It was a beautiful evening when Chris and I decided to pay a visit to one of our favourite forests. The wood at Alderley Edge. We arrived there in the early evening and the forest was as welcoming as ever. Stepping into the mystical wood we both drew our rods and began to follow them, and follow them, and follow them.
After several minutes we stopped to take stock, something unusual was happening. After taking us to a place of preparation the rods began to take us to some odd places. A tree here, a bush there, a hillock the other. At each place they demanded that we stop, look around, be patient.
If this had happened a couple of times, we probably would have ignored it but it happened again and again. Occasionally I would attempt to elicit an answer to a question and the rods would refuse. Or rather the forest would refuse. Be patient.
After a good twenty or so minutes, I finally got the inkling of something…I was stood looking through the leaves at the still high summer sun. Mesmerised by the light and shadow the vision changed to one of the internals of a clock…all the gears were ticking to rhythms of their own. But all of them were in harmony. As traversed in and between the gears of the clock, marveling at the precision, interconnections and beauty, a message came clearly through.
There is nothing to do, nothing to align, nothing to prod…all is going at its right pace
It was that patience thing again wasn’t it, I thought. The rods continued to take us through the forest and at one point we seperated. I had no idea where Chris had vanished to but trusting to the rods I continued to follow them and the continued their merry dance. Stopping here and there. Twirling around trees.
As I, absent mindedly followed the rods, I thought about last weekend when I had been in bryn celli ddu and had seen the connections of spirals. It wasn’t that similar a vision today. Whereas then I had been informed that a Spiral within my life had been shattered (meaning as yet to be determined) now I was being told that all the other cogs of my life were in harmony.
The forest isn’t huge by any stretch but one can get lost for a short time also, if one is with someone else and you get separated, what then? I had now been following the rods on my own for some time and had no idea where Chris was. I kind of gave the rods a nudge as if to say, time to find my partner in crime. They ignore me! Terrific!
I continued to walk and the thought came into my mind. I’ll stay the night if I have to. I meant it too. It’s one of them things that you come across occasionally on sacred journeys. It’s as if the journey itself asks you, “How committed are you?” You can’t lie of course, that just doesn’t work. You have to answer truthfully and with total abandon. Which is exactly what I did and felt a lifting of a burden.
And the walk continued…A couple of months ago, Chris and I were at a sacred place in the Cotswold. Before I could enter that place I had to shed myself of all doubt. A couple of times I had been pushed back from the place until I had with complete abandon relieved myself of all doubt. Here in the Wizards Wood something else was being asked of me…I could feel it.
I began to shed myself of wants, desires, needs, timetables. Of judgments, truths, experiences. Finally the forest, for that is what I believed was asking me to do this. I had to shed myself of humaness. How, you might ask, do you do that? It’s not that difficult if you have a good imagination. It isn’t about turning into an animal or anything like that. It was more about realising that the last bastion of what we are isn’t human. It’s something else. Spirit, energy or thought? Whatever it was, it was that that finally found Chris sat at the base of the Father of the Wood.
It had been a weird visit to the forest to be sure. But one where we could Just Be.
