My Sanctuary of Moors

Photos and words from the moors today, to honey your soul.

I find so much to soothe my spirit on the moors and feel blessed to live close to their beauty.

The vastness, the way you feel insignificant in a good way…….

As I haul myself high onto a large rock, I am reminded of when toddlers first join dinner tables. Their little legs hanging and swinging.

There’s something ‘small fish in big pond’ about it all. Perhaps it’s an apt antidote for when our thoughts are too big for our heads? We arrive at ‘the table’ in all its grandeur and become grateful and humbled by what we’re offered.

I speak to myself kindly, the way I would talk to a toddler at such a dinner table:

“Forget the expectations, the customs, the rules….and allow yourself to be replenished by our nourishing planet. Serve yourself.”

The bees are more curious high on the hills, leaning in to sniff your hands as hungry dogs, they drone in tones of ruffled velvet. They truly bumble, courting the heather that weaves her lilac sleeve through reeds warning of bogs and broad grasses busy mining lime from sunlight.

One of the joys of the moors this time of year is picking berries. I pop the plump purple pearls into my mouth and they burst on contact, sprawling my tongue as violet awning.

I hear the trickles of tiny streams and they fascinate me.

So often, I cannot pinpoint where they lie. They hide as secret capillaries under taut green skin. I smile at the idea of buried water lace. Layers of criss cross patterns felt as eye lash flutters by a sensitive Earth.

The butterflies dance in couples on moorland and it’s quite romantic; the way they pause and chase. They ride invisible rollercoasters - up and down, faster, slower…. They beckon, woo and nuzzle because they have little time and they know that play is the most important work of all.

We can absorb many lessons from the moors. I’m still learning, but nature is the best teacher