Monday’s metaphorical meanderings

There’s a walk I do to sooth the soul – a wander into wonder, a journey from right here to hopefully nearly there. It’s not a difficult walk, but I can do it when everything else is. it’s not a long walk but it’s often far enough.

I park under the arterial chaos of the M6 motorway and the west coast main rail line. Life thunders past unaware I’m even there. There’s a collective cacophony that’s simply overwhelming. The searing sharp shriek of a passing intercity flashes anxious alarm into an already full head. I set off.

The walk starts in dappled woods and as their natural comfort covers me so too it shrouds the sounds of others, muffles the memory of what’s behind me, heralds the hope of what’s in front. Every season offers much – but today the wood is rampant with the promise of rebirth – leaves burst verdantly anew, blossom blooms in merriment , weight drops from my shoulders with each step forward.
Subtly the beck makes itself known. Tumbling, falling, flowing ever onward. Never the same twice, always inviting a pause, readily rushing on, offering much that’s gone if thought about for too long. Water like a worry has shaped the rocks, it can rage and be all consuming, impossible to predict it can vanish at will, but it is just a part of the whole. A dipper flashes in and out of sight. My world of no more importance to it than the space I occupy. I wonder if it sees in me any of the beauty I behold in it?

Stirring to a cadence I can’t yet fully feel I move on. As the ground begins to rise my path curves away from the beck and climbs out of the woods onto open fell in a steep little valley. There’s a moment of triptych ambient wonder – the elementary noise of man blends with the elemental music of water and air, I sense the rhythm of nature calming a disquiet mind, there's a transitory opportunity, if only I was aware. 

At a beautiful stone bridge that crosses a tumbling beck that neither needs nor wants a name I regather. In front of me open fell, the path forks, the ground between easily crossed, opportunities to explore and be free abound. Behind me the motorway, the bustle of busy lives, the world I need a break from – it’s now lost. Masked by ancient wood, shaded by steep sided fells, I know its there, I could search for it if needed, but hidden it’s lost any thrall it once held. I am but a mile into nature and I feel set free.

My feet follow the memory of a footprints I’ve made many a time. On a day as bright and glorious as today there’s someone I want to visit, somewhere I want to rest and replenish; a favouritest place beckons me on.

The Tree; that the tree survives, indeed flourishes, here with it’s precarious grasp on the land is a thing I admire greatly; proof that tenacity will give testament to a truth of who you can be, what you can achieve. I don’t know if the tree once dreamed of being a mighty oak, if it once wanted to be amongst the many down in the wild woods or if it’s chosen to stand sentinel. But I do know the tree has made itself both at one with the world and uniquely of itself. It’s a thing of beauty that is both part of the whole and more than itself, I come here often and yet I know I’ve still much to learn.
This is a good place to rest, better it's a place to be. The tree atop it’s tilted volcanic bed whilst I sit on a granite boulder erratically left emphatic when the glaciers wrote their tale upon the land. Like the tree I reach down into the course rock, eyes closed, senses searching outward into the moment. The sun warms my back, the wind carries the scent of distant meadow, birds call for lovers and I feel my soul spread its wings. Being truly in this moment sets me free to travel in time. Would this moment have been different à hundred years ago, next week or yesterday. Would the only true variable be the version of me who walked to this place and gave thanks? Would the truth of the moment quintessentially be the same? 

Rising rested I return whence I came. The motorway seems quieter, no trains trundle past. I can see people rushing by in their little metal boxes, I know if they looked they'd see me. 
Ive been gone less than an hour but the day has turned glorious.