Itchy feet

I’m late. I should have left ages ago. There’s just one problem… I don’t know where I need to be. And it’s a weird feeling. Something is nagging at me, I have the distinct feeling I need to be somewhere and I don’t have a ruddy clue where that might be or why. And I don’t like it.

It could, of course, be a reaction to all the gallivanting I’ve been doing lately… but really, I’ve only been home again since Monday, and I have another couple of trips planned, including a few days in North Yorkshire shortly… when, with luck, the entire landscape will be a glorious mist of purple heather… Not that it was planned for that, of course… and the moors are glorious anytime.. . but August usually sees the heather there at its incredible best.

The plan is to continue our investigations down this convoluted path of discovery we are dancing along. That there is a micro brewery in the garden of the place we are staying has nothing to do with it…

It seems to be a side effect from the work we have been doing in the landscape. There is a deep connection that has always been there, and an opening of what you might call the visual and receptive imagination. The places we go tell stories if you listen , and once those inner ears have attuned then it seems as if the stories just keep coming.

They tell tales of history and myth, of legend and landscape, of people who shared the same aspirations, the same emotions and who are both unreal and familiar.

It is simply a case of letting go of the conscious activity of the mind, turning down the constant inner chatter and opening up to the memories and myths of the landscape… just being there, fully present, in no particular ‘now’… accepting that time is not linear, but fluid, just as presence is not a fixed point but a wide and malleable state of being.

But today I just have this vague but insistent feeling. So, I have wasted the entire morning in restlessness. Chomping at an invisible bit, waiting for inspiration.

I put the camera on charge and cleared its tired memory, looked at maps, went through photos… nothing.

Then, finally, a message in the inbox… with direction and purpose and point.

So, I’m going to try and photograph an ancient mystery and sit on the steps of a crumbling village cross before which binding oaths were once sworn and listen to the story the place may tell…..