Befriending darkness: learning from the wood

Hazel Hill: Autumn Equinox

The Autumn Equinox was September 21.  This year, I’ve had time to go deeper into the meaning of this time by exploring it at Hazel Hill Wood, the magical 70-acre woodland retreat centre which I run near Salisbury.
An Equinox is a balance point in the year, and it can help us find balance in ourselves: between light and dark, active and receptive, masculine and feminine...However, the Autumn Equinox has a very different flavour from the Spring: it’s the threshold of the darker months, the slope down to Midwinter, the time of decay and dying back.

Hallo landscape my old friend

This is my third day in the North Pennines and Yorkshire Dales, and I realise I’m feeling high on the scenery.  This has set me pondering, why are some landscapes so special for people – and maybe especially for maturing men?

Dentdale

Why steam trains matter, and Dampfloks are AOK




Ik droom van stoom!  The Zuid Limburgse Stoomtrein Maatschappi in the Netherlands

Many men are searching for meaning, a sense that the events of their life matter and have a shape to them.  I have hatched a belief that steam trains can help in this.

If you’re aged late fifties or older, you’ll have grown up with steam trains in your childhood.  I can recall many maturing men who get excited when I broach this topic, and who plug into vivid memories of magnificent steam engines.

I can bang on at length about the lousy features of my childhood, if provoked, but many of the happier times I recall as a kid involve steam trains - either travelling on them with my mother to see my grandparents in Bournemouth, or watching them as a trainspotter.