.

Other Edgelands People

The vicinity of my retreat is an area that is accessible to the public..there are the wild meadows, leading to the riverbanks.A public footpath leads alongside and thru the middle of the meadows and then continues on alongside the river. My place, betwixt a golf course and railway track, is not accesible in a conventional way. i.e. a footpath, so it is left to nature, and to me. Luckily for me, not many others share my desire to create a little shrine in the midst of a wild area and tend to stick to the paths..but what of the other people i see and meet on the public areas..the other people that frequent the edgelands? The area attracts some people, but in the big scheme of things not too many. It has no shops or outlets down there, no paid activities, or boats for hire, so people go there for other reasons. In the main people go there to walk their dogs, they love the place, i know many of them, and the whole attraction for them is the wildish nature of the environment, the all important 'green lung'..some of these dog walkers trespass on the golf course in the morning and evening, when the golfers are not around, and i don't blame them, for the golf course is a visually pleasing place, with plenty of trees about.A few fishermen can be spotted now and then, but fishing must be dying out, as there are no where near as many now as there were down there in the 1980's. One can catch flatfish (known locally as flukes), eels, salmon and sea trout, roach, perch, too now and then. It is tidal here, the river , so has a mix of salt and freshwater fish. I have met geocache fanatics, metal detectorists, youths by fires drinking, homeless people, i have seen all these and more over the years down there. But what of other 'edgelands people' in the same vein as I? About ten years ago i chanced upon a teepee in a reaaly hidden away area at the back of one of the wild meadows, i only found it because i explore and roam, often off the paths themselves, there it was, with an axe on a wood chopping block, the smell of firesmoke...i caught a glimpse of the fella thru the flapping entrance, and recognising him as someone to avoid..( a dangerous sort that lived right on the edge, and who i had once witnessed at an illegal rave in the early 1990's hitting someone with an axe)..so i crept away as silent as a mouse...he lived there for about 8 months and moved on. Recently i discovered a 'camp in use' and had a look around. The occupants were not there but sleeping bags were spread about, a deck of cards, a couple of pans, a few tins of sweetcorn and kidney beans, the remains of a fire and a structure made from various tents stretched over bent willow poles...home made tools had been made and attempts had been made to hide the area with high mounds of undergrowth piled up all around. i was silent, careful, had a potter, but didn't linger, the vibes didn't feel good. But i have found no 'shrine ' as such...so, we each go down there for our own reasons..some for exercise, some to be in nature, to walk dogs, to fish, or to set up a temporary home as in the case of the teepee man. We are edgelands people, we like the bits outside of the box, the plans and the concrete, we are in every town, village, city the world over...

its become a jungle!!!

Last night I packed a rucksack full of water bottles and took my kids with me to my nature place. (they are 9 and 6 and love the fact one has to evade golfers to reach the place)As soon as we were across the golf course and up the wooded slope i realised how much the foliage grows at this time of year! we had entered a jungle..the path had new bramble shoots reaching across and everywhere the rosebay willowherb had grown pink flowers, that danced in the breeze, the hort breeze, as here in the uk we are in the midst of a heatwave. (hence the water).We slowly made our way thru the barely discernable path, and each side of this narrow route 7 foot high plants, grasses and willowherb towered..it was almost a jungle to me, so to my kids it must have been weird, being down in it, unable to see above it...just endless green with a blue sky overhead.....eventually we reached the circle..nature had encroached, so i cut back a bit and we sat in the warm air, recovering from our jungle odyssey...I unpacked the water bottles and gave sustenance to my blackcurrant bushes, my buddleias, mountain ash sapling, and so on and so on...i could almost hear their delight at receiving water...We didn't stay too long, the kids were too keen to get back to evading golfers..so back thru the jungle we went...until we reached the woods, where we had to hide for a time until 3 golfers had finished their putting, and moved on to the next hole, then, with the speed of rabbits, we darted out of the undergrowth, across the green and thru the hole in the fence...we had done our mission and were all happy, me, the kids, and the few special plants that i watered:)

The Reasons why I need a Nature Retreat

I have written about my retreat in previous posts and tried to set the scene of the place, touched on meditation, relaxation and mysticism, about the need for quiet and peace..etc..etc..but having given it more thought in why i find it necessary to 'top up' in this way I came up with the following theories... Surface thoughts hold no interest for me, as i believe them to be largely unproductive..I am talking of the realms of the chattering monkey mind..the fast moving, quicksilver chatter that comes hither and thither across the surface of the mind. This mind can flit about and get pulled this way and that, distracted by tv, distracted by billboards, by adverts, by other people, distracted by the hustle and bustle..when moving thru the system it acts functionally, as in driving or operating a computer, or multi tasking (yes, men do this too!)ok, so it gets involved in things, but its never going to be a peacefull sort of mind experience, so i need to get down deeper..to achieve this i need to be outside if possible, the inside of modern houses are just too noisy, and unless one has feng shuied the area, or planned their decor in such a way as to create quiet, then its still not going to allow the immersion in the peace necessary for the source force! So, outside it is..outside and alone, and away, and hidden, where the only sounds are natural ones, and where the eyes can slowly open, past the layers of selves/thoughts..to the peace...and why? why do i want to do this. well, after about 23 years of metaphysical study and experimenting, i realise i came here to remember how to be this way..this is me, its not a fad, a craze, a fashion..i am mystically minded..and thats that:) but there is more to the story...having been working along lines of shamanism/healing..etc for so, so long i want to come from a place within that is service to others and to the planet..so i untangle my knots, downsize my fears, exploree my shadows, find my mirrors, for what service am i if i am a dirty mirror, or a full time projectionist? so i explore, clear, share, realise and evolve.I see the ultimate human as someone that can sit within the space of any other on the planet and see where they are coming from..understand them, not judge them, or shower them with projections..if we are going to evolve from this point then some of us need to be doing work like this..its not for everyone, and it doesn't have to involve everyone..as i have said before in tweets, some cross barbed wire on behalf of the collective. but, its no big deal, we don't want medals, its who we are and what we do..so peace to all....and peace be ours

The Inner Child and the Sage

I think this nature sanctuary has a lot to do with the inner child if I'm honest. Not afraid to admit it, but I believe in the inner child idea and mine is alive and well. In fact out of my own inner archetypes the inner child and the inner wise old man seem to have come through the maze and are both doing very well. Its all the other bits that went awry:) The inner young man dashed off on mad quests along the lines of the warrior and the lover and is in the process of returning in 'flashes' from the myriad worlds he found adventures/battles/lovers in. All of us that exist in the complexity of my psyche are in touch with the goddess (thank god!)and she brings solace and support to the picture. So, between them, the inner child and the sage, they sit down by the fire out in the wilds and laugh at the lunacy of the modern world whilst waiting and calling the return of the lost. We think that the hero ended up in the arthurian realms and is returning with the other blazing eyed/full hearted ancient ones to help bring sense once more to this broken world.

My impact on nature

Because I have created a shrine out in the edgelands i often pause to consider the actual impact i have had on this mini ecosystem. Before I begun my work in creating a shrine what existed at the site before. Well the actual area i cut away was a section from a huge wild stand of twisted and clogging bramble bushes. It had grown tall over the years and all the old shoots had toughened or died and created an inpenetrable mass where the new growth grew in successive layers on top and around. Very little else grew in this zone, the ground under the brambles was a thick layer of old bramble leaf litter...probably home to masses of insects/mice etc but not much sign of any other plantlife. Within weeks of clearing it the changes started to occur.nature made use of the newly created gaps..sunlight and rain and air found room to move in the space and interact with it...now, years on the changes are many and varied. many types of grasses, ferns,flowers,tiny tree seedlings from many varieties, thistles, docks, nettles, all have found space and have moved in. the rosebay willowherb have spread thickly around and up to the borders on one whole side, in fact they have taken over one area that was still bramble covered. The brambles themselves live on..but moved over to the right, in fact there is a whole new lease of life from them now. this year i will be eating loads of blackberries, as there are bramble flowers everywhere. So i have had an impact on nature in this ecosystem...i am no scientific expert but in my opinion and observation I have actually helped create the conditions for new and varied life to enter the area. As i have said before, it is not a vast area that i have altered, just a small clearing...but it proves to me that human interaction with nature can be a positive thing...i can learn many lessons from my shrine..the powers of nature are very evident here...it is an amazing force that we can learn much from.

Leaving it for Nature

I have not been there for a few days, change of scene, been to the coast of north wales...and its been fantastic..the weather was divine..i was on a beach called morfa dyffryn which is a long strip of sand backed by an extensive dune system...i walked the dunes, wathced the sun go down over the distant hills across the bay...soaked up all the solar/lunar/sea energies...and also thought..wow! wouldn't it be great to live here...i could find some brilliant places for a little shrine here...but the problem? well...the whole place is like a shrine..beauty everywhere..from chancing upon 20 or so grazing rabbits in a dune valley turned to greenery, with small trees even, to watching the sun slowly descend in glorious technicolour the whole scene awash with energy. I stood atop the highest dune looking seawards and breathed deep..and was in a zone of bliss which felt truly spiritual.A well needed break...so my local shrine? well..it is good to leave it to nature from time to time, it keeps it fresh, and makes it more interesting when i return next time...as it always subtly changes.Also, the paths i accidently make when coming and going will have become less obvious...so...until the next time....

dodging the golfers

to get to my nature place i have 2 choices....i can climb a large metal gate with spiky tops, walk up a little track and cross two sets of railway line. The other is to wait in the undergrowth till the golf course area i need to cross is free of golfers and run across a green to the safety of the woods . Each way has risks..calculated risks....to be honest, i don't see them as risks at all, but i know that in the health and safety mad world we live in now some people would cry out RISK RISK RISK!! Ha HA! Depending on my mood, i make my choice.Sundays are a good day for the railway option, as there are hardly any trains, but other days the line can get busyish so a little more care is needed to cross...(now if any railway law types are looking at this, i could be making this whole thing up!! lol..i read once of someone putting in a blog about taking LSD and was charged because they admitted it in writing! so if i choose the railway route, I look left and right! and if nothing is coming, run across like an agile rabbit...get to the long grass the other side, through a wire fence and i am home and dry...quick as a flash! the only drawback is that a dog walker may see me climbing over the sharp tipped metal gate and fence! i guess they wouldn't think twice if a kid was doing it, but i am 41..and lets be honest..in our society not many 41 year olds do this sort of thing! ha ha again!! anyway...over i go, whether seen or unseen...so that is the railway option. the golf course one can sometimes be more time consuming, but is generally more fun. If i get there and some golfers are on the green i have to wait...so i watch them from the undergrowth for the opportune moment...soon as they are finished and move on i am over the gate and running...(the jackrabbit again)..and u know what,,they never look back! (too busy keeping an eye on where they have slogged their ball....and the ground is super quiet soft! anyway, i hit the tree line, and i am in my paradise...

If Martial Law Had Come About

Amongst the numerous trails of thought and philosophy that pre-occupied me in the lead up to creating a nature refuge was what would I do if it all went pear shaped?...when I say pear shaped I mean some sort of crisis scenario that led up to the bringing in of martial law or other control methods of the population. This was a smorgasboard of conspiracy theories run wild. Doomsday scenarios, micro chipped heads...concentration camps...etc etc...ultimately a 'its all gone nuts..there is no food...come to this containment camp for bread....then 'boom! boom! boom!' sort of thing! If u are into conspiracy theories u will get my drift, if not then u will think i am a nutter...either way, its the way a part of me used to think and had a part in my desire to create a nature refuge, so its getting told the way it was:) So, I wanted to create a refuge where if the worst came to the worst I could hide in the nature place with a food stash, out of the way of the army patrols and the frenzied mobs of crazy starving, and armed nutcases!then when, if it ever did, calm down i would have survived....a partisan to be:) with my tins of beans and sliced peaches in syrup:)Ok, what happened...the food stash was begun in the garden shed...then over time it was a case of 'have u got any of those beans left, we've run out'...i think maybe a couple of tins of sardines and a cheap lentils mix lie rusting in the junk that is inside my crumbling garden shed, along with a carrier bag of knotted fishing line, floats and hooks:) i am not very organised really...if the worst came to the worst i could stuff a rucksack with a jumbled array of survival bric-a brac and leg it to my bower, but then it would be down to nettles, berries and maybe some unlucky fish plucked from the river! so doom laden martial law situation...please never happen, i would rather my secret place be used for spiritual purposes than survival ones...and we really want peace on this planet on the whole:)