Learning to listen

There is pleasure in the pathless woods
there is rapture in the lonely shore
there is society where none intrudes
by the deep sea, and music in its roar
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

~Lord Byron

I’m just emerging from ten days alone in the Highlands of Scotland - eight of them spent in a little cabin up in the hills - and am feeling utterly soul-full.

Being alone is about as far from lonely as I can imagine being. The abundance and richness of connections and relationships forged when stepping away from human company is infinite. And this time has been abundant in its unfoldings. I’ve had the deep honour to be in the presence of sea eagles, whales, dolphin, seal, wild otters, badger, fox, vole, mice and an abundance of other more-than-human beings. I shared a cabin with a swarm of bees, who had nestled into the woodwork, and woke each morning to the sound of a shrew running across the roof and the sight of swifts circling the air above.

Yet the moment spent with a golden eagle circling above me as I sipped my morning coffee remains a moment etched into the contours of my soul.

“There is a place in the soul that neither time nor space nor no created thing can touch.”

Whilst exploring the beauty of this wild land, I’ve also been learning to ‘be’ – learning to create more space and stillness in myself in order to better listen to the world beyond the sound of human voices.

Across the world, many indigenous cultures will go into nature when they have a question to reflect upon, and I can vouch for the endless voices waiting to be heard when we give ourselves the space and time to listen.

Listening away from the human voice takes on a different quality: it is listening with the soul, with our deeper, more intuitive sense and with the qualities within us that are awoken when in the presence of beauty.  The wild, raw, bleak, majestic beauty of Sallacy, near the the Isle of Skye (where I’ve been staying) has a particular type of beauty that speaks to something timeless, primal even, something far beyond the bounds of our current civilisation.

As I re-emerge into the world and the challenges and opportunities of our current lives, I feel immense gratitude for the strength, wisdom and gentleness that I’ve been gifted during this time and carry this lightness and energy with me, ready to journey along the next stage of the road ahead.

#regeneration #rewilding #natureconnection #soulfood #scotland