Fenland Musings
The Power of Ritual
by Will Johnson
Since the beginning of the year, I have begun each Sunday morning in a familiar way. I have things I want to achieve, but I was stuck, and I felt the need to change things up a bit.
So, I get up when it’s still dark when the rest of family is still in a deep slumber; I pour black coffee and read from the late Irish poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue. Full of warmth and stirring inspiration from John, I grab my walking bag, double knot my boots, turn up the collar of my favourite coat, and head out to walk in the dark morning.
I live on a new housing estate, and just beyond is a newly dug lake and, a whisper beyond there, an old tree. It is to this tree that I head in the twilight … to sit alongside it, to clear my head, to open my eyes and reopen my heart. What I have found is that “there are blessings all around you”. Nature is immensely generous with her gifts, but it is the gentle consistency of my weekly visits that has enabled me to tune my ear to hear what is being said.
“There are blessings all around you
Open up your eyes
Feel the sunlight fall upon you
Let it free your mind.”
One surprising outcome of these solitary journeys is a recent internal call to document them in my little notebook. I call them “Fenland Musings”, inspired by the Cambridgeshire landscape.
I’ve kept a journal for years, but these musings feel different; they are my attempt to craft some poetry and prose; perhaps even to make sense of the busy’ness of life, I suppose.
One misty morning, as the flag outside a show home on the edge of the development fluttered in a strong wind, these words came to me; with cold hands, I scribbled them down before they were lost forever:
Ting ti ting,
Ting ti ting,
Flagpole percussion,
Adding rhythm to the misty morn’.
This is where the asphalt melts into gravel,
Where scaffolding folds into nature’s rushes.
Steet lamp serenades
Fade into tawny chorus.
What was it that she whispered as you were leaving?
Ah yes…
“Remember the path you’ve taken,
It will be different on your way home”.
Or will it be you that’s changed?
By the briefest and deepest of
Orchestral encounters.
Never underestimate the power
Of Nature’s melody, to transfigure
Memories into motion.
Ting ti ting
Ting it ting.
What I have come to learn on these regular walks is the power of consistency, how a simple routine, or everyday kind of ritual, keeps me grounded; lately it’s started to fuel a creativity I didn’t know was there. I am looking forward to seeing how nature changes as spring unfolds into summer; what new fenland musings might surface
Will Johnson is a man on a personal journey. Gently introducing - and learning from - new habits, Will is finding that moments of calm inspire flows of words; words of meaning; musings on nature
