Extract from Spirit and Destiny Soul Secrets - ISBN 1-4019-1032-7
Diary. November 2005
Walking meditation has become my new pleasure in life. It has all the benefits of the more usual sitting meditation but also gives me a deeper communion with my environment. I make a conscious decision to keep my focus on my breathing in the usual way, gently acknowledging my thoughts but not encouraging them. Instead I encourage stillness within me, and kindle Love, compassion and delight for the world around me. I walk in meditation in many different places and situations, but my favourite is to walk in the woods.
I keep a journal to record my insights and understanding that comes from these meditation walks. This is one such entry.
I am in the silent winter woods again, drawn here by my need to be alone, to be close to the Earth and the trees. A sense of stillness touches me as I walk amongst the trees and I become conscious that I have slipped into their energy field. I respond to this by slowing down and a wonderful calmness comes over me. I breathe deeply, taking in the oxygen rich air, laden with life-giving molecules, the precious unseen gift from the trees. I am aware that as I breathe in these organic compounds, they are becoming part of me as they enter inside my lungs and then are absorbed into my blood stream. I am literally breathing in the essence of the trees.
I send my gratitude to the trees. The great gifts of healing that they give us are simply and freely given to all. We have only to sit with them and breathing with them to feel the benefits.
Today I am drawn to sit with an Oak tree that stands on a raised hillock surrounded by young Silver Birch, and as I sit with my back to its trunk, I look out over the valley below and sense the deep stability of being rooted to this one spot. I give myself time to sit and daydream and wait see what inspiration comes.
The secret of communicating with trees lies in our ability to slow down enough to register how the trees are communicating with us. This is their great gift to us for this requires a shift in our perception. Trees don’t talk to us with words, trees communicate in energy-images, which trigger our emotional response. This is an older form of communication than language, and to experience it I must learn how to move into the stillness within me, to experience that elusive interface that lies at the edge of Time. In Celtic mythology it is called the ‘Place Between the Worlds’ or the ‘Otherworld’, the interface between our surface reality and Spirit, a place of magic and mystery.
The unity and completeness of this tree is reflected back to me and I experience a shift in understanding that triggers a new awareness of myself. It is this that I seek in the stillness of the winter woods, this experience of Oneness with all of life, knowing that I am so much more than my surface reality.
Here, in the dark of the year, when the days are short and the Earth is still, I rest and in the stillness become aware of new seeds that are forming within me, new parts of myself waiting to grow when the time is right.
I ask myself “What do I wish to bring into my life?” “ What do I wish to grow within myself?” These are my seeds of transformation, my seeds of hope and seeds of the future. What I change in myself is reflected out into my life and adds to the change in the world. We are all responsible for the world we create. I vision a growing number of people who make the move from the old view of separation and domination to a new inclusive Unity and respect for the Earth, each other and the whole integrated web of all life.
