Wild Play and woodlands.

Yesterday.  morni. ng I took my two dogs and headed to a nearby wooded area, I felt I needed to do some connecting with the earth. I'd run my first after school club in the woods last week and it has become quite a seminal moment for me.

Being in the woods with children and seeing them interact with their environment, getting on with the serious art of playing and growing is wonderful. I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing with my life.

So, back to my walk yesterday. I needed to spend time, give thanks and say goodbye to any self doubt. I did a connecting with the earth exercise, (this did involve me laying down, the puppy thought this was a great new game) and then I wandered off looking for things that appealed to me. I gathered a few leaves, some bark and some red clover.

I picked an oak leaf - strength, birch bark - renewal & beginning, holly - assertion & objectivity, red clover - good luck and a sycamore.  The sycamore has no mythology from the UK possibly as it wasn't introduced until the middle ages. 

Thank You

Mango Cards, Trees and Wild Garlic.

I've recently embraced a new experience that was forced on me. 

I'm from a background belief that a sign of success is having a decent car. It indicates to the rest of society that you have achieved enough earnings in life that you can afford to run a highly expensive object. 

A recent mot failure and consequential visit to the car dustbin left me with two options, rush out and buy another rusty money pit or embrace the challenge of no car. 

Needless to say, my kids are horrified by this prospect. 

I'm a few weeks into this experiment and I'm currently enjoying it. I get to walk across my look nature reserve most days, taking photos of interesting shadows, shapes and sights.  Some days I listen to my headphones, other days I listen to the birds. Last week, I picked wild garlic that we ate for tea. 

I've had no shortage of lifts from friends and colleagues, either because they have spotted me walking to the bus station or because I've asked for a lift to a specific event. I've been awed by people's kindness at times. 

It feels a more sociable experience than getting in my car, locking the doors and driving myself alone to my destination. 

It's made me think about my own carbon footprint and what I am doing that impacts on the earth. 

It's given me the space to consider where I fit in society and how I often feel isolated and remote because my viewpoint is different from those around me. 

I have discovered I want to live a lifestyle that is alternative, where I don't feel obliged to buy into the capitalist system which makes me unhappy. 

I want to stay awake and smell the wild garlic. 

Sod it, I want to smell it, eat it whole and let it grow another million years so my descendants can do the same!