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.

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.

I am a storyteller, a dream maker
All my tales are a rich woven cloth
Of mystical thread I spin from gold
With dancing feet in the music of Earth
I will sing you her life song of passion
As my fingers draw down a web of stars
To light her chalice the sky reflecting
Deep cauldron of plenty overflowing
This potion of peace and magic growing
Bright flowers blooming colour scented.

Iona Jenkins

       "To begin my poetic journey, I connect to inspiration through my senses, from which I develop awareness of my place within my surroundings and the influence they have on me as a creative being.
        Our early ancestors would have used their senses both fully and spontaneously like any other creature, because survival would have depended on their ability to do so. Today, however, in our modern technological world we can order goods and services in seconds on a mobile phone. We are now consumers instead of hunters and gatherers. We have many creature comforts, but alas, we are also a people with increasing mental health, environmental, and social problems.
        So why are we not satisfied? Why does happiness elude so many? In losing our connection to the Sacred Feminine, we have gradually been losing connection to the planet which sustains us - our mother the Earth. We have come to believe that we are separate, more important, far above the rest of creation. In creating too many boundaries, we avoid the oneness of our reality, and we are lonely as a result. We could learn much from ethnic civilisations living in communities with powerful links to the natural world and a great respect for the land that nourishes them." 

​Embracing the Earth with respect, we can heal the fear that keeps us isolated, regaining our balance we can reach for the stars. It is then, we may also discover them shining within, illuminating all those deep space places, and singing soft in the language of angels.  

May all beings find relaxation and connection in the warmth and light of summer.

Iona

I am standing on the beach
With waves washing my feet
This luminous threshold place
Where worlds mingle and meet
In a mystical magic of three
The earth the sky and the sea
 
Iona Jenkins, Midsummer, 2022

​Now the wheel of the year has turned towards summer, I am spending more time outside, visiting parkland and green spaces on my way to the beach. The Celtic Ancestors, Druids and Shamans believe the shores and lakes of oceans to be thresholds, magical liminal places, where it was possible to glimpse the Otherworld and to receive messages. I can certainly see why, because after moving into an apartment overlooking the sea, my enthusiasm and inspiration to create through writing, has increased considerably. And it is true to say, that in this environment, I can experience spontaneous meditative states where pictures and words flood my imagination like the incoming tide, to be turned into poetry, philosophical meanderings, stories, or even simple life enhancing ideas, and truths I need to understand in my everyday reality.
 
We are influenced by the landscapes we live in as well as the landscapes we visit, but to really become aware of this, we may need to slow down a little and take the time to connect. My landscape gives me words, images and colours, inspiration that enables me to create vivid images with words rather than paint. People are creative in different ways. I paint word pictures, descriptive prose, which I hope may speak to the reader's own imagination and in turn help to awaken their personal creativity.

​Summer Solstice Haiku
 
Sing in the sunrise
On Summer solstice Morning
The world glitters gold

​Blessings of Midsummer to all,
Iona

"When I was a child, I knew how to take time out. Children don’t always walk in straight lines, they tend to meander about, following their imaginations. 
          A child’s life in Britain during the 1950’s and 60’s was very different without today’s technology. I developed a wild independence, because in those days it was safe to be out in the countryside around my village in Yorkshire without the constant supervision of adults. People talked to each other and took an interest, so someone always knew where we were. In addition, I always felt shielded in the woods and fields with a sense that nature herself was taking care of me. I loved the land and the land seemed to nourish and love me back, like a caring mother.​
          How exquisite and heady the wild rose with perfume fit for a queen. How full of life and bliss the summer in my heart, purple tinged with tufted vetch, red with clover and the pinkish white of tough stemmed yarrow. I would lie in green scented grass listening to bird calls and the nectar collecting bees buzzing. I was content, carefree, warmed by the smile of a golden sun in bright blue skies."

The magical child in all of us is creative and connected. Too often I forgot about her during the many years of my working life, except during leisure hours spent on weekend walks in city parks and gardens, or along the river bank. Then one day after I retired from my therapeutic work and moved to Wales, she turned up again, waved her wand and changed me into a writer.  On this warm May afternoon, she found me sitting on the balcony of my small apartment, breathing in the stillness of the pale blue ocean reflecting the sky, my pen skimming across the page as I listened to the voice of the sea. Taking time out, slowing down and reconnecting to the natural world for even a short time can provide us with a soul soothing, magical, creative moment in eternity.

The Inspiration ripples and flows
as I listen to the voice of the sea 
in this quiet slowing down of time
to a creative moment in eternity.

The “Oran Mor' is everything - a language of Angels, the Awen, a song of love and life, a heartfelt prayer which exists in us all. Feel free to substitute any words that ring true for you from your own faith or experience like the ethos of Chalice Well in Glastonbury which is “Many Paths One Source." ​