Take a seat

 

Don't ask me. I've no idea as to the hows or whys.

Weird Stuff

Walking off the path as I do, I regularly stumble across weird stuff in the forest or when out and about. Things that must have made sense to the folk which constructed them, though I can't fathom. Take this 'thing', a circle of cut branches all of a similar guage, firmly pushed into the ground, one round of para cord tied around them, with conifer trigs (I don't know if they where green when placed) forming a cover...nothing inside (on cursory inspection, I don't like to disturb too much in case it's something ritual). What's that about?  Most peculiar.

Broken Britain

The governments program of local authority cut backs are really starting to bite, though the parks and leisure department continue to do their best to provide for the community. Broken Britain. 

The 'terracotta' hedge defender

Not as grand in scale or in numbers as his Chinese namesake, still, Terry the 'terracotta' hedge defender stands proud. Terracotta is shown in quotation marks as the warrior, or more accurately a broken half a warrior, is not terracotta at all, rather cheesy fibreglass type stuff.  Terry's just another example of the weird stuff you find in the hedges and fields down the lanes. 

What?

No, not the 'sword in the stone', but a knife in a tree. Just another example of the weird shit you see if you keep your eyes open when out walking. The knife is quite high up the trunk, higher than I could reach without really stretching, and I certainly wouldn't be able to get it so firmly stuck in.  Again, I'm left wondering, what's the story here? I have to say, I've seen a lot of discarded knifes out and about over the years, often stuck into tree stumps or the ground. Maybe it's some knife cult making ritual deposits? Well, surely that's as good a suggestion as any.

Waterside Rocks

I climbed one of the wooden shooting towers on the edge Great Huntley Bank and Camel Green. It's an older tower and the tops of the uprights have hollowed through weathering, in one of the hollows was a stone painted pink with a pair of blue and yellow eyes. On the underside of the stone creature was 'Find Waterside Rocks FB Have Fun'. Apparently it's a thing, a community based around Southampton who paint rocks and leave them places for people to find. Cool. I like the idea of leaving art for people to find, and I like the idea of the connections that can create and the community which could develop.   

Tags

Bonnie, Ben, Jack and Molly, shiny discs, nailed to a birch in Red Rise Shade. What's the story there, I wonder?

A rip in the fabric of time.

There was a mysterious rip in the fabric of time which appeared over Cranborne Chase today, the rip allowed a conduit to the Second World War to form, and saw the giant shape of a B17 Flying Fortress soaring over the Wiltshire skies. I wonder if the crew knew they were flying in the future they and theirs served for?  The rip was short lived and soon the B17 returned to its own time and skies over the Chase were quiet again. I made it up, you say! Well, I can't think of any other explanation.

Munzee!

I found this attached to the Ivy climbing up a nondescript Birch tree over the local common, I wondered what it's about? As I say, the tree is nondescript, one of many of similar size and nature, nothing unusual. The label is at head height, a sort of buff laminate and was turned inward to hide the QR code (sounds like I know what I'm talking about, I don't, I had to look it up).  All I could think of is that it's part of some game, or some sort of orienteering set up. Well, not a bad guess as it happens, with the help of modern technology (my wifes' smart phone) I discovered it's part of something called 'Munzee' a global scavenger hunt game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munzee. It's funny what you can unintentionally come across whilst out walking, there are whole worlds of activity out there, which unless you're personally involved, you know nothing about; the worlds a massive place, and there are boundless opportunities to get involved in it.

And breath..

I'm always amazed by the things I find whilst out walking. Whilst sheltering under a Holly, I noticed what appeared to be a shiny disk amongst the leaf litter. Upon reaching down and clearing some of the leaves, I was surprised to find an inhaler of the kind I use for my asthma. The inhaler appears to have been placed purposefully, rather than having been dropped by accident, as it's sticking out of the ground upright (2 3rds of it buried). That wouldn't happen naturally. Why then would you part bury an asthma inhaler upright under a tree?  Being a pagan I'm used to the idea of ritual deposition, is this something like that? A mad idea that this is what's happening here, I know. Still. Does it hold symbolism for the person who put it there? It must. As I say, it appears purposeful, rather than accidental. Maybe the Holly suffers from asthma? I'll never know, and I'll have to chalk it up to 'another' woodland mystery. 

Observation

It's easy in our modern world with all its worries and distractions to walk through life without really fully registering your surroundings, beyond superficially that is. Even more so with todays electronic distractions. We think we're alert, listening and looking, although we're not really seeing, and many things just don't register. I'm no different, I'm not saying that, no, I'm a dullard. Though I've noticed how exposure to nature/natural environments, walking in them, immersing myself in them, my perception of my surroundings have changed, become enhanced and I notice more. I see our zombie state as the result of modernity, of technology dulling our survival instincts and of our removal/disenfranchisement from our natural environment. Watch an animal and they're usually aware of everything around them, alert to subtle changes, they're connected to their environment. It appears like a sixth sense, though really it's survival instinct. We too would have been like that, had that sixth sense, that survival instinct, though modernity gave us the impression we didn't need it any more. Of course, we do need it and we can still regain some of that natural skill with practice. Where's my rambling going? Well, as I said, I've noticed my perceptions have changed over time, my peripheral vision has improved as has my awareness of my surroundings, and even when preoccupied by what's ahead of me or whatever was on my mind, I know my peripheral vision is now subconsciously scanning my surroundings far more that it used to, or at least I'm now aware of it. An example is walking through the woods, my mind wandering on a myriad of subjects, working through things, my chain of thought was interrupted by my subconscious radar. I turned and in the near distance (30/40m or so), amongst the stands, behind fallen boughs and assorted debris my peripheral vision had registered an anomaly, a weathered square post. Obviously man made, it had eluded occupied conscious mind, taken up as it was, but had not escaped my subconscious. Wow, I thought, how/why did  I see that?  Once alerted, the post became obvious, as all straight lines are amongst the jumble, though how many people, I thought, would have passed by completely unawares and left none the wiser.

And the moral/purpose of my ramblings? No, it's not to tell you how brilliant I am, anybody who knows me knows that's not the case. It's that our peripheral vision and senses are like muscles, they need exercising to work effectively and to their best. Get out into nature, walk, immerse yourself, connect with yourself through connecting to nature, get in touch with your animal self and feel more human for it. 

Unhinged

 

Always with the questions; it's funny the things you find amongst the stands.