Psychological recycling

Once upon a time, when I was a small boy growing into his own sense of identity, I went through a phase of what can only be called “gang mentality”. I was living in urban Nelson in Lancashire at the time, and my only thoughts were to have fun with my small coterie of friends. Our idea of fun was to race around, shouting, running through gardens, knocking on doors then running away, smashing found glass bottles, throwing stones at things, and anything else that could be classed as “small boy mischief”. We took delight in egging each other on to fresh heights of stupidity and crassness.

One incident in particular I remember for its utter simplicity. It’s devastating effect upon me would only be felt many years down the line and remains with me still. It’s a really inane thing, but this is what happened. My gang and I were walking down the main street in our neighbourhood and we had just bought some sweets. We were busy walking, eating and unwrapping the sweets as we went, and we each threw the sweet wrappers into the street, onto the pavement. A boy slightly older than us, but who had a look of being a ‘nerd’, or at least not as socially popular as we thought we were, he stopped as soon as he saw us doing this. He watched us with scorn in his eyes – with disbelief as we merrily discarded the waxed paper wrappers all around us.

I caught the look in his eye and so did my friends. We smiled at each other – instantly recognising that we all had the same idea, and we threw more wrappers down. Then the older boy did something that we didn’t understand. Without a word, he began to pick all the wrappers up and put them into his pocket. We looked at him in disbelief. He must be a simpleton! We could have some fun here! It was one thing to disapprove, but here he was cleaning up after us! We couldn’t miss this opportunity, so we began to test how willing he was to do this again, walking on a little bit then wilfully scrunching another wrapper, eating the sweet and throwing the paper onto the floor. He turned around and began to follow us, a few feet behind, picking each wrapper up silently!

This continued for far longer than was fun for us. He wouldn’t go away. Whenever we dropped a wrapper he’d pick it up. We walked for miles (having three big bags of sweets to play with) and still he silently followed us, mopping up after our disgraceful littering. That incident has stayed with me all my life. Now, thanks to that episode, I abhor littering.

Last night Kal and I were discussing the idea of “picking up the litter” of one’s life by making some form of retribution, or an act of kindness or service. Kal had already been through this process and explained the cathartic effect it had had upon him. I said that I felt like I needed to make some kind of gesture of service, but at the moment that was a nameless, placeless and faceless platitude that I was sure I would “get around to” one day soon. As we parted I mentioned that I might be going out the next evening, “on a dowsing mission” but that I didn’t know where yet. He wondered whether to come, but I responded “It will be wet!” observing the dark clouds above, and he shivered and declined to follow it up.

This evening I dowsed in my house for a direction to travel in – south. South? I never went south. It was all city, town and concrete to the south. East, West or North were beautiful, and all points around, but South…I had never been dowsing to the south of my home. South, the rods said. How far, I enquired. Four miles, just under. Where the heck was that? Mentally I scanned the area, knowing it well, but couldn’t see anything. I decided to drive four miles away to the south and see what happened.

I got in the car and drove the requisite four miles whereupon I reached a roundabout and instinctively turned left. Then I tried to turn into a cycle path thinking it was a junction on a dual carriageway almost causing a pile-up behind me. Waves of apology to all other drivers. Something had wanted me to turn in there, so I followed my hunch of keeping turning left in an ever-decreasing spiral. I ended up parking in a small village that I didn’t even know was there, just outside of the nearby city. As I got out of the car I noticed that at the end of the road there was the dual carriageway I had tried to turn off. Aha – this was the right place to start then. I found a quiet place and asked the rods for directions – my next turn will be….right, and after that it will be…left. Then I would walk one kilometre and I would arrive “there”, wherever “there” was!

I turned right up the main village road. Would I find a footpath going left? No, the next left was a small road. I walked the road for about a kilometre until it was about to cross over a motorway. But wait! There was a service road alongside the motorway with an open gate…. I asked the rods to guide me in. They swung along the service road, so I followed. Immediately they swung to the right, and I walked through a gap in the hawthorn hedge…to reveal a stunning sight – a small pond, surrounded by old willow trees and sitting by the side of a beautiful field carpeted by buttercups and wild flowers!

I had directed the rods to take me to a place where I could integrate all of the lessons I had recently learned in Ireland. Here was the place, I knew this, and it didn’t get any wetter than this – a pond! I sat on the edge of the pond and thought about why I was here at this place. As I gazed into the pond I realised what I was looking at – the willow tree opposite, and in the only bit of clear water in the whole pond, from this exact place I could see the tree’s entire reflection! I understood immediately that this was the image I had been seeking – the integration – all that is above the water line, and all that was below it in perfect symmetry – the very symbol of integration!

I meditated for a while hoping for some sort of inspirational message, but I only got one thought. To complete this integration, to learn my lessons, I had to clean this pond up. I had to come back and remove all the litter, the cans, the wrappers, everything that bespoiled the site. That was my mission. That was how I would finally erase the memory of that litter-bug incident – by an act of pure selflessness. I, and I alone would clean this pond up.

I will report back when the work is done. A Hedge Druid’s work gets harder every day!

Gwas.