The woodland floor is covered in these little sweethearts at the moment...  The bluebells are waiting their turn, and already one or two are jumping the gun, bursting forth to dot the umber carpet with splashes of vibrant indigo blue.  But for the time being, these beautiful, pure white expressions of divinity hold centre stage, and what a joy they are!  
Yesterday I walked alone.  I took my time, as I had thoughts to clear. The tumbling, chattering mind as always - so full of things that must be considered, chewed over and clung to.  If I am not my own watcher, I can walk the whole way with no awareness of my surroundings at all.  If that happens I feel cross when I get home.  I feel as if I have been out with my very best friends and ignored them all. So I need to be conscious, and I need to be vigilant.
The river has fallen considerably, and the eroded banks look so strange to me.  I have never seen them like this before.  The exposed rocks at the sides are quite bare - stripped clean of their cloaks of moss and greenery by the river itself, in its most ferocious and destructive state a few weeks back.  Now it gurgles by in all innocence, folding and surging as it finds its way around new little beaches that have formed in the bends, deposits left in the wake of its fury.  Now it hums and sings to me as I walk alone - we are content in each others company.  I walked upwards again, away from the sound of the river.  At the top of the hill, there is a little deciduous wood.  It is a baby forest in the making.  All the trees are youngsters, many still enclosed in their rabbit proof collars.  It made me smile.  I could sense the sweetness of it - somehow it felt just like a human nursery, full of playful beings, exploring what it is to be alive and growing on Planet Earth.  A bee came along and joined me as I stepped over blackberry limbs stretched out across the un-walked path, catching me out when I didn't pay full attention.  At the top of the wood, someone had built a cage out of chicken wire and 4 x 2. It was neglected.  No one had been there for quite a while.  Who had lived in the cage, I cannot tell.  I turned back, and made my way to where the old trees stand as silent sentinels, looking out across parkland to the setting sun.  I love these trees, and I tell them so.  Sometimes they tell me things too.  
Yesterday they gave me two visions.  One was a page of a book - I couldn't read the writing.  The other was of another woodland elsewhere.  The trees in the other wood were beech, and I knew the whereabouts, although not the exact location.  I have never been there - but I was told the name of the woods begins with an H.  When I got home I looked on the map, and sure enough there are woods in this location whose name begins with an H.  I shall pay them visit.  After all, I do believe I have been invited!

Aren't trees amazing?  I mean - really, really amazing!  Why do they grow like this?  How do they decide where they are going to grow a limb.  They are not like us, two arms, two legs, one head - all humans being pretty much the same...  They are completely unique beings -  throwing their energy out, right, left and centre with such happy abandon, there are no right ways or wrong ways for them.  They just do it their way.
Earlier today it seemed all life was literally throwing itself out of the ground...  These trees are simply bursting with energy - I could see the chi in the spaces all around them - I could feel it in my own body and hear it in my ears.  All life right now is singing in harmony  with the joy of springtime on Planet Earth.
Thank goodness my dark mood has passed.  I did not want to waste another day listening to my dreary, boring thoughts.  The trees don't drop into a funk at a moments notice do they!  They know how it is, and they accept it.  Their acceptance is such an inspiration to a thinker like me.  When I can't make sense of things, I go and talk to them.  They listen and never judge, they hold the space for me and I am so grateful. They show me with their stillness (that is SO powerful) that there is nothing to get stressed about.  Things are, as they are, and in the moment this is where it all happens. Right NOW is the centre of the Universe - right here is the fountain from which all inspiration and creative processes spring.  In other words, (when we really get this), we cannot help but live a happy fulfilled life, because in every moment we can simply choose to do so.
The magic is out there - and it is in here too - the magic is everywhere and every-when.  Hug a tree next time you are passing one,  and see what happens...  :-)   

I took a drive this afternoon.  Not something I do very often... I'm too conscious of the cost of 'pointless' journeys  - I do not want to waste fuel and pollute, and I'm always mindful of finding the cash to fill the tank again.  But today I did. I needed to reflect away from home, away from all the usual sights and sounds that numb my mind with sameness.
As I travelled I found this tree - or perhaps it found me, who knows.  I stopped, and don't remember if I asked permission to take its picture - I rather think I didn't as I was looking out for traffic and lost in my egoic mind - so I just took it anyway. Not something I would do to other beings of course - other people that is.  But then we humans have short memories, and think we hold so much more value than everything else, do we not... 
What a mighty tree it is!  How it has twisted in growth over the years... how it has turned with the seasons, ever upward, ever downward, stretching out in all ways to find itself in space and time.  I would like to know it better.  Sit beneath its mighty bows with my back against its trunk.  Get to know the essence, the spirit and the personality of this awesome tree. Find the oneness that we two will share.  But look!  There is a fence between the tree and me.  A fence that says politely, 'This tree is not for you - you may observe, but do not touch, do not make contact with its form, keep out!'  Some take no notice of fences, and I envy them.  They step over man-made boundaries that have been forged from the distortion of a society based on exclusion.  'This is mine' the fences say 'this very land belongs to me'.  And I, as a well adapted child of social conditioning, complies absolutely.  The fear put in me as an infant ensures I keep to the paths I am allowed to walk, and never stray across the border to taste freedom and truth.
How sad that seems to me today.  How sad I cannot hug a tree without fear.  The tree misses out too, I do believe.  Another loving connection not made where one could have been, and all the while, never hurt a living soul.
But I see the tree in the picture, and I see it in my mind.  I will see it again I think.

 

It's hard to see I know...  but there is a Lightwave in this picture.  What is a lightwave?  It may look like smoke or frosty breath billowing across the photograph, but it is not. It is something else... something normally unseen, but none-the-less fully present. You can choose to take my word for it - or not - it is up to you :-) 
I don't know what it is, and I have to be content with that.  I feel it is energy - Earth energy, Tree energy perhaps - something that flows never-endingly to and through all things, in all ways, in all time.  But who knows?  And if they do, they're not telling!
I have felt a little despondent lately... I have allowed this and that to take me down, and I have let in the voice of the ego perhaps a little too much.  It has been a tad destructive, as it is prone to be. when given to much rein -  so this afternoon I settled in a brainstorming session under the direction of a very helpful soul, and came out the other side with a much clearer view of where I'm going and what I want. 
And what do I want?  I want to follow the direction of what I believe is Spirit, leading me gently as it does through the woods and fields, guiding me on the paths of life and supporting me in my decision making; helping me take the right route in Life.  I want to trust that when I do this I will be fully supported, financially, emotionally and physically in every way, and that my life will unfold beautifully, and with Love. 
After the brainstorming, I went out into the woods.  It seemed the perfect place to seal the deal.  I walked up the snowy trail to where the beech trees stand peacefully, looking down across the valley.  One of them seemed perfectly huggable, so I put my arms around it and pressed my head against the trunk.  How I love the enduring strength that gushes from a tree.  There is nothing like it!  It makes you feel as if everything really is alright...  Like a loving father ... strong, safe, loving and non-judgmental.  Just there for you, in the moment.  After the hug, I took some photos, and then the lightwave appeared...
I walked on, and as dusk fell I took some more pictures.  It was astonishing! The waves of light were all around me.  I took 26 photographs of lightwaves tonight.  Five new ones are on the anomalies page now, and I will put more on as I get to it. 
I have taken this amazing night of light-filled pictures as confirmation that Spirit really is there, and really is listening, so I guess all I have to do is keep to my end of the bargain, and all will be well...  :-)

There is something very special and out-of-this-world about this picture. I took it a couple of days ago.  It was early in the morning around 8am, and as I came along I found I couldn't take my eyes off the way the sunlight slanted through the trees like a powerful beam from a spaceship. As I watched, quite awestruck, it was as if I became an observer of some celestial event - a blessing from the Universe, a new birth perhaps - who knows, but whatever it was, it seemed very special for the trees resting in the light, and for me, the watcher.
I feel things such as these are precious gifts for us.  We are so lucky to see them. I wonder how many we might miss when we walk along with our eyes on the floor and our heads full of worries.  If we are not present enough to really look around us, we surely miss so much of the love and joy of being alive on planet earth.  When we are so consumed with our dramas, our relationships, our jobs and our future, that we cannot receive the magic that exists all around us and is constantly flowing to us, we are surely living in self generated darkness.  The Universe, God, whatever you care to call it, showers us with wonderful things, all the time.  Because these things don't come in nice, tidy boxes with price tags, we often don't know what they are or where to look for them. The truth is, Life IS the gift! That we have eyes to see a beam of light illuminate the florest floor is a miracle of Life indeed... 
Our senses pick up so much more than we know.  Standing in woodland, at peace and in stillness, is the perfect place to begin to wake them up - really feel the trees, their presence is very powerful! 
They freely share their wisdom if we just ask - they are such wonderful, kind beings...   :-)
  
  

I took this photograph back in March of this year. I love trees very much, and this beautiful, tall tree has often called to me as I walk the lane at Filliegh, winding my way around the cricket green and up and through the woods. As you can see, she stands alone, quite close to where the river passes under the road bridge, and if you look carefully, you can see a glimpse of one of the weird and wonderful 'ugly' bridges that dot the Filliegh Estate.  For all the world this looks a very peaceful scene that has changed very little in many, many years.
But change it has. 
A couple of weeks ago Mother nature whipped up a storm.  The wind came in un-naturally strong, and from the East, and soon this awsome power from an unfamiliar direction was wrecking havoc. Fences were going down all over the place, and as I drove home from a week away, I could see the floods in the fields and the damage everywhere. It reminded me of the storm of '86 when I awoke in the middle of the night to hear a roaring outside like you would not believe.  It was as if a freight train was going by - only it never did.  On and on, hour after hour the winds roared, until in the morning they had blown themselves out, and all that was left was devastation.  In our part of the world it looked as if an aircraft had ploughed its way through great swathes of ancient forest - we could not get out of our lane for the trees lying in the road. It was months before the sound of chainsaws went away.
I walked the lane at Filliegh a couple of days after our recent gale.  Twigs and branches littered the path through the woods and the air smelt fresh and clean.  The sun was out and that lovely spring feeling was in the air, with birds celebrating and ewes and lambs lying peacefully in the warming fields. As I crossed the river I saw one of the trees by the bank had gone down. Falling back away from the river, I knew that wind must have been very powerful to take it away from its natural tilt towards the water. 
But where was the tall tree?  An empty space remained where once stood Life.  She was down on the ground, smashed to pieces by the power of the wind and her own awesome strength.  Her limbs split open, her roots torn out of the ground by the relentless force of nature. I stood in awe of this catastrophic event.  What sounds she must have made as she gave herself up for lost!  What groans let out as she let go the life sustaining earth that had nurtured her from seed.  I felt a sense of great loss.  I still do.
When I looked at the space where once she stood tall, I could see how an easterly wind would have been her downfall.  The hills curve down on either side creating a funnel through which an unwelcome wind could gather great strength... and so it did. 
As I looked at her broken form, life still showed its gentle face.  New, bright green leaves were springing from the ends of her branches.  There they were in innocence, happy to greet another day.
Forget not the Grace and Favour of Our Trees - without them we are Lost.