I’m walking along the valley floor, beautiful blue sky, sun shining. The grass is green, patches o tall, dry, yellowing stalks, and speckles of wild flowers; yellow and pink. The stream runs alongside. Mountains reaching up on both sides from the green to brown to purple up to the white-grey caps.
Uneven ground, no path, step by step, carefully over mounds and into dips, stepping with presence and attention.
Picking up a stone. Lovely, rounded, oval, grey, smooth and weighty. Comforting. Resting in my right hand, the left drawn to touch it, stroking it. Beautiful.
Walking on and a thicket of trees. Walking in. Cool, quiet, calm. Soft honey-brown trunks, strong oaks and beeches. Dappled sunlight on the brown tree-debris floor.
Then a deer. A brown female. In her wood. Looking. Staring with her big dark eyes.
A question from us both at the same time “what are you doing here?” Neither answers. She speaks again “Who are you? This is my wood.”
“I came to visit. It’s beauitful here.”
“I know” she says.
“What can I do here?” I ask. “That’s for you to find out?”
“Can you help at all?” She tells me to look in my heart. I look. I see.
Love, power, freedom, possibility.
The love swells up, in me, in her, between us, all around. Everything.
I’m standing right next to her now. I stroke her strong neck. I hug her. She looks away. “It doesn’t need that. You’re trying too hard. There is plenty of love without needing to put your arms round it.”
I leave, I walk on. A boulder to my left. Large, solid, grey granite.
It’s beautiful! I love it!! I’m hugging the rock! The rock doesn’t mind the hug.
Round the back, an opening, a small door. I step isnide — complete darkness. Cool and quiet. Centring, sanctuary, enveloping darkness.
The rock sees me “Relax, stop. Slow down to ground yourself”
I’ve become the rock, looking out to the wood all around. Just what it is. All exactly as it is and needs to be — OK just as it is. Nothing to change.
I shrink back down, the rock sees me again. A tiny person. A child. It’s providing shelter to the child, a safe place.
It sees the potential, the aliveness. It sees that the child thinks it needs the sanctuary of the rock, but it’s not needed. The imagined need for sanctuary is keeping the potential hidden.
“I’m scared” says the child.
“It’s OK to be scared. Remember who you are and who you’re not. Remember you’re not limited.”
“I’m still scared”
“That’s your nature” says the rock. It presents a gift of a milky, white stone, bright from an inner light. It goes into my heart.
I step back out into the wood. Back to the valley, back to where I began. But different. The journey’s done, the sun is still shining, everything as it is.
With love, Helen
I work with people who want a quieter mind and a more fulfilling life. They’re smart, passionate people who are curious about there being a better way. They’ve worked hard to get to here and yet something’s still missing: ‘is this it?’. In our work we explore and reconnect to innate brilliance so they rediscover a quieter mind, fulfillment and balance. Find out more here.