Category: buddhafield/festies

gorge on courgettes

audio of text

gorge on courgettes, man and his marrows… tomatoes refusing to ripen, understandable, soggy drek day
yawn, slightly sleepy… tons o’fun stuff 10 days at buddhafield, daughters graduation! xx

RIP, had almost forgotten this fabulous song

Nat: Ahh didn’t see you at buddhafield!

Shame! A familiar tale, what with the bonkers weather, so many old friends glimpsed but briefly across the field… but, ha, a glut of glorious connection and hugs galore… So can’t REALLY grumble… Hope yours was a good un xx

buddhafield 2016

audio of text

back from another blissed out ‘humdrum’ buddhafield… well mostly, after a week in the field, allowing the energy, the warmth to slowly sift, then settle… before, hopefully, taking the joy in my heart, stone plonk pond rippled, out into the wider world beyond
favourite buddhafield moment? hmm maybe the evening after the festival had finished! skiddadled to my sisters to pick up lovely daughter, this year, a gentle transition, snoozing in a hammock in the shade next to the pool
early eve i took crumble, the dawg, for a stroll up the hill, high summer, straggled and woeful bedraggled
in the hedgerows, the familiar silhouette of oak, of ash, beneath which the dappled purples of mallows, thistles, the yellow of groundsel, this the daisy age, white trumpets of bind weed full fluted in flower, wound about them, entwined, the bramble briar rose
up above, swallows and martens swoop stitch the blue colour of the sky
i stopped, the path wound onwards, this the cusp of evening, a field of corn, ears plump to the stalk, burnished rose golden by the light of the setting sun
the full moon (nearly!) sailed jauntily above the trees, just as the sun, burdened, weighted down by the pomp cavalcade of its own majesty, wallowed heavily beneath the horizon…
mother earth, father sky, brother sun, sister moon
fulcrum, a harmonious tidal turning

audio of text


i pondered long on what? on nothing? on dad? and, of course, also the boon bounty of the previous week
of the strong, sweet gentleness of hugs, with friends, with strangers, the long loiter in connection, snuggling up for profound spiritual chats by the fireside, gabbled laughter over food, else irreverent cackling up by the gate!
meetings with long lost friends, a soft openining to new ones
dancing, singing, mantras, a childhood game of stuck in the mud, talks on activism and buddhism, tai chi, chai, flirting, singing, dancing!
of work, the hodge podge bundle of stress i became whilst managing the sunday afternoon going home shift ‘yes i appreciate that your child is crying, that you must hoik, that huge heavy bell tent up the precipitous slope, but no, i am sorry, i cannot authorise you to drive onto site’
then again i loved driving the super mario cart buggy jeep about the site, one hand on mahogany steering wheel, elbow out the window, floppy ermintrude hat, only 2nd gear, 4th and reverse!
boogie woogie wonderland!
oops what was i saying? cheerful in the knowledge no one will have bothered to decipher thus far! fun to write!

audio of text

unravelling, the undulating, to feel in my body, the coils of this, some small portion of the huge green earth serpent, rising up, her energy coursing throughout the land
gentle, coiled spirals
a myriad scales, all sizes, all colours, irridescent, yet summoning to a singular harmony… vibrant, tara, heart chakra green
cycles of expansion, followed by those of contraction, falling to a dwindle, then rising to exalt! harrowing followed by abundance. pulsation, rhythm
pulled inside out to languish in this the radiant beauty of the realm of form…
falling to stillness, beneath there is always a ringing
so to take each others hand… and dance singing together with the ancestors on this our land
slowlty turn and head for home
‘manna gonna come down, manna gonna come down, manna gonna come down, manna g-o-nnnnna make us strong’
x

fluffy

feeling deliciously fluffy and mellow, back from a week roaming around the western lands
firstly pootling about near glasto with lovely friends, up the tor, zig zag, forensic grammar(!) cactii and erbs
Then the glorious hug fest that is buddhafield… the site hunkered down in a valley, serene amongst trees, prayer flags fluttering against a backdrop of sky, the mingled sounds of drums, voices singing and the grumpy thud of electronic beats
interestingly i didn’t have as many of the full power euphoric moments of other years, but just felt astonishingly happy… enough, more than enough!
land and people, always it is land and people that both heals and nourishes us
lots of missed connections, curious how many friends you can only glimpse but once over 5 days, but, ha, no matter when you can plonk yourself down next to a random stranger, gabble away, share a moment
my most powerful memory is just that of laughing! many many lovely new people
grooving away down the front to omniblivion, qi gong, yakking about the fire, singing, snuggled up, cozy in small world after all the bands have gone
stewarding, rocking the walkie talkie, hi viz and colourful ermintrude hat!
Curiously, stewarding is brill, a few niggly moments of course(!), but its such a gentle friendly way to get involved with and deeply into the festie
its a bit like being in a singing workshop, if i’m at the back, on the edge, behind a couple of tall broad fellows then i just can’t feel it, miss every note
but when i wriggle and shimmy my way to the front, there, cocooned amongst folk, caressed by the timbre and warmth of the human voice… there …together
heartfelt thanks to all you beauuuuuuuuuuuuutiful souls. Love Ya!
no pics, as always, so just the first song i’m listening to this morning… take it away janis

soppy kiss

…and a huge hug and a soppy kiss, belatedly, for all of the buddhafield massif!!!! You wonderful people!
due to circumstances (thanks to those who helped with those) was a preposterous but sumptous short 48 hour jaunt to somerset!
many lovely new friends, nights giggling and guffawing withb old ones… meditation, and a very lumpy earth to sleep on
highlights.. hmmm many! a heat funk ecstatic dance, gawping into beautiful soulful eyes, hugging, but then sweat stuck flesh to flesh, having to peel yourself apart from each other (ha!)… straight from there over to the utterly different, equally amazing, manic gallumphing exuberance of the ceilidh… doxie do yaw pardner, strip the willow… ‘hello! would you like to dance’ ‘Why! Thank you. don’t mind if i do!’
else having a siesta in the glade waking neath the shade of beautiful beech trees, an undulating mosaic of leaves above… soporific patterns
after a singing workshop, one wonderful fellow went off to propose to his girlfriend… they were smooching in the garden outside of a tee pee… our camouflaged choir snuck along behind, surrounded them, linked arms and sang ‘Si a Hambe, qui que neni cose’ (or some such malarkey)… sentimental and sweet
overall, a reminder to myself that i don’t have to be curmudgeonly, overwhelmed, restricted, but rather …that sometimes,at least we can be open, expanded… exalted… to summon the feelings of poise and grace… blessed thanks for the sunshine, the beauty of this land, the health of my body (a boon so often taken for granted)… and most of all for the water that is love, that flows so sweetly between us all. om shanti. love x

bf 2012

awww buddhafield, bless!!! dumb struck stupefied, will take a fair old time to ponder and digest even a slither of what was there for me to learn… of course there was the mud, earth that oozed, that stodged and clagged, sticky with struggle… quagmire… that and the continual palaver, the fiasco of welly politics…
but more, much more, myriad spirit that stirred then swooped
i remember.. what… of being in small world as the the band played a whirling dervish gypsy stomp… hoopla doomp.. hoopla doomp.. there, coming across marsha, sitting serenely on the floor guarding an egg!! inevitably there was a story, she had to take it to her uncle who lived amongst the trees in the forest of dean? i sat quietly besides her, she broke her lump of clay in half and passed some over ‘here, something for you to squidge’ ‘thank you’
or of singing amazing grace beneath the deckchair Red and yellow stripes of the big top, funky and gorgeous as the sound swirled fast around us, voices that bind, that nourish, that cherish
of pushing cars out on the sunday… heave ho.. heave ho… ‘put the bleeding car in GEAR!!’, vroom splatter fleck shower of spray.. waaggghh…
or of coming to the end of a gorgeous ecstatic dance, my hands, my eyes, smoking with the glory aura of holy fire, i came across merleen, another lost child i had met at the gate, we hugged, pink and green, the billow and flow of the heart chakra, immense… much much more… but also of just goofing about up at the gate, or sitting in cafes happily nattering, laughing, scoffing lasagne…thank you … love all you guys, your amazing xxx

before buddhafield

Fire Clubs! check. Floppy Ermintrude Hat! check. FountainPensHayfeverRemedyGaloshersCopiousDuvetsToothpaste….. blah di blah … cuddly toy
tra la la! oh and never forgetting a warm smile and a brimful heart
my departure slightly delayed by painting an om in sherbaileys pink nail varnish on my wellies, so i won’t muddle them up… and watering the garden, precisely as it started to rain, ho hum!
heres to sun bathed dawdlesome days… see some of you in the field xxxxxx
oh and rather loving buddhas sunflower in this pic