The chalk downlands offer scant shelter. The wind tears across them, up hill and down dale, buffeting the traveller. Rain drives and penetrates, the sparse thorn bushes providing no respite. On a warm bright day the heat shimmers and reflects from arid chalk, highlighting the lack of water in these parts. When the snow comes, a frigid white blanket extends, the powder filling every rut and crevice to create a sculpural smoothness.
Today the wind took centre stage. Indeed it played almost every part, major and minor. It flung leaves and flattened bleak grass, pulled at my clothes and created chaos amidst Brena's thick mane.
Four layers on top kept me warm, and I wore thermal leggings for the first time this autumn. That made for a cozy ride, physically at least. Emotionally I have much to consider, taking yesterday''s news into account. I felt quite alone, other than for a good mare of course. However alone is what I needed that I could have the space to think.
I feel sad and disturbed. The death of an ex-partner truly liberates strange emotions. Kelli and I became estranged, yet we were linked by the most intimate bond. Such a bond cannot be undone at every level, only diminished. But why be sad? She chose her road. I did my best to sustain her – and she rejected that which I had tried to provide.
I gave my best and tried to do what was right for her. If I had not the wisdom or resources to provide for her, that was not my fault. If she walked away from me just because I was imperfect, that is a judgement on her alone. Who is perfect? We could have flourished, but she chose another way.
On a ridge overlooking the Thames valley I gazed into a hidden fold of the hills. Here is a fragment of the ancient downlands, rough grass and stunted bushes: the land as it existed for a couple of thousand years. Perhaps it was wooded once, only for the Celts to fell, slash and burn for pasture?
This is my homeland: the rural Britain where Celt and Roman and Saxon trod. As Edward Thomas put it nicely, these are trails set upon the dreams of men. I travel upon the places where they dreamed imagining their passage and dreaming my dreams. I am just the latest traveller.
If I joined with a Native American who had stumbled into Transylvania, is it any wonder that she, being spiritually grounded, felt out of place there?
The wonder is that I did feel at home there for so long. I was comfortable until the hardness of life and my discovery of the true history of that place became repellant. Even so I was functioning at a higher level, somewhere between heart and intellect. Here, amidst my beloved hills, attraction wells up from my unconscious. Archetypes drive me, my connection to the breadth of humanity. Disturbingly I wonder whether it was my Shadow that attracted me to Romania. I found none of Jung's Archetypes constructively displayed there save for the occasional wise old monk.
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