by Author Wild-Earth

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Snippets from Course 10

Course 10 - Mid Course Experience

The group met at Koco community centre, travelled to the woodlands ready for all weathers, full water proofs, some of the young people requesting hats and gloves.  Hannah also joined us from the mental health team and one of the service users who was trying out he course for the first time. The young people were so welcoming and inviting.

We stood still in circle in the brisk morning air and focused on our breathing. Breathing exercises for relaxation on the course focus on always being able to come back to our breath and gently acknowledge each in breath and out breath, allowing this to calm anxious or busy minds. This morning we have only been here for fifteen minutes and we already starting to appreciate the calmness of this beautiful woodland.

Awareness was brought to the fast changes, the trees now noticeably greener than the week before. We spoke of how quickly things are moving and changing in the springtime and attention was brought to the positive changes in our own lives since starting this new chapter.  Young people were amazed that it is already week 3.  The middle of the course. .

 We approached our sit spots. A core routine of nature connection practice of sitting still in nature, alone, opening to our senses without our phones and other distractions.  This time our sound mapping cards in hand. We were to listen deeply and draw the sounds around us. This could be in any form we chose. A crow call will be interpreted in many different ways. A spiral, a zigzag line, a harsh scribble, a black feather. Drawings could follow the rhythm or pattern of the sound.

On the returning The young people were asked to instinctually point to where north is and with surprising results the group tried to work out why so many got this right and from this is how they could work out where other direction are. “Never Eat Shredded Wheat” that how I’ve always remember it two say in stereo. They agreed amidst themselves correctly that the sun rises in he East, sunsets in the West and they discovered that the sun is in the south around midday. A useful skill.

Now knowing the directions they pointed to the sounds on the landscape and the drawing they had done to represent these sounds.  Wavy lines followed a very vocal flock of geese from east to west, “yes I heard those too”. At each sound there was ripple of smiling, agreement or acknowledgement that some heard the same sounds, a cockerel calling in the north, a rich variety of woodland song birds of varying tone and pitch coming from all directions. Begging calls from new chicks in their nests feed saying  “me feed me feed me,” many dots for a wood packer drumming on a tree, jagged lines for cars on the distant road beyond the tree line.

We shared our feeling of the sit spot. The general consensus that it was relaxing and interesting listening to all the different sounds.

We set up camp, lit the fire and had a brew. The group talked about how it was very sad that some branches had be broken by  a visiting group and that three hazel trees had been pulled down.  “How could they do that?” one of the young people said. We have become quite connected to this part of the woods It feels familiar and comforting and this is a sad intrusion.

After lunch we went on a sound walk recording sticks being thrown on the leaves, a stick being moved back an forth through the water, a splashing stone, the fast whooshing sound of thin hazel rods being gently bent back and let go of and much more. All things that we would be listening to on the indoor music and self-development session on Friday.

After a last sit spot. We packed down the camp and filmed it as a time lapse, which was fun to watch back with the group when the van was packed. We drove back to Koco.