I am lucky enough to own a beautiful piece of woodland. I like the word blessed too.
It’s not massive; nine acres. I feel a bit self-conscious saying that because nine acres is big to almost everyone I know. It’s just that I know a few people with a lot more.
But to me, nine acres is great.
I decided to let people stay there as a way of earning a bit of an extra income and as we have a little shephard’s hut in the clearing. It’s a really special place. The woodland is ancient, mostly sweet chestnut trees, but we have a few strong oaks and some birch, rowan, holly, hornbeam, apple and willow. And probably others I’ve missed and forgotten.
Things have been going well, guests have come and enjoyed having the woods to themselves. That’s the unique selling point, you get the whole place to yourself.
We’ve had the most wonderful guests over the years, so I’ve felt fairly trusting and relaxed. Everyone has been very respectful to the land.
One year, I decided to let a group of people stay at the woods. In hindsight I didn’t really have my eye on the ball and should have done a few more checks ahead of their stay, such as finding our their exact number. But as I say things had been going well and I had no reason to feel there would be a problem.
I went off to a family gathering, after contacting the guest to confirm their number and discovering they were bringing 25 guests and not the number they had specified on the booking form.
The woman renting the hut was very put out when she realised that she should have let me know the numbers because as well as paying for the hut, extra guests had to pay for camping.
I was easy going about the misunderstanding and offered her a good discount. It was important to me that she have a good stay.
I went off to my family gathering with an uneasy feeling. But I ignored it.
I asked a friend to pop by the land and meet the guests at check out time, just to make sure things were ok.
She called me to say that the guests had left earlier than the check out time. This information left me feeling more unsettled.
My friend had a look around and told me the land had been left in a bit of mess.
I was very disappointed, but felt confident I could deal with it. However, I was not prepared for what I found when I arrived to clear up.
When you let guests stay in your home or space you have to be prepared for some issues that may crop up.
But half a dozen bin liners overflowing with rubbish including dumped camping gear and beach toys was just the awful beginning.
By the time myself and Joan - an actually saint, without whom I’d have lost my mind - had cleared up, which took 3 days, there was well over a dozen bin bags full and overflowing with litter and fly tipping.
They had left all the dirty pots and pans in the sink, spilled red wine over the bell tent, they had defecated all around the clearing and didn’t use the toilets, they left the napkins they used to wipe themselves after going to the toilet on the floor.
We had to pick up used sanitary towels and tampons from the woods and guests were still finding them the following week. They had even ground up fire lighting blocks into the clearing, which took me forever to scrape up and clear away properly.
It was a mess, and when I tried to confront the guest she was in complete denial that they had done anything wrong at all. She even attempted to seek compensation from me.
To me this was insane. I had never seen anything like it. Later on my husband reminded me that, to them this was normal. They probably didn’t see it as their problem at all. But to me it was nightmare. Not only had they utterly disrespected the land, they had no idea of how much trouble and pain they had caused. When I tried to reason with them, they only had contempt for me and the situation.
Something in me went numb. I decided I would not go back to the land. It wouldn’t be the same again. It had been defiled.
At the time I had been going to counselling and I decided to talk about this in my next session.
I told the counsellor about the rubbish dumped on the land and that I had turned away from the place.
She then ask me an amazing question, ‘Can you see the land as yourself?’
I wondered what she meant for a few moments, but I actually could. I could see the land as me straightaway.
Then she said, ‘See the land as yourself and every time you turn away from the land, you dump another bag of rubbish there. Every time you turn away from the land you turn away from yourself and you dump another bag of rubbish on your heart.’
Her words woke me up instantly! I’ll never forget them. My mouth and eyes widened as if to let this new insight roll in and down into my soul, ‘Oh!’ I said, closing my mouth to taste and swallow this new understanding.
So now what?
I’d have to go back. I didn’t really know how to be when I got there. Should I say sorry to the land? How would I know it had forgiven me for allowing those things to happen and then for turning away and leaving.
I met up with another good friend soon after, he’s a man with a lot of wisdom usually contained within very few words.
‘Ask the land what it wants from you?’ He suggested.
So I went back soon after with this question.
I knew where to go. A little hornbeam tree in a mini clearing between about four to five metres in diameter with a mossy carpet.
It was the kind of place you had to enter slowly. You would step up to an invisible door, walk through and the air around the hornbeam and clearing was altered. It was better to move slowly, it felt pleasant to do so. In fact, all discomfort is eased generally by slowing down, and in this space, my body knew that before my mind did.
When I was eight years old I used to live across the street from Peckham Rye Park in South East London. Every Saturday afternoon I would cross the busy lane and make my way over the grass common to The Gardens. I would enter under the wisteria pergola and experience the same thing.
A complete slowing down, almost to a stop. I could observe the flowers more closely, more intentionally and they would show me more of themselves, so that the roses were not just red but luminous. The deeper I looked at them the more they glowed back at me as if in mutual appreciation, as if delighted to be finally recognised.
And I would whisper to them, ‘I know who you are’.
At the woodland this particular clearing provided me with a quiet hiding place.
I knew this was the right spot to ask my question.
I sat down gently, with my back resting against the tree.
I closed my eyes and began to feel my self present and aware of my body and everything I could sense around me.
I took a deep breath and waited, then I began, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry for what happened.’ I felt sad, ashamed and remorseful.
‘What do want me to do with the land? How can I put things right?’ I asked.
I sat still, and became aware of my thoughts, but they didn’t seem to be my thoughts at all. More like a stream of words just coming to mind.
“Do not bring your sadness here.” Came the direct and seemingly curt response. I was not expecting that. Then more words,
“We have absorbed far more. We have been here for a long time.”
So I answered the words with, ‘…Yes…yes you have. Of course!’
I then had images and thoughts of blood spilled here over thousands of years. Blood, atrocity, violent assaults, murder, war, fights, deaths, separation, darkness, light, union, births, celebrations…
“…and still we return season after season. We come again and again, so you see…?”
‘Yeah’ I nodded, feeling silly and embarrassed. I’d hugely underestimated the land and the spirits here.
“Your worry is not useful.”
I listened.
“For even in their apparent disrespect, they were enjoying themselves, and it is this enjoyment we were focussed on.”
‘Oh! I see, I see.’ This was great, I thought.
“That is what you must bring to the land, that is what we want from you. Just bring your joy.”
Ironic. The woman who booked the land was called, Joy.
“Bring YOUR joy.”
Then the land was quiet save the wind talking with the trees and the bird song getting louder, signalling my time to leave.
I lightened up. Had I just had an interaction with the land or the spirits of the land? Maybe it’s the same thing. I appreciated the direct answers they gave. The no nonsense elders with no interest in or need for diplomacy.
It was hard to swallow the fact that some people are just doing the best with what they know and most of us have no idea. Most of us are stupid enough to be alright.
So, if ignorance is bliss and knowledge is power, then wisdom must be the quiet one, the patience, the trust and forgiveness.
I could put things right by seeing what I didn’t like and being able to focus on the positives. And there were so many positives, even if I didn’t see them at the time.
From that day we brought so many wonderful moments back into the land. We brought so much joy into the space. The incident that had devastated and wounded me was barely a scratch on the land.
And in those beautiful, joyful moments I found forgiveness. It was fine, it was always fine.
Years later the incident came to mind again, while I was at home sitting in front of the TV, considering the environment. I remembered the white blocks of fire lighter that those guests had trodden deliberately into the clearing. I would say thoughtlessly, but I believe there was some thought that went into that particularly act of malice.
‘How long will that take to disappear?’ I wondered, worrying about the soil.’
The familiar tone and words came back,
“You see the land, as you see yourself; tiny, small. You see yourself as separate from one another. But you are not separate from each other and this land is not separate from other lands on this Earth, or the Earth itself. The land is more than you think, the Earth is more than you think, you are more than you know and that is your greatness, if you would only know it.”
I don’t think that is last time I’ll hear from the land, and that makes me happy.
I’m looking forward to visiting again soon, and I’ll take my happy with me, I’ll walk slowly into that little clearing, and rest comfortably against the hornbeam.
And sometimes, I’ll be blissfully ignorant and sometimes I’ll know and sometimes I’ll hear it’s wisdom; quiet and direct.
