Notes from the past

A sunset seen through tree branches

Yesterday I found a notebook in a bag I haven’t used for months. I flicked through the lists of jobs, shopping and things to remember, familiar content which could found in any of my notebooks. In between these records of daily life I found notes of a couple of interesting meetings, and two quotes from books that I loved.  But it was the final entry that really caught my attention. A few paragraphs of words that I have no memory of writing. They felt like an instruction from ‘past me’ to my present self.

I was surprised by the assertive confidence of the words, different from the tone I use when I’m working with groups. In my work I frame everything as an invitation, an enticement, an opportunity to try something. These words were bossy. They insist that certain outcomes are guaranteed, something I would never normally do, because I don’t think it’s my job to tell someone how to feel.

Anyway I decided to believe my own words, and last night I went to the woods with a flask of tea and a mat.  I had the loveliest time. Sometimes you need someone to snap you out of your rut and ‘say it like it is.’

Here is an unedited transcript of my notes, in case you’re curious. Let me know how it lands!

“Spend enough time alone and still in a forest and you will notice something that appears to be a gift, left there solely for you to notice. It will speak only to you, possibly in a way that you can not fully understand. Wordless. Insistent.

You will notice it and in an instant all your senses will go into 100% ‘receiver mode.’

It will settle inside you somewhere.

A clump of damp leaves has fallen and caught on the hooked end of the lowest twig. A weight of uncertain measure hanging. Motionless. Lifeless.

I don’t believe anyone else has sat here and received their electricity in this way before. I am the first. Probably the last because in the next wind they will fall. I don’t know what it means.”