woodland creature @thousandyearforest - Tumblr Blog

I am trying to learn everything again.

By 'everything' I mean:

How to breathe - efficiently, using breath to nourish the body and the mind

How to move - walking and running barefoot to feel the ground beneath and strengthen the feet and ankles, running with high cadence, climbing trees and hillsides

How to sleep - according to sleep cycles and sunlight, sleeping more in winter and less in summer according to the body's needs

How to eat - sparingly, gratefully, from food that I have foraged myself as much as I can

How to think - expansively, selflessly, avoiding language and its restrictions, developing intuition and instinct

How to feel - indiscriminately and fearlessly, with my entire body

How to interact with living things - learning to identify different species, how to track and stalk, how to forage

How to make things with my hands - rope, tools, shelter, fire

How to express myself and connect with others - through music, movement, art and words

Why?

Because something hurts very much. Something feels missing.

Something makes us all feel alone despite there being so many of us. Something makes us struggle to find meaning in life despite having so much to do.

And that's our disconnection to nature.

For most of human history (estimated 97% of the time homo sapiens existed), we lived closely with the land in tribes, like some indigenous peoples still do today. Civilisation and society is a very new thing (believe it or not). And I don't think we have evolved fast enough to adapt. Plus, at the end of the day, we're still animals. We still need the Earth. Think about it; everything you eat, everything you wear, everything you use, all comes from the Earth in one way or another. And I firmly believe that connection to nature is the key to the climate crisis, because the number one barrier at the moment is complacency. Once people understand that we are nature, it is a no brainer to do what we can to protect it.

I want to heal the world, and I know that that starts with healing myself. Feel free to follow and join me in my learning journey.

I will be sharing more reflections like this, experiences I have, poetry and music about nature/the Earth, and photographs. I have a camera trap which is pretty cool. I can also share any good resources I find!

Lastly, remember when you feel helpless and lonely that every step of the way, Mother Earth has supported you. She is literally the ground beneath your feet and the air that you breathe. Allow her to hold you. Marvel at her power and magnificence and then recognise that within you.

#nature #rewild #nature writing #rewilding #mother nature #mother earth #connection #Spotify

Beltane –

Grey meets green 💚

Thank you Hawthorn 🙏🏻

apoemaday

How I Go Into the Woods

by Mary Oliver

Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my ways of praying, as you no doubt have yours. Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing. If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.

petaltexturedskies

In March the earth remembers its own name. everywhere the plates of snow are cracking. The rivers begin to sing. In the sky the winters stars are sliding away; new stars appear as, later, small blades of grain will shine in the dark fields. And the name of every place is joyful.

Mary Oliver, Worm Moon

thousandyearforest

Happy Spring

Anyone going to see Finnegan Tui in London in Feb?

#finnegan tui #folk music #indie music #folktronica #live music

interdimentional

thousandyearforest

I love it

I had run for 30 minutes and I laid my back against the ridge of a large smooth mossy rock protruding from the ground. My arm spread out behind me and my head was suspended in the air. I was breathing heavily, and could feel the warm blood pulsing in every part of my body, but the breeze was cool and the dark silhouettes of the trees above were comforting.

I thought, is this what it feels like when a tree has grown for many years? Tired but satisfied?

But then I realised: No, this is how it feels to be a seed that pushes its way up through the soil and finally sprouts, breaking the surface. Alive and free. Cleansed. Ready to grow, to meet the sun.

#the sun #seeds #plants #exercise #trees #nature #wildlife #mother earth

I wonder if the wind speaks through the trees, or if the trees speak through the wind

Maybe they are speaking together, singing a duet

Maybe, they are both saying the same thing...

#trees #nature #wildlife #the wind #mother earth #forests #crazy stuff

I know it's the end of the year and people are doing reflecting

But I wanted to make an appreciation post for my guitar

Her name is Tara, and she is a classical guitar. She is twice as old as me and was made in East Germany. The company that made those guitars collapsed with the Soviet union. She came with my mum all the way from Ukraine all those years ago.

I am currently in the process of deep cleaning and restringing her, which is deeply satisfying and exciting even though it's hard work. This has been overdue for years...

The truth is, although I've been playing her for almost a decade now, I haven't really, properly appreciated her until this year. I loved the guitar, but I didn't have the energy to maintain a relationship with it. It felt draining rather than energising. I remember looking at her (my guitar) from across the room and thinking, "I'm sorry, I'm letting you down". And so I'm not really at the level I would like or expect to be at. As they always say, if you ignore Music, it ignores you.

But that changed in the last few months of the year. Partly because of seeing my favourite musician live. He is a huge inspiration - magic, dreams and pure emotion flow out of the guitar when he touches it. Partly because I discovered folk music - music that I like that I could actually play. Partly because my headphones broke. I turned to music inside me coming out, rather than outside coming in.

And partly because, like a guitar, I stripped my strings and began the process of cleaning and restringing. It was really hard, painful, confusing, lonely, exciting, and freeing. I found that only my guitar could solace me during that time. I played and I played. With different tunings and a newly acquired capo a multitude of new worlds opened up to me. I never knew the guitar could be so expansive... That it could be anything...

I stumbled and fell. Poured my soul into it. Wrote two songs. Learnt and improvised many more.

Basically, I fell in love with the guitar.

It really helped me through a lot this year. It allowed me to process my emotions and grief and brought me joy and light when I felt lost or unwilling.

And I owe it all to beautiful Tara... She's been there for me all along. Waiting patiently.

She's battered and bruised now, and I'm glad she is finally getting the care that she deserves. She will shine like new when I'm done and the sound will be ten times better than what it was, by which I mean, it will be heavenly.

Restringing my guitar is a step towards restringing myself, and falling back in love with making music represents me falling in love with the world, and life, again. I am very grateful.

Maybe one day I will make a post about my other guitar, Gigi. Although we don't have much history together yet - her G string snapped a few months after I got her whilst retuning... :(

Anyway, that's quite enough for now. Happy New Year's, to anyone who's reading this. I wish you a year full of music and joy!

#guitar #guitars #classical guitar #acoustic guitar #new year's eve #new year #music #folk music #mother earth #nature #random stuff

Happy winter solstice people! ☀️

Spring is on her way 🌱

- • - Day is breaking in my soul - • -

#Spotify #winter solstice #happy solstice #the sun #mother earth #seasons #winter #spring

Acrowbatics.

Some crazy stuff has happened (good stuff)

This being one of them

#crows being weird #crows #trees #wildlife #nature

#bats #wildlife #dusk

#tiny snail #so tiny #ft. my thumb #as a reference #bugs #snails #nature #wildlife #trees

Light is light, after all

Will these leaves ever fall?

#trees #urban nature #the city

Crazy that the wind can do this to a tree. It literally got split down the middle (2nd photo)

Also strange how storms really change how a place looks

Even though I can't work out which tree has which branch missing, something just feels different and unfamiliar. And that landscape is changed like that forever now, soon that will become the normal and familiar

#crazy stuff #trees #storms #the wind

I had a conversation with an oak today, it said some really wise stuff. Thought I'd share

I was really restless, like wouldn't stop bouncing and moving around, and I said something like I just feel like I need to DO something

And the Oak said something along the lines of you don't need to be doing something all the time

And I said: But I feel like I'm running out of time

The Oak: Does the river run out of water?

And I thought of the little rushing water-step in the river that I crossed on the way there and instantly I could be still and quiet.

#oaks are wise guys #that really got me tbh #nature #mother earth #trees #spirituality #daoism

A millipede I saw on a beech tree today, which I think is a White-legged snake millipede. It has around 100 pairs of legs and mostly eats algae and similar stuff.

Source:

Tachypodoiulus niger, known variously as the white-legged snake millipede or the black millipede, is a European species of millipede. It is

#nature #wildlife #bugs #insects #millipede #trees

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