Quietly alone I am once again in a wild place...

...under big skies and wide horizons...

Sitting still among the gently stirring moor grass and thick heather...                                                         

Watching, listening and becoming at one with it all...

Most folk don’t want to try and explore, let alone comprehend such depth of meaning within such simplicity as an act as this. The value is to experience through the most personal of relationships the collective sum of the moors vastness; from the smallest sundew to the infinite sky above and how this experience transforms you from merely being a spectator to a participant.

On an earthly scale, for the briefest of moments (be it a few hours or if you are very lucky a few days) in your life, you embody the moor; you become the moor both physically and spiritually. Physically the moor soaks and stains through your boots, clothes and skin which then takes on the tweed toned hues of moss, peat and heather as you walk, stumble and fall as you travel through the moor. The same process occurs to your very being. The longer you experience it, the more embodied you become. Previously important values and thoughts from the non-moor world (city and town thoughts of modern life...) become increasingly non-relevant expedientially with your length of time in the moor. This process is partly acclimatization to a new environment, partly a recreational activity and wholly a mystical transformative experience as new values and thoughts...replace the old.

If any of these values and thoughts can be stored (embodied like the moor) and return with you to the non moor world, then they become more than just your rescue, your lifeboat in a crazy world, but your inspiration, motivation and dreams...May you dream as sweetly as I...

The Moor...

"The Moor" needs no introduction, almost everybody body knows of it or has driven or rode in a train across it's western and eastern edges; but few actually befriend it. It's not an easy place to befriend nor is it as difficult as the mythology that envelopes it suggests. This mythological place; a vast expanse of flat impassable, windswept, unforgiving,  featureless, peat smothered moor of infinite depth complete with the remains of poor travelers unfortunate enough to fall foul of it's darkness , covered in small lochans,rivers, thousands of deer...ghost's, strange lights, and things that go bump in the dark... Like all good myths there's elements of truth in them and a lesson to learn or warning to give. This myth is no different. The Moor is all of these and more. For me, so much more...

 

The Moor projects no more darkness inside a brave or foolhardy travelers mind than those fears in themselves and once those fears are faced, and precautions prepared; the moor liberates a journey from merely traveling to a destination to a transcandencing experience in it's own right.

The land is a watershed with the tributaries of the Etive feeding the Atlantic in the West and tributaries of the Tay feeding the North Sea in the East. If you look closely enough and walk through the moor long enough (for you cross rivers and oceans, but traveling in moors can only be described as by traveling through them! Why? Only by those who have done such a journey know for you cannot cross the floating wet depths of a sphagnum bog, you can only go through it!) you will find solid foundations from an ancient time on which to create your own path, for your own journey...enjoy! I hope you enjoy part of mine.