Month: April 2017

12 June
My final experience at Trericket Mill is a visit to the ducks. They are out on their lawn, which is also an exclusive camping pitch for some lucky holidaymakers, by the brook edge, with the chickens. The ducks though, are on a mission, waddling on mass. When I have finished admiring their castle folly home I discover they were headed for the brook and are now busily eating, stretching their beaks and ducks under the water to seek out tasty morsels under brook smoothed rock s. It is wonderful to watch how they behave in a clearly natural habitat.
One of my longings is to keep ducks and I have always thought they should have their own stretch of stream. Nicky has explained that if they don’t ha ve this they make a real mess of any other habitat.
I set off on the days journeyhappy and tranquil. That soon changes. Erwood, the nearby village proves not to be a pleasant experience. The gallery which is on the wye valley walk is pretentious and a parody of what was once the work of a visionary, who changed the small settlements Beeching destroyed train station into craft workshop for himself and a collective of local artists.
Now so called works of art, many that smack of some one having nothing better to do, rather than being divinely inspired as real art is, sit on plinths or on other precariously balanced exhibit stands in the disused railway carriages along with signs saying children must be kept under control and that damages must be paid for. Prices are around the £1500 mark. Nicky n Alistair have told me the owners come from Hay. London via Hay I suspect. The gallery, surrounded by CCTV cameras is hardly contributing to the local economy. Tourists sit drinking tea and eating homemade cakes that look nothing special. Inside I feel outrage. This place could be feeding into the local economy. It could be selling farmers produce, it could be a community centre where local young people could be encouraged to develop their creativity. It could be so many things that capture the imagination but an exclusive art galkery with long thin chains dangling between each doorway, catching on my small pack as I walk through is not doing the trick for me.
I leave ,saddened , that outsiders can come into a place with such a blatant disregard for the community they have joined, and to put what was a community asset to such poor use. Old photos on Powys county council info boards show what a lifeline this station once was to Erwood.
People would trade by means of it tells an elderly lady interviewed after it closed in the 1960s.
Further back along the disused line the wye valley walk has been put onto the road as landowners have revoked a permissive path along it. Alistair has told me the once clear line past which off comers did not usually pass, the soft grey buildings with slate roofs of the Welsh farmers showing the traditional way,has begun to blurr with more and more people moving into the west; a clear sign, to me, that things are amiss in England. Would that the incomers would leave the values they are escaping behind with them instead of bringing them with them. We don’t escapoe values we are no longer in agreement with as long as we have not done the inner work to er.adicate them from our psyches. We will carry them with us and impose them on others, however unconsciously that may be done.
I suspect many move to the country side with romantic notions not founded on the reality at all bringing with them most of the ingredients to produce a copy of what they left behind and in doing so begin to destroy tge idyll they moved to enjoy. I have seen it over and over in my life. I have moved to out of the way places for I like the quiet life and in each place after several years watched the paradise change as the wealthy, attracted by the bohemian ways that create such an inspiring creative and authentic feel to a place, buy up all they can and change the character of the thing they so wanted to be a part of through reluctance to let go of, or perhaps simple ignorance of, the values they have brought with them, the very things they seek to escape, the very things absent in a bohemians vision.
I begin to wonder if perhaps having an inordinate amount of money is either a protection against inner pain to deep to want to delve into or with such a strong association with love and security that to let go of it and the values it escrews is impossibly difficult. Either way the spread of all that doesn’t work in our society, all that damages true community, is inevitable so long as wealth is allowed to buy its way into each project that began with such vision.
Leaving Erwood is a reminder of one of my high horses. I rant to myself all the through my painful escape. Some short sighted, no dou bt money fuelled decision has created the main A road through to Buikth Wells over a mile of the original back lane. The wye valley walk directs its walkersup high, half a mile of steep incline, to cross an area of moorland to avoid the very fast road. I try this. Not far into the moor is a large bog.
I walk back down, disgruntled. I will walk the main road and woe betide any driver that incurs my wrath. Interestingly it is this burst of anger that gives me some new insight into the work I am gradually sorting in my mind about my next book. I have been puzzling for several days now about what the 13 treasures of Britain that Merlin carried to Bardsey island represent. I have four of them now:
The staff – which represents asking for support when we need it

The horn of plenty – which appeared when my visioning for what is coming next in my life included plenty for me and for others,one that fed the other

The fire brand – which represents recognising the energy of anger as a force for good when it is aimed at injustice

The whetstone – which sharpens and hones any blade, any purpose to have clarity of vision

I can see that inner qualities develop piece by piece, beginning with our own wellbeing, our own ability to ensure our livelihood, by doing something that is in service to the greater good, our energy focussed on what needs to be made right, and our purpose sharply defined. Without these elements what we do is misguided, doomed to failure , detrimental to the whole. I can see how i am going to be able to weave these elements into my next book.
I find as I walk on the grassy verge besides the monstrous road of go faster metal boxes on wheels containing disconnected humans that beneath the knee high meadow plants is a pathway. I walk deliberatately, one step at a time, making my path as I go, sometimes finding a little remnant of the stony walkway beneath. Nettles sting me but I barely feel them in the anger at the traffic that zooms past with no regard for what it drives past sending out slip streams and noise that disturbs and disrupts all it encounters.
Finally I leave the verge of glorious meadow flowers and join the next back lane. Within feet is a gurgling brook and the wild countryside is returned to me. I walk all day on the back lane to Builth. I see no one but sheep and buzzi ng insects. The views take my breath away. I think of the film they made of Lord of the rings in New Zealand, I think of the film Avatar that had some young people commuting suicide over lost paradise, and I sigh for all those who think the green and pleasant land if our fire bearers is gone, buried beneath tarmac and concrete. It is not. It is here, pushed west by alien values over centuries. Here is virgin untouched pure pristine wild British land. The oaks that I have followed all the way along this warriors way are mighty and full, unharmed and glorious. There are ash, beech,Birch, rowan,hawthorn ,yew and elder, all left to become the huge creatures they are born to be.
This landscape, this perfect beingness, this nature are the backdrop to my being able to define my next steps in the world. It takes this degree of aloneness this magnificence as mighty valleys carved by the Wye and its children amid the massive rocks and boulders the ice age left behind, the hills mountainsmoorlands that tower over the tiny farmsteads and ribbon like road far below me to be able to see clearly.
Hay has cured me of my egos desire for recognition, for fame. I have seen its wounds upon the faces of the inflicted there. The pure air of the mountains has given me my vision back.
The place of refuge I want to create shall be this thing for me and because of that it shall be that for others too. The book of this journey to that place shall have 13 chapters, shall be 13 small volumes of different colours each describing the journey to the heart. It will be sold or given at the centre I will found.
My first book I shall give away, or for donation, till they are all with people who would treasure them not languishing under tables waiting to be sold at retail price. If you would like one make me an offer, cover the postage and one shall be yours, The Tales of Our Times. They willbegone from me by the end of the year,in the spirit of abundance, so that I am free to create the next.
As I complete my walk into Builth I can see that part of the responsibility of having a place of refuge along a pilgrims route shall be ensuring the pathways either side of it remain open and safe for walkers.
I write this from my cosy caravan in the garden if my lovely host Steph who I met on Facebook when I put out a call for support. It is great to meet her and her friendly family and dog and goose.
It is great to hear her tales too. The blackbird she had to rescue from the dog when it fell from the tree because all the blackbirds from all the nearby trees called and called for her till she saw and realised what needed To be done. She has saved a young bird before and perhaps birds remember these things.
Over a delicioois Dahl and then chocolate cake I meet friends and neighbours and the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed. Steph tells me about the artwork shed like to take up when the children are grown. she did it when she was going, painting a dragon on a friends wall. It is something I ha ve always wanted to do on my wall and am inspired by her tale. Perhaps she can help me when the time comes. I have been collecting pieces of coloured pottery for several years now ready to create this creature.
I hear of the nearby inspirational arts centre, and I learn a new Welsh word so for now I will leave you with:
‘a dewi sant’
Have a good day!

 

15th June
If there is one thing to say about yesterday it has to be said that I could feel my heart. From Mellowcroft and its organically created structure so beautifully described by Kim over breakfast to arrival in the exquisite town of waterfalls; Rhayader and the subsequent walk over the mountain pass to Llangurig it becomes truly a day made in heaven
Kim explains how each thing created at Mellowcroft came about as a result of identifying how one thing could improve the use of resources another created as its so called waste product so, for example, putting a wood fired range in the tree house welcome centre where visitors can come to eat and relax, a place that started out as a meditation platform and now incorporates three beech trees in a undercover shelter meant wasted heat so that a place for visitors to wash was then created utilising that heat to warm the water. I begin to see that when we create organically according the laws of nature we benefit from everything, and waste nothing, but at the same time this makes it a challenge to work with planners because everything must be thought out ahead of time.
Eddie drops me in Rhayader. My bridge has come out whilst eating lunch and I need to visit a dentist. I wish him well with his planning meeting. In the car we have talked of the challenges of discussions with people placed in positions of authority who simply do not have the life experiences to be able to think creatively. We live now, I believe, in a society that has valued theory above practice for far too long. We talk too of the power of story to inspire and engage and of how magical it would be if the planning officer could be inspired to transform her way of interpreting the laws she has to follow. Eddie sees nothing wrong with planning laws, he has read them thoroughly. The difficulty lies in how anything can be interpreted only through the eyes of experience and how our perception widens with this.the more limited our life experience the more limited our thinking and understanding of the world.
I find that the fifth treasure is surely the tale of Eddie and finding what it is that ignites the true warrior energy within each of us. It arises naturally when in our integrity we stand up for what we feel strongly enough for, to defend what is good.
As for the sixth treasure it has to be the feeling I get when I spend time in Rhayader. It is clearly a place that opens my heart. It is a feminine place for sure, not cauldron like crone energy like totnes but chalice like maiden energy, soft gentle friendly open welcoming, and allowing of vulnerability. Here every person I smile at and say hello to either responds in kind or has already greeted me first.
I make an appointment at the dentists and have an hour and a half to explore. I am delighted. There is a growing feeling that all that I had in the end felt absent from Hay, was here in this town of waterfalls. An old man approaches me
You look lost
No, just exploring, I smile
And he gives me directions for a mini river walk I can do.

I find tears come when I reach the waterfall. It is all so beautiful it is almost painful. Although the Victorians blew up the waterfall (!!) to make stone to build the bridge the remains are still breathtaking nestling into the lime green of summer foliage. I walk for my dad, with my dad, become my dad. I learn that part of the process of coming to terms with losing a well loved parent is taking on those qualities you most admired for yourself. This journey is giving me the opportunity to integrate this as I walk the river and gaze over bridges and into the water from its banks just as he always did when he was near a river. He loved visiting churches too and going down back lanes. I am sad that he can’t be here to enjoy this too but also recognising just how much my father’s daughter I am.
The walk takes me to the site of the old castle built by and destroyed by warring princes. As I perambulate its perimeter I perceive its circular nature and know that before ever this was a fortification it was a place of sanctuary for older peoples, overlooking the waterfall it must have been a magical home.
Yet again my journey has involved a circling round in amidst the direction of my quest. The integration if my masculine and feminine components being walked into balance. I cry tears of come home by the river.
Then I go off to find the bridge. I cross it and come to a much smaller settlement whose name means place between two rivers. The river Elan was flooded in Victorian times to provide reservoirs for drinking water for Birmingham. Here I find the church, with its circular yard and yew trees, of course, and read the name of this place of worship is St Bride. Brigid, the goddess of imbolc, the beginning of spring, the feminine in the form of the maiden. No wonder the place feels so gentle and I am able to feel my vulnerability and softness here, or perhaps, no wonder this place is dedicated to the form of the feminine that it exudes, early fragile delicate first blossoming after the winter has passed…after Merlin the god of Capricorn, the embodiment of Saturn, wise elder if the winter days, comes the maiden of spring, Nimue, to claim back the light and the promise of summer. The power is handed over for another year, another cycle of 13 moons.
The dentist fixes my bridge. He is the best dentist I have met since leaving Brazil in 2005. The benefits of the town at the waterfall, as its name means, are increasing by the moment. Here I can embody the maiden aspect of my self , a part of me that doesn’t flower in Totnes. There is even an excellent mini version of our excellent Green life health food shop; Wild Swan.
A perfect ten mile lane through the mountains where i see just one car n two cyclists all day tops of a magical morning. The gorgeous wye side walk far surpassing the wye valley walk for being close to the water, a fishermans paradise.
I find a deserted farm and then a small house for sale beside it and wonder if here, just three miles south of Llangurig,I have found my respite centre. Land for rent is just down the lane from it.
I arrive in Llangurig at 5pm. The idyllic car free road has got me to my destination far quicker than I usually reckon on completing a ten mile stretch.
I check it into the Bluebell inn and eat a delicious very reasonably priced supper. Devon prices I am remembering are super inflated to cater for all the Londoners that find their way west. Here in Wales prices reflect the normal everyday person without hugely inflated salaries.
I am up early this morning for my longest walk of the journey so far…up into Plimlimon where the sources of three rivers are. I won’t make it to the trickle of the Wye’s birthplace, the distance to there and then to accommodation is too great for me at my pace but I will be just a few miles east of it in the Hafren forest where my eco farm bnb is.
Wish me luck!

 

14th June
There couldn’t be a better place from which to write about restorative places than my chalet at Mellowcroft.
I sit in my comfortable double bed with a view of a rather splendid Welsh dragon on a perch outside one window, carved by an Eisteddffodd winning artist and woodland filled with singing birds on the other. Beyond the little wood the inevitable sheep baa.
Mellowcroft is an oasis in the centre of endless sheep farms. I have been frightened away from one such farm on my walk here by angry dog barking made even more terrifying by an angry farmer shouting, to walk the verge of the main road for the last three miles of my walk too scared to continue my amble through quiet country lanes if it means walking through the farm that straddles the lane and has spilt out across it. Such a blatant overstepping of public space meets no objection in these lands, nor apparently does keeping a territorial dog that can get out to chase passers by, but if you create a sustainable natural holistic retreat centre where any in need of respite can come and be members for just £10 a year, then in Powys at least that is sufficient to be served an enforcement order to bull doze down your wooden bridges over ditches, and perfectly beautifully formed wooden structures where people, as I , can spend a night.
There is nothing wrong with the environment of Mellowcroft which has been going for nine years, from its restored drainage ditches to its track everything here has been done to restore the small holding that once stood here. It has the support of the local community and the farmers, and has given one field of its 12 acres up to community allotments. One local farmer who helped Eddie, the dynamic, charismatic, sincere custodian of this land to raise the roof of the classroom space, has a real connection to this place. When it was still a farm it belonged to his grandparents.
The classroom space would be better called temple, shrine or church. It has tiny stain glass windows from the Yemen, a delightful carved wooden stairway leading to its round space and a false back wall that when Eddie was creating this chapel to life, singlehandedly building an act of worship for the beauty and symmetry of all that is right, he thought of wheelchair access but the divine was at work and the wonderful drawbridge of a wall weighted by two great boulders wrapped in rope swings down to provide an open air stage for performance or a woodland wall for what is happening within the classroom, be it local tai chi lessons or workshops of all kinds, even weddings have taken place here.
When an event such as this occurs guests take advantage of all the local infrastructure staying in local hotels and guest houses and eating in the nearby village, reviving the local economy.
Beside the classroom is a perfectly aligned teaching tool; a 13 stone calendar of the 13 times a full moon appears in our night skies each year.
Behind Mellowcroft stand what Eddie describes as Joe Botton’s rocks. Here are some of the ancient formations he and Lucy have been telling me about, the ones where all the fossils of the international importance are being found and identified. Joe and Lucy left academia though they are PhD doctors for they realised that they will never be able to do the research that they know is of international import in a university setting because there the professors are required to teach and do so much beaurocracy their own work has no hours left in the day. I know this work of academia, my ex partner was such a person, having already spent years researching his book whilst attempting and succeeding in making the course he ran financially viable, only to be made redundant, has still not published.
It is wonderful to meet the likes of Joe and Lucy, who are doing the work they believe in and have let go of the prevalent belief system that keeps so many of our most brilliant minds locked into a system that prevents them from exploring the areas they are passionate about.
On the rocks above Mellowcroft once stood a settlement; these are ancient lands indeed. In more recent times this region of Wales was dotted with smallholdings and farms. People began to abandon them when they couldn’t make money, heading east, seduced Dick Whittington like, to the streets of cities.
Now that the move back to the land is a clearly marked trend it is heartbreaking that pioneers like Eddie, who still lives in his motorhome with wife Kim and little daughter Ellie, paying council tax for it, whilst he develops his land to be viable, are threatened with the destruction of all they worked for, put all of their money into, and all that of beauty that has come into being through their stewardship of the land.
I am inspired by the parenting skills I am witnessing on this my journey, both Eddie and Kim, and visiting volunteers James and Nicky take care of their pre school age children in exemplary fashion. Healthy boundaries, kind and loving teaching lots of love and cuddles, real communication the like of which was rarely if ever seen when I was growing up. Here are the people of the future, transition folk, the ones who live their integrity knowing the system we live within is out dated and unhealthy they are prepared to strike out and live life the way they know to be intrinsically right.
Eddie grew up in a care home, travelled the world over from St Tropez to the States in search of himself, learning his skills doing every type of work, including being the butler of a wealthy man, to finally renovate an old house sell it and make the money that was to be put into renovating another derelict building, making it habitable and beautiful once more when he drive past a for sale sign on a Welsh road through the middle of nowhere and fell in love with the abandoned smallholding that has become Mellowcroft. For the first time in his life he has found home. His family came to him by Kim attending a Shamans circle held here, and staying. Then along came Ellie and Eddie now had a family too.
The story is one of those feel good tales of timeless quality we all know to be right. This is how life should unfold as we face the challenges life presents us with as a child and find our way through it to our full selves and then with our hard work following our bliss we can watch the magic of life flow along side us.
There is a reason I am here, visiting this visionary who admits the challenge of having all of this that he has created through his own belief in what is integrally right threatened with destruction and being branded criminal has brought out the warrior energy in him, three people asked me to come, off route, to hear his story, to help publicise his cause, share his story and support the projects continuation. Partly because this is exactly the kind of place I sincerely hoped existed along this pilgrims way I am creating as I walk, partly because my skill as a storyteller must be put to use in service of all that I believe is good and right in the world, to provide those places where those in need of respite can begin to access their purpose in life, is for me quite possibly one the most important functions anyone who has land can be offering, more than food do we need to be able to reconnect with our reason for being here.then we shan’t need the patriarchal system of large scale farming and supermarkets to feed us, we will grow our own food and feed ourselves just as people always did before our land was taken from us.
Our evening of storytelling continues when the children are tucked up in bed and the adults can unwind and take a little space for themselves. As well as the tale of Mellowcroft and its challenge, which you can help support by signing their petition and or writing letters of support, I also hear from transition Bristol as volunteer James has been very involved; helping set up community assisted agriculture. He talks about their very inspirational local currency that was modelled on the totnes pound but then wen t so much further, so that council tax can be paid with it, and payments be made by mobile phone, so much so that it inspired Totnes to go digital too.
It is interesting that in these times of innovative change bureaucratic systems can be so out of step that they can actually work against land based projects. Mellowcroft though have a sound strategy; they have asked for a public inquiry that will be streamed live on the internet. Look out for it in October.
In Llanrindod there are some folkloric characters called the Llandogos. They are apparently a modern tale, developed by a local sculptor and dotted about the town to be followed on a numbered trail. The one that catches my attention is down by the Victorian boating pool. He is a creature that could have come straight from the pages of Lord of the Rings, holding a large book in his hands. Lucy and Joe tell me a series of storybooks exist too. I ask if the figures are eco conscious and Lucy replies that their values and the exploits are in harmony with nature.
The same could be said for my wonderful hosts, both in Llanrindod and in nearby Mellowcroft. Joe makes tea from fresh birch leaves that really is most refreshing and when its time for me to walk on he goes to the garden to pick a handful of assorted leaves and herbs for my sandwich. I recognise dandelion thyme and rosemary but the others are all the sorts of things only an excellent forager like Joe would know. The bap is delicious.
We set off across the town to pay Nick the sharpening expert from the previous days repair cafe a visit. He has built a passiv haus based on Permaculture principles. The other Nick, who runs a Shakespearean theatre built out of willow and based on the Globe theatre is there too. He is about to go and perform there and I wish I had several lives to be able to go and visit several things a day. If you are curious you can check out the Willow Globe at www.Shakespeare link.co.uk.
We go and explore the passive house. It feels different from other houses. It is completely insulated and so though it is a large house it needs only one wood burner in the lounge to heat the whole building to 23 degrees in winter. Properly insulated and aerated homes have no draughts, are practically sound proof, or so it seems, and are comfortable to be in in a way that us hard to define.
This house has a sheilas maid at the top of the stairs where all the clothes drying can happen and indoors if need be and dries perfectly without the need for heat because of the even distribution of air. Clothes can also be dried on the tropical south facing balcony beside the indoor greenhouse area where banana plants can thrive.
In the kitchen is a pantry where Nick says he made a mistake so that although the room is cooler than the rest of the house it isn’t as cool as a fridge but he learnt afterwards it could have been had he used fridge parts to generate cold air. In the attic of the bungalow that has been completely retro fitted is the brain of the passive has; a mass of tubes leading from the central air controlling box which regulates temperature by recycling the warm air that comes back through it from warmer parts of the house to heat cooler air coming in from other parts of the house. Sufficient roof space and under floor room is required to make a passiv haus work as the several inches wide tubing has to snake around from room to room.
Outside the house, where Nicks wife gives shiatsu treatnent and tgey hold meditation sessions, is a Permaculture garden that was designed alongside the house so that all of the unused building rubble was reused to landscape the garden turning an unproductive north facing slope into a flat forest garden. The land which is quite wet has a pond on it into which a newt moved on the first day.
The elegance of Permaculture is that it is a design process that works with nature to produce the best possible return for all areas of a garden and this case a house too. Land is observed for a period of twelve months so that such things as knowing where the sun is at all times of the year can be utilised in where certain plants are put to where to situate a particular part of a garden, to where to put glass in a house to capture most heat.
All in all it is plain to see that when we begin to use our creativity alongside our skills and knowledge we can construct buildings that are elegant and efficient and with a sacred quality, as with the classroom at Mellowcroft. Good management of land comes too from applying these same principles and questions some of the practices that we call traditional, such as having sheep on land to the extent that it becomes overgrazed. Thistles growing on a field are a good indicator that it has been over used.
Time and time again my experiences teach me that when a system becomes entrenched, when a good idea becomes the norm then things will start to go awry. The quality of observation and responding to present time changes and challenges are surely the principles on which we should be basing our actions if we are to remain sustainable and resilient and preserve some quality of life for the future.