Saunter a long path

Springtime! we appreciate the virgin growth and greet arrivals.

Around our feet bluebell's grass-like leaves, yellow dandelions, little blue forget-me-nots, purple fritillary, upright cowslips, gentle violets and bright primroses abound.

Close to our heads, crows carry beakfulls of sticks, swallows swoop and clouds of flies dance, newly hatched.

The earthly realms are pushing forth, flourishing, swelling, radiant and joyful.

How are you doing? Never been better? Or challenged by all the exuberant energies of youth?

Now the sun shines warmer and daylight lengthens. A great time to take a stroll through the countryside. This is a metaphor for our lifetime's journey. And there is a choice. There is always an option in life. Shall we ramble along the easier level path with just a few gentle slopes? Or maybe the moderate track where there may be some rough or hapless patches with several obstacles, tree roots or loose stones? On the strenuous path there are physically demanding steep slopes and climbs, many obstacles and you will need strong walking boots. We evaluate and select what will nurture our souls. Which path are you taking through life?

There is a code to follow. In our walk through the living countryside and as we travel through the years and places during our stay on earth. We shall not damage anything, be they walls, fences or our relationships with all other beings. We shall be aware of hazards and not cause hazards, such as lighting fires where they will get out of control in dry woodland or moorland. How often does a match start a forest inferno or our own action or words get out of control and cause chaos and disruption? Take all your rubbish home. It is your garbage, deal with it!

You walk at your own risk and no one else can be held responsible for any accidents that happen to you. Be prepared as you step out on your journey with suitable clothes. Inform yourself and wrap yourself in knowledge of the possibilities your route will take. We each have a mental capacity and our wisdom, memory and inquisitive mind is there to be used.

Our Nature Trail across the land and Nurture Trail through our lifetime has information boards marking places of interest along the way. These points of curiosity and wonder will tell us about our ancestors and the past, describe archaeology and historical monuments that we pass by, illustrate beings that share the journey with us, their shape, colour, characteristics, and the geology, the basic materials that our world consists of.

At the start of our walk we leave the cave, the womb, and travel down the birth canal. In nature we visit the high hillside spring where water bubbles through the ground, the source of our journey.

This stream is in the walled gardens of Kylemore Abbey in Connemara.

The dancing water flows down through bog lands, disappearing into reeds and rushes, flirting with hard exposed rocks. Old fields and abandoned farms watch its progress. Otters play along the muddy banks, holly stands stiff and erect with its glowing red berries, while oak, ash and hazel branches drape towards the blessed joyous flow.

Grand houses are often constructed at beautiful vistas. Their residents gain solace and joy from the views, listening to the waters tones and songs.

The lakeside, populated with fishing jetties, picnic tables, bridges, and old boathouses, reminds us of the landscape we experience. Scattered over the lakes of our lives are similar places.

Take some time now to evaluate a walk you can do in nature – and what it teaches you about your own lifetime.

Nature Walk Nurture Walk

Spring welling up from the earth

The experience of your own birth – ask your mother

Stream tumbling over rocks through heather hillside What were your first trips and falls as a child?

Old fields and abandoned farms

Holly stands stiff

Holly's glowing red berries

Branches drape towards the flow

Grand houses constructed

Solace and joy from the views

Are any 'past life' or family ancestry issues affecting your present?

Who was 'stiff' with you as a child?

What did they have that you so wanted?

How did your relatives / friends bend towards you?

Now you are an adult and your life is a 'grand house'.

What is it constructed of? Who drew up the plans and built it?

Where do you gain solace and joy when you look at the vista of your life.

What satisfies your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual landscape?

Fishing jetties

Where do you go for nurturing and sustenance?

How do you catch it and haul it into your life?

Bridges Are you aware of the bridges in your world?

And so on... comparisons are infinite and eternal... the nature of land reveals our inner landscape.

Rainbow Colour and Pattern

So many arching rainbows! An ingenious combination and interaction of bright sun and rain, fire and water, expressed in radiant beauty enlivens our day. Surprise of seeing one contributes to a childlike fascination of the ever changing curve, and the hope it might be a double promises novelty.

Methodical gardeners bring the rainbow down to earth and their palette can be subtle or vibrant. They plan and design flower displays on graph paper during dark winter nights, turn the pages of seed catalogues looking at inspirational gaudy photographs. Orders are placed and young plantlets received back.

A colour wheel describes which will clash and which will match. Curving rainbow patterns enliven formal flower beds. In Spring they are tidied and prepared with young plants. The lawns are mown in parallel lines, short and organised. The blossoms of springtime have a varied wardrobe. What colours predominate in your cupboards? What clothes will you wear this year?

Red – invigorates creative fires of a passionate sun and romantic life

Orange – brightens cheerful conservations and warms relationships

Yellow – awakens us as the dawn, bringing health and happiness

Green – calming our souls, nourishing flexible growth

Blue – harmonious change and peace in gentle serene surroundings

Violet – mysterious spirituality of natural lavender, lilac and delicate violets

The wild garden is ordered a little differently. Here seeds are scattered with random abandon, mixed and not matched. They are surrounded and protected by brambles and meshed branches of low bushes and tall trees. Nature settles the design of this fallen rainbow.

In visualisation we celebrate the success of the rainbow by facing east, watching the rising sun, the morning breeze renewing our life.

Relax, release and let go. All concerns and tensions fade.

A new day is dawning.

The tender energies of Springtime emerge and erupt with unexpected strength and vigour across the land and within yourself.

First beams of light spread over the land, illuminating and radiating the grass and fields from the horizon towards ourselves. The many shades of green and yellow that arise from the land wrap around you, and a gentle light surrounds your head bringing calm clear thought.

Take a few deep breaths of this wonderful nourishment for your mind.

The sky's blue deepens, tinted violet, and that light radiates to you, enveloping your throat, bringing harmony and grace to all your words. Your emotions can be expressed in serene truth.

Flowing over the land the sun's light magnifies the vivid reds and oranges of the tulip flowers, enfolding and filling your centre with joy, warmth and kindheartedness.

Inhale this cheerfulness and enhance your expressions of the love you manifest.

Take seven breaths, slow, gentle, not forced, smooth and easy. Imagine a rainbow bridge flowing across the sky, a semi-circle of radiant banded light. Now change this colourful rainbow to silver light. A silver arch spreading across the blue sky. Invite the energy of silver, the colour of the spiritual rainbow, to spread through your whole body and surround you.

Refreshed and comfortable you now radiate that outwards, across the land to the tulips and the grass of the pastureland and into the sky, the atmosphere of earth. You connect to the creative forces of springtime, invigorating and invigorated. You circle the planet.

Now imagine a circle in front of you. It is turning and revolving. What colours play in and around the circle?

And before you the circle transforms into a triangle. Again pay particular attention to any colours in, on or around the triangle, flowing as oil or set solid as crystal.

The triangle turns and revolves. Transforming again the triangle becomes an octohedron.

And it shatters. Mosaic colours dance in scattered pieces before you.

This is the dance of the millions of drops of water that form the rainbow.

Each drop is itself a rainbow.

Enjoy this flow and exchange of energy until you are ready to close your meditation. Eat and drink and move your muscles, walk around for a few moments, and return to your life refreshed.