FOREST FAIRIES OF MANALI
Himachal Pradesh, India 2015
The grey road ends where the rush of water begins.
A lone cow grazes blissfully beside a sign, its rusty letters read: ‘Manali National Park…Permit required’.
50 foot above, a tiny path between overgrown bushes appears. This is the point where the ascent begins. The hill is steep making it difficult to remain on just your feet, whilst thorn bushes and dew coated flowers slowly unfold.
Manali is famous for its apples that grow abundantly in the green, Himachal Pradesh region of India at an altitude of less than 3,000 meters above sea level in the very midst of the rainclouds.
Once on the path, the sound of silence is everywhere as you walk through swirls of mist. Vivid greenery presents a feast for the eyes.
Now the forest begins to open its belly with the air filing up with cries of crickets, flies, buzzing, hissing, flowing, chattering of all living beings you never knew existed.
Smell the air.
The stones are hard, but yet smooth under rubber soles. Branches bend above the path at around neck height so that you will duck.
Everything is sweet. Like grandma’s wild garden flower arrangements heated by the sun which pours through the dining room window.
Then suddenly, a temperature change. As clear as day becomes night; a slice of one dimension into the next. A five degree ascent moves you from cool, damp vapour into warm, dry air and the land of fairies make themselves known.
Senses heighten as if on virtual dope.
The dimension so radically contrasts to the one just stepped out of that a feeling of bliss, relaxation, curiosity will take you over, and your inner child will awaken in this forest playground.
Although the path is narrow with only a cliff drop and ‘woosh’ of river water to remind you to pay attention, a clearing will appear as a rock-like table top. I meditate close to its edge.
Twenty minutes; eye open, and for the first time I see a giant tree ahead; its body blossoming from within the earth; its bark and spindles shooting out to caress the sky.
Fellow trees give clear precedence to her; for she is the Queen of this land and makes it known to all.
Stare wondrously out to her, appealing to her majesty; her love; her power. She stands gracefully and emits welcoming love in all directions. I am fixated.
After 30 minutes more; I leave.
You won’t know how long you have been walking and touching and breathing it all, I didn’t, but you will hear the water closely now. It trickles softly, a new frequency to the sounds before; this time a mountain waterfall.
Bound towards the pond and throw off your shoes. The cool Himalayan collective water droplets kiss your feet as you cleanse your soul. Fairies dance like crazy in this place. Find a rock, lie back, and observe the life force around you, yet again.
MYSTERIES OF A WESTERN WOODLAND
South Island, New Zealand, 2018
In Japan they call healing with fest therapy ‘shinrin-yoku’.
But I’ve been walking through forests barefoot and tree hugging just because it feels ‘normal’. Lol. My feet tingle for days as the energy from Earth flows into me.
When I enter a forest everything internally changes. I feel a ‘plug-in’ occur that begins rebooting me. I feel fulfilled immediately, no matter what is occurring externally in my incarnational life. I remember in a way that surpasses ‘mind’ and moves into ‘heart’.
Remembering like that is not logical. It goes beyond the intangible and enters the realm of eternal. Like the cells that come alive within…with a knowing and wisdom of billions of years.
But I’ve been walking through forests barefoot and tree hugging just because it feels ‘normal’. Lol. My feet tingle for days as the energy from Earth flows into me.
When I was little my mum told me I would come home bruised from climbing trees. I don’t remember falling, only climbing to the tallest branch to feel a little closer to home.
When I see a tree today I was to touch it immediately. I want to talk to it and tell it how much I love it and show it my gratitude. I want so much to know it; that it know me. I can’t describe feelings much other than that of true freedom when I hug its trunk. I feel its weight; its wisdom; its patience and love for the earth.
What timeless beings.
A tree is precious. Not because of what it does for the atmosphere. Because it has seen many things in wholeness that a human can only theorise about. If we listen to trees by just sitting under them, we would understand subtler things about the nature of life; the planet; ourselves.
The energy a tree gives and receives is immense. Ceders let off frequency before they die that heals the planet and redwoods grow like giants. There is so much magic and majesty in a tree; so much knowing and stability.
I remember becoming a star but never a tree. I wonder why I connect to them so much.
SASQUATCH OF DIEPWALLE
Knysna Forest, South Africa, 2018
I drive fast along the highway. I’m heading into the forests of Knysna, the place their great grandfather’s sawed and dragged giant logs from hundred year old yellowwood trees we will never see today, inch by inch across the elephant trodden muddy forest floors with an ox.
Cold, damp, mosquito ridden, the forests were still all these poor whites and coloured woodcutters knew. I arrive after an hour cutting deep into the green, tall thicket, and begin my walk; “No-one will be with you?” I recall her say at the information desk, “Are you sure?” How could I not be?
Alone is the best…miles of forest paths clear for just me and the animals. The moment I feel the thicket close in on me things begin to draw into slow-motion. The air swirls around me, shaking the tallest branches making a thunderous sound.
“My name is Ti-Dha, Cool Water, A’daRae, whatever you want to call me. Thanks for allowing me to me you all here. Thank you for opening yourself to me. I am ready to learn.” The warmth in the air signifies the energy hears and accepts me. It tells me its happy I came, it will answer what it can for me.
And so I begin; an open line with the elementals and invisible beings of nature surrounding me. The forest talks to my higher self immediately. The forest talks to my higher self immediately, I pass on messages back, whilst touching each tree I pass and balancing on logs and rocks as I cross trickling streams.
There are monkey’s mountain cats, badgers and a single remaining bull elephant they say is a race of its own, indigenous to the forests of Knysna after the logging. “Maybe” she tells me, in inverted commas. That probably means sightings are rare.
Having gone no further than a kilometre deep, feeling at home as ever in these wooden sanctuaries, I see an uprooted trees bearing a cosy den beneath its roots. For reasons I cannot explain I squat down and look inside. To my astonishment I see a glowing copper-gold liquid wrapped root. Its tiny, you would never notice it till you peer in, and yet its clearly glowing like a metal transistor, as if someone had dipped it into a pot of liquid gold.
Another same thing on the right. And then further inside a whole mound. At first the tree appear fixed in colour but then I notice the mounded one slightly pulsing and dully in glow. I can’t imagine what is making this happen. Is there a reflective natural mineral a tree produces coated on these two roots and a stub behind?
I take the red feather I found on the forest floor at the start of my trail, a gift from the forest, and lightly touch the gold-copper glow on the first root. Like magic the colour dulls and then vanishes. I am on my hands and knees, peering in the the bark at this point, my lenses, non being macros, strewn along the forest floor. The monkeys are probably laughing their asses off at me.
I can’t see a trace of gold-copper anywhere. I look at the other root, that too dulls and fades. I can’t believe it. I’ve chased it away. I’m feeling so sorry and a the same time so enamoured at this gold-root situation and wondering if anyone else has ever seen anything like it. The mound is still glowing like crazy. This time pulsing on and off. As it pulses the inside of the tree bark even lights up. Its undeniable.
I finally get the correct lens on a move closer in. So focussed on getting the final glow, I sense an enormous presence just behind the log. Its appeared whilst I have been deeply focussed, now that my heart has opened in glee the way it does after moments in a forest alone. As I raise my head a branch snaps meters away from me. I look up expecting to see the elephant. Nothing. Then a noise like a bird or monkey screeching. But I haven’t seen a single ape here. I’m feeling a deep warmth and love, and yet I don’t understand where the noise has come from. I am waiting to see a bird, a beast. The feeling passes as the energy moves on.
I had no idea that the large, square footed tracks I would inspect along the ten kilometre path, belonged to what we call a Bigfoot, or Sasquatch; and likely the very same one watching me watching the trunk that day.
