Dartmoor Dreaming - September 2008:

Under a clear sky high up on Dartmoor
I stand, Face to the warm sun.
Blackberries hang their dark heads among a cascade of falling leaves.
The last of the summer’s bees swarm exuberantly
Bent on a final feast before winter comes,
AS I gorge myself upon the sum.

…

The laden car snaked its way up the meandering roads. My ears began to pop. “Oh it’s so beautiful,” my companion enthused as she described the patchwork of more, gorse, heather, rocks and sheep spreading out all around us. The clear sky arched over our heads, she continued and beyond the nearby moor, dark hills edged the horizon.


…


Walking through the great stone archway, I dove into the black cool stillness of a quiet dark sea. I swam swiftly and easily through the gently lapping water, to a shiny patch where the moon shimmered brightly, spreading across the gently undulating water, edges shimmering and shivering, making her sparkle brightly.

I plunged right into the heart of the moon, pushing my way down, down and down to the bottom of the seabed, where her reflection danced. And there was the deep dark cave, and at its very centre, as though a long, long way off, the smallest of early grey lights.

Needing no air, I swam on, my tail flickering, my hair streaming all around me. I emerged into the dawn of a new day, to a grey pebbled beach beside a grey shifting sea under a grey morning sky. A busy little stream hurried its way down the cliff and across the rocks. Its clear liquid water merged with the grey sea, leaving a silver trail of current spreading out fan-like into the far distance.

I looked around to see the moon, but I couldn’t find her, even though the sun was not quite up yet, she was nowhere to be found. I walked along the beech and up the tumbling river bed, the water bitter cold to my feet, the stones beneath biting into their soles. Where had the moon gone?

The river flowed out of deeper high rocks and in the cool shade, small pools lay still and deep. In them swam the moon, big and round and silver.

I climbed into a pool and sat upon the moon and rode it through the now dark sky. It was soft to sit upon, like a big silvery not quite fully inflated Pilates ball! I engaged my core muscles and sat a-top her and we rode the sky, mistress of all we surveyed. And the earth turned beneath me and she was beautiful and I was filled with joy.

…

In the corner of a field sat a moss covered broad old beech tree. I climbed the bank down which her roots tumbled and sat in her dry green velvety lap, leaning my back against her firmness. I felt held in a strong embrace, reassuring and still.

I breathed quietly as I tuned into her pulse. I imagined my green clad body, merging with her greenness as we became one, our pulses beating together in a harmony of silence. In my mind I saw us all green and round, sat upon the red brown earth, under a clear blue sky, her leaves edged with gold from the brilliant sun.

A breeze tossed the capering leaves. They tickled and shifted like falling water, scratchy and brittle yet clear as though tumbling like a mountain stream upon laughing pebbles. “Oh Lady, I feel you near me,” I breathed as I stroked her velvet firm limbs.

I walked through a wood, the beeches brown skirted and massive, and the sienna earth soft as a carpet beneath my bare feet. There in a small clearing, framed by the columned trees stood my velvety lady, firmly and solidly, her skirts, the mossy-covered roots cascading down the bank upon which she sat. Under the green light of her canopy, she was the deepest of forest greens, the palest of limes and every shade between and beyond, full figured and contoured in all her curving beauty. At her knees sat a still woman, her green clothes blending with the mossy tree. All was still as tree and woman breathed together.

A sudden movement, a pale shadow flitted across the space, a beam of sunlight picked out against the green and brown, a white doe, her face soft and gentle. And then she was gone.

I sat against the tree and felt her living warmth support me. The coolness of the autumn earth reached up to hold me and my heart shifted. “Let me always remember this” I prayed as I heard the mesmeric voice of a beautiful singer on the other side of the field mingle with the shifting shaking leaves above me. “Let me always find space to sit under trees, no matter what happens in life.”