The other day (before my second hospital stay) I went into a nearby forest. I had bought this new Native American flute and it needed to be ‘cleansed’ with sage smoke before the first play. The guy I bought the flute from described the ritual in great detail and even provided the ‘stuff’ that needed to be burnt to cleanse the flute and me. As I am not a massive fan of anything that smokes, so I thought that I will perform this ritual n the forest, just as it was described in the story the guy had send me.

I took everything I needed and put it in a bag and drove to the nearest car parking area. Then I walked down a path. In my mind I needed to find a secluded spot, because I wanted to be totally alone and have enough quiet time. In order to do find such a place I needed to come of the path. I started climbing up a slight slope into the forest. There was no path, but I didn’t mind. It was kind of exciting. After a while I found a fallen tree. This was perfect as I could sit on it and hide behind the roots. I started to collect some stones to make a circle, as you can see in the above picture. Then I put the heart shaped fire prove dish in the middle and lit the ‘stuff’. When it began to smoke I cleansed the flute and then me. After a while I sat back down, closed my eyes and began to play the flute.

This was almost magical. Absolute silence, just the wind and my flute. When I opened my eyes there were two stags standing about 20 metres away from me, just looking at me. I felt really happy at that moment, as they knew I meant them no harm and they were my first audience:-) I carried on playing for a bit and then I just sat there. Those stags did not move until I was packing up my bits and pieces. They didn’t really run away the sort of walked off. It was as if they were watching over me.

I know some people might think this is crazy. A ‘relatively’ young woman sitting in the middle of a forest by herself. They might even think it is dangerous, but to me it felt great. I felt free, open and calm. I have never had a feeling like this before.

At the moment pain is stopping me from driving but I am really looking forward to going to the forest again. Being outside and in touch with nature can sometimes be a great healer and better than any medicine you can take.