Green Summer Magic

Nectar collecting, the bees are buzzing 
In lush lavender bushes, purple tumbling 
Summer scented over grey stone walls 
The hives are alive and honey making. 

Breezes flowing through silver birch leaves 
A turquoise sky with the last golden sunlight 
In France this time is known as the blue hour 
Late afternoon, before the sun starts setting 
I turn my face and thoughts towards the west.

Iona Jenkins 2022

A daily walk is an opportunity for awakening and refining the senses. This not only intensifies my experience, but often triggers a heartfelt expression of artistic inspiration. Since this awakening is inclined to light up both heart and mind, I often refer to these rambles as Wisdom Walking. I am forever delighted and surprised by the many new impressions I receive in familiar territory, at varied times of day, and throughout each season.

In summer I frequently pass by beautiful lavender bushes, so lush with flowers cascading over a grey stone garden wall. The scent comes first, strong yet soothing, for these flowers may be used to make sleep pillows and bath infusions. The purple colour flows soft through my eyes, nerve calming, clearing softening. Yesterday there were only five or six bees, but today has brought a hive, swarming over the tiny flowers which are now almost at the end of their season. Growing such wonder bushes in gardens helps to preserve a dwindling bee population, which deserves and needs all the help it can get.

​I make my way through a local park, where I open my eyes for the first time, to a small group of silver birch trees. I have often passed this way before without really registering their presence, but today it is almost as though they are inviting me to enter their grove.

Sitting on a bench, conveniently placed in front of one of these beauties, I decide to count them and soon discover there are nine. Nine tall, slender maidens dressed in robes as silver as moonlight, they bring to mind the nine Priestesses, guardians of the Isle of Avalon where King Arthur was taken to heal his wounds. Nine is a magical, sacred number made up of 3x3 in Celtic and many other traditions. Associations begin to occur as I follow this golden thread into misty myths and legends from this land and beyond. Poetry, story, philosophy, the inspiration is always a surprise. Moonlight and sunlight on the ocean near my home evoke impressions of unseen angelic realms, and images of animal, human, and fairy kingdoms arise from walking in woodland. The essence, the soul of wild nature personifies, moulded into poem and story by my imagination working through my own background and knowledge, creating forms and feelings I can share through my art. I never escape into these imaginal places, I create from them, then I detach again, and we can all create in this way. The delicate birch leaves rustle with the sound of Awen, the Flowing Spirit of inspiration, which seems to cascade from sky, through leaf, branch, trunk, and root into earth, where I in my still frame of mind become part of the Song.

Walking with awakened senses, we enter into a relationship with the local landscape that nourishes us, we find richness in our environment in all its green seasonal magic, we discover our part in its legend, its life, its song. 
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Moving mindfully, I slow down, awakening to beauty and hidden mysteries. Following my Creative Spirit, I find my place in the world.