In the meantime, for a rather special, sacred winter experience, I re-direct you here to a January post from a few years ago, when I thought the distinctive feeling I experienced then was because of the watery environment: in particular the water-where-water-shouldn’t-be. But clearly it can't have been, since I had a similar, powerful sense of being in nemeton - in non-ordinary reality - when, during an xmas visit to family in Skipton, I had to walk from my hotel through Aireville Park, where there is a rare traditionally maintained urban wildflower meadow called Gawflat Meadow.
As I walked through the park on xmas day morning, there were plenty of dog walkers about and plenty of children wearing new football strips or riding shiny new bikes. Even the tennis court had players: with their new racquets and tennis outfits - and surely new balls please.
In the previous evening’s walk in the other direction - to my hotel - it was dark and I’d been accompanied by my son. I’d seen the interpretation board at the entrance to the meadow and had taken a few moments to stand at the edge breathing into the night’s darkness and feeling a strange sense of being completely alone - in my own nemeton - even though I was just a few steps away from the concreted path through the main park, where my son waited for me. I decided then that in the morning I’d walk up the incline of the meadow, to where it meets the Leeds and Liverpool canal at the top.
At this deepest winter time, and in this weak morning light, it couldn’t have looked more unprepossessing: wildflower-free, apart from a couple of trampled, muddied dandelions, puddles everywhere on the uneven path, leaden skies, leafless trees. No birds, not even calls. Away from the main area, with its people and dogs, there was complete silence. But as I slowly walked two sides of the square shaped meadow, staying on the path as requested, the shift began.
I noticed the berries first: bright glows of red and orange among the dull grey and brown branches of trees and shrubs. I enjoyed noting hawthorn, rowan, holly, and the subtle greens of ivy leaves with their own darker berries. Then, movements and sounds above me. I wasn’t the only one to notice berries. I stood still as a small raiding party of fieldfares made their way through the bare branches, chattering (the bird books call it ‘chacking’) away to each other as they stripped off the berries.
When they moved on, I moved on, but with a new awareness of being embodied in the space, rather than simply moving through it. I breathed in deeply: absorbing cold air and damp smells. I picked a luscious looking rose-hip, wiped it on my sleeve, and bit into the soft flesh. I collected a small spray of ivy, and some lichened twigs to gift to the garden of my son and daughter-in-law.
I stood still again to enjoy a last few moments of being in this quiet, sacred space before the noisy seasonal festivities began. As I’d decided the previous evening that I’d return to the meadow the next day to see it in daylight, I decided now I’d return to it again to experience it in the full glory of summer.
Although I reminded myself, as I left, that it had shown me its quieter glories right now, and had lifted my spirits as the natural world so often does.
*twixmas: I don't like this word because of its coining by the tourism and events industries to market activities during the quiet period between xmas and new year, but I do love the Old English word 'betwixt' from which this modern portmanteau word has been created. It echoes the sense for me of being betwixt realities as I relate here.
