on the wander

The new year has been shoved along by ferocious winds, which, for a few days at least, have relented enough to make it OK to walk around and absorb what's going on. It's very mild, too, although damp. I've taken the opportunity to look out for a new wild-site to use as a base.

Wandering around the fellsides within striking distance of home, I'm aware how much erosion and chaos the winter weather has been causing. Chaos triumphing over order. Everything in a state of entropy. I quite like that. It's reassuring to note that for all our technological powers, they are as nothing to the forces of natural physics, at any scale. Fungii, mosses and lichens colonise our buildings, gripping the contours of eroded ridges. Winds blast and howl around the corners and under the eaves. They flog to destruction anything loose. Rain and snow is forced into the smallest crack and crevass.  We would do well not to ignore such things. We should be mindful of natural forces all of the time, even when, as now, they whisper to us rather than shout.

I guess this watchfullness is the main motivation for wanting to revive a wild-base. After quite a short while in a natural environment, I can start to feel an attachment. The area around me begins to communicate. I sense a full range of experiences and emotions, although the originhal stimulii may be inexplicable. Sometimes I sense there's a flow that I can be part of; sometimes not. Today I felt like dancing, but didn't.