My heart lies in the forest a beautiful green, dark forest, it’s where I feel most settled, re-connected and sometimes I just have to go and find me a forest or wood and walk and ground myself It’s made all the better if it has water running through it
When I die its where I want to be buried and go back to the earth.
Where does your heart call you, you know that overwhelming urge to re-connect?
Dh has a call to the sea and sometimes just has to go, just to watch the sea for a bit, recharge and feel better. There is a beautiful song called La Push by New Model Army that has the lyrics;
Bury my heart deep in the forest
Perish my body in the cold, cold water
And bless what is left, bless what is left of the tribe.
The top of the hill overlooking the sea in a place in Cornwall that we go to for holidays. Nowhere else gets to me quite like there. Unfortunately it’s 300 miles away from where we live so its a rare experience. I’m trying to find somewhere more local as I also live by the sea…but just any old view won’t do I’m afraid…it has to be THAT one. It grabs me by the heart every time I’m up there.
There’s a place on the moors where we live, an ancient longbarrow site. All that is left of the site now is a tumble of large slabs of stone. It lies on top of a hill in a field of heather and in summer the whole place is a huge swathe of purple, and beyond the heather is long waving grass. When you sit down amongst the heather all you can see is the purple and the sky, it could be any time in history (apart from the odd plane!) and the sound of the skylarks and the bees and the scent of that heather is absolute bliss My DH is called to the sea too
What a lovely post sarie, I’m a forest person too.
There is a gorgeous place near us called Hard Castle Craggs in Hebdenbridge and its my most favourite place in the world…....forest, river, hills….....perfect
Both me & dh are drawn to water, particularly the sea, hence why we moved a 30 second walk to the sea front on the east coast last September We always said we would move to the coast when we retired, but when the opportunity came up to do it 30 years earlier, well we couldn’t say no could we? I had a ride on my new to me bike yesterday by the sea with the kids. The kids couldn’t stop laughing as they’ve never seen mo on a bike before.
urban gardens. I love the whole deal of people taking what they have and making it into something amazing, taking back the land and using it to sustain themselves and their communities. I think there is nothing more beautiful than a community allotment.
( I think DP is just called to anywhere with proper coffee, tbh)
Mountains. We were driving through Wales last summer on the way to CAT, near Machynlleth, and it literally took my breath away! However any hills, or mountains do it a bit for me. Woods are a close second. Wooded hill/mountain would be perfect!!
The moorlands. Everytime I go back to Yorkshire, even when its for such sad occurances, the moorland never fails to take my breath away. which is one of the reasons why I love the New Forest too, because it does have moorland…and oh my gosh, Dartmoor was spectacular… even if the huge drops and cliffs did make me feel very,v ery queasy.
But saying that I do yearn for the sea too, and feel very lucky to live so close to it. My only bugbear with Folketones is that the beaches aren’t natural anymore, the sandy beach, is manmade, and because of the sea defences, the pebble beaches aren’t really natural anymore either - they are heavily shored up with shingle/pebbles. If I didn’t find it so hard to walk on the pebble beach it would be my preference to the Sandy beach, because at least there are rock pools to explore.
And this summer for the first time (assuming ti warms up a bit, to warm the sea lol), I might actually get to go in properly, as Rye is no longer afraid of the water, be rather cool if I could teach him to swim in the sea! (cheaper than teh swimming pool too!)
And this summer for the first time (assuming ti warms up a bit, to warm the sea lol), I might actually get to go in properly, as Rye is no longer afraid of the water, be rather cool if I could teach him to swim in the sea! (cheaper than teh swimming pool too!)
Oh how lovely would that be. It costs us £14 for the four of us to go swimming - not a possibility right now so we haven’t gone in months.
For me it is an estuary, miles of smooth mud flats, the water coming and going with the tides. A grassy bank to sit on, a rock to lean against and watch life happening, the birds feeding out on the mud, the call of curlews. Bliss. Even better if i have a canoe pulled up beside me to explore in and a campfire on the shingle
Thanks for this Sarie, I’ve been feeling disconected all morning, and just thinking about it has made me feel better.
For me it’s anywhere wild or open really. I was reading through all your post and with every new landscape I thought ’ Oh yes, I love that’. But I feel particularly drawn to the woods, with large trees, pine trees are the best although I love huge oaks as well. I grew up in a wooded area with a garden that was half forest, going for walks in the woods pretty much every weekend, then hiking lots with the guides and scouts. That area is home. I would love, love to have a house where there are big trees close by. Here the trees are across the road, so I can see them, but they’re too far to hear and smell. And the fruit trees in the garden are too small to satisfy this need. But other parts of the world have become ‘home’ as well, through intense experiences of being there. The mountains in California, the coast in Holland - particularly a bit where we used to go on holiday year after year where there’s a silted up river, really an estuary… I love the New Forest where we used to live, love the coast in Devon and Cornwall with the coastal paths, cliffs and little coves, the mountains in Wales, in Scotland. I think it’s all the places where I have walked, where my feet have touched the ground, where I’ve breathed the air, heard the birds and the wind, where my eyes have rested on the waves looking for seals or dolphins, or crabs in the rockpools, where I’ve become part of the landscape, like the dandelions and the blackbirds.
Thinking about this makes me want to go out, to the places where there are no people (or few), where I can rest my eyes on the landscape without seeing manmade things. Not so easy to find in Kent… pretty though it is.
Thank you for starting this thread Sarie. I love questions like this, that make you stop and think and re-evaluate life among the mundane and the obvious.
The sea for me too….its so huge and powerfull it puts things in perspective…however big a personal problem seems it pales into insignificance when I watch waves crashing. I prefer rocky beaches in bad weather! And I love beaches after a storm, covered in seaweed. And the smell and the noise. Im trying to think of somewhere in particular but can come up with anywhere right now. I live about as far away from the coast as is possible in the UK and have a degree in marine biology and oceanography! One day, one day…..for now woods are also grounding and luckily there are some nice ones near me and big enough for me to find a spot on my own, thats why allotments dont quite do it for me…I like being on my own in nature to feel really connected and cant quite relax with other people around.
Lovely thread. Thankyou. Will go and dream about planned trip to the Gower in July!
Community spaces for me too. The community allotment is one, camping with friends is another, staying on a friend’s commune is the best. I’m also drawn to wild swimming in a big way.
It’s made all the better if it has water running through it 
