Sacred Places
In this journey to reconnect with who we are outside of our roles within the family and our responsibilities you may stumble across certain places that bring you to life.
It could be as simple as a river walk near where you live. Or you might discover that you get energy from being by the sea or being in the sea. Or green forest canopies might tick all your boxes. Or a combination of landscapes. We are all different.
Once you have made this connection, it can help you find yourself when you've been buried in family life. There are often clues in our childhood or teenage years/early twenties to help you work it out.
My first memory of a family holiday is walking in Snowdonia in Wales. I was about 5. I remember it was hot and I was in my favourite blue-grey t-shirt that I'd inherited from my cousin Christian. I was walking in flip-flops and the name and look of the lake we saw 'Blue Lake' has remained in my memory all this time. Snowdonia captured my five-year-old imagination so much that it still remains fresh in my mind as a core memory.
A long, long time ago before I had children I hiked in high altitude places such as the Andes and I travelled to Ladakh, a region in the Himalayas. The altitude, I noticed, seem to enliven me where it made others tired and nauseous.
I explored Nepal and the hill stations of India. I visited the meadows of the French Alps and skied in Austria and Germany. And I LOVED that mountain energy. It gave me an appetite and a sense of vitality I don't feel anywhere else. Also mountain people are different to any other people you meet. Completely different energy.
Then I had children and it cost so much more to travel and I was so tired all the time. Life was limited to visiting and clambering over the tors of Dartmoor near where we live, but most of our holidays and free time were spent by and in the sea as that brought my husband and daughter to life. I didn't think much about it to be honest. The beaches in Devon and Cornwall are quite beautiful and full of fun for small children. I have lots of great memories of all the days spent on them.
One day however, a family holiday took me to a log cabin in the Swiss mountains and there I was again. Alive. Properly alive.
It inspired me to revisit Nepal, Mustang this time, without the family so that I could be free to roam where the winds blew me. I stayed with the family of a Tibetan lama where there was nothing to do but search for fossils in a dry river bed and listen to the animals being driven out to pasture and I couldn't have been happier.
But the summer cabin in Switzerland has come to me in many dreams. It represents a soulful place that feels in line with my vibration. Returning to Switzerland last year with my brother, to this same piece of land (that is in my brother-in-law's family's care) I wrote this snippet in my journal. It's not been honed and edited. It's as I wrote it, simple and raw, right from that moment and from my heart.
Ruti
I can't bear the thought of ever forgetting how this place feels.
It's my house of the heart, my soul self
turned into logs and blankets
and trees and butterflies.
I try to hold the feeling in my body.
The grey mountain stone flecked with snow at my back.
All that is green and luscious in front of me.
Whole forests cling to sheer drops
making me realise that back home
I'm like a steinboch on a small gravel ledge
looking for leaf nubs,
brave but startling at every twig snap all the same.
Here I am another contradiction
both a fat pasture cow and a nimble, wild fox roaming my territory.
I brush past buttercups,
pluck nettles and wild sage for my rice
and listen to the distant clanking bells
of grazing animals just out of sight.
At night, thunder sounds on stone, the noise passed around.
There are deep-earth cracks and rumbles.
and to me it seems like the mountain sings while I sleep.
Afterwards, I sewed a mountain range onto my sense of self jacket (see photo).
The feel of this place is as close to my house of the heart as I have experienced. I feel both grounded and calm in my nervous system and invigorated and energised at the same time. It's the combination of mountain rock, being high up, the green view and the trees. It allows me to glimpse myself outside of who society wants me to be.
In my every day life I can also access this feeling to some degree by being on Dartmoor which is where I spend as much free time as I can on tree-lined river walks and rocky outcrops/tors in the middle of open moorland. The sense of space is a balm for my body and brain.
It's also there when I stock up my mini log pile for our fire, when I knit, when I forage greens to add to our dinner, when I brave the river for a dip.
Have you come across a place that creates a noticeable difference in you?
Where does your soul want to be?
Are you able to find a nearby spot that leans into this energy?
Could you make regular time in the week to visit it? Last year I did my favourite river walk every Monday morning for almost a year with a friend and that felt like the most amazing start to the week and then we stopped for a break and in less than a month, that patch of the week became overgrown. There was no longer any time for it in my schedule.
This year I intend to carve that time out again. And this time I think it needs to be a solo walk as I delve into a better relationship with my self.