Gathering, Flowing and Separating by Judith Bromley Nicholls

Image © Judith Bromley

A weekend with other GreenSpiriters has reminded me that community can be supportive and loving and embracing. That we do not all have to think alike and agree, but that we can encourage one another in our individual uniqueness. Each one of us has a role to play in attempting to communicate with the climate change deniers in whatever way is right for us. We value the Earth and believe all things in the natural world are sacred. Our consciences and awareness help us to live well without squandering the Earth’s resources. We celebrate that we are part of the Earth. We recognised each other as a family, a tribe to belong to, before we scattered back home in all directions.

During the weekend we looked at Shamanism: we learned about the history and sources of Shamanism; what a Shaman is; and how what they do can be used for healing both psychological and physical un-wellness; and how being taken on a shamanic journey can bring insights.

I am wary of labels which tend to encourage exclusion and separation into boxes. I can align with a great deal of what was described and talked about with parts of my own discoveries and journey. It feels good to be able to recognise that I am not alone in thinking, feeling and acting in the way that I have been able to do, but I would not want to label it exclusively as Shamanism, GreenSpirit, or Quaker.

One of the descriptions of a Shaman was one who enables the community to reach the spirit world through Nature. I am wary of the implication that one cannot do that one’s-self. It comes close to the idea of a priesthood, which to me risks coming between the individual and ‘God’.

During a sharing session we listened carefully to one another, and in doing so got to know one another on a deeper level than we would have done during an open discussion – which favours the more articulate amongst us. Hearing such a diversity of responses I felt moved to tell of the following analogy taken from my journal:

Many years ago the peat bogs were drained but now we know better. Peat is like a sponge, if it dries out the water runs straight off it and causes floods in the valley. The drainage channels are now being filled in to restore these wonderful carbon sinks back to what they should be. When we first bought this house 50 years ago it came with peat cutting rights, but it wasn’t long before all of us in the village gave up those rights in favour of creating an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest).

Here on the watershed I wonder where a raindrop will go when it falls, which valley will it rundown, which direction will it take? One drop could sink deep into the cracks of limestone pavement and join underground channels to emerge from the cave systems much further down the valley. Another could seep into the peat and stay there for centuries in a deep bog, or get flushed out by a downpour into the trickles and streamlets that shape the undulations of the mountainside.

There is a boggy area here. Deep dark peat eroded by water, dry and crumbly or spongy and full of water in wet weather – raindrops pooling together. My journey has been a constant desire to seek the source, to understand the nature of life, to feel connected to all that is. This bog is the source of the streams and rivers. Gradually seepage becomes a flow and the energy is increased as the surrounding peat is worn away and a tiny valley is created.

Recently I have been thinking of unity and diversity. The analogy of water flow and direction wearing away the landscape is helping me to understand the way that beliefs, religions, sects, will draw like-minded people together, who then can sometimes get so rigid in their thinking that they wear away a valley for themselves which is so steep sided that they cannot see over the top, to see that there are similarities with other branches of belief, or that they all emanate from the same source.

From the watershed, a multitude of little streams develop, draining in all directions, north, south, east and west. Each makes its own valley, some joining together to make a stronger flow. As they descend they create distinctive dales – steep sided, wide open, flat bottomed, straight or curved or winding. Just like different religions they follow their own paths getting more distinctive and more individualised as time goes on, developing their own habits and rituals, defining their own beliefs, flowing away from the source, powered by the source, in a multitudinous variety of ways. More mature becks join together later, discovering that they are flowing in the same direction – joining up gives more power to the watercourse. Others get more and more diverse until they cannot see into each-others’ valleys…

This is a small piece from a collection of writings and paintings that I am currently working on: ‘Plumbing the Depths and Reaching up to the Heights – walking by the water’. I am going through my journals from the late 1980’s, digitalising the parts which I think might be of interest or useful to other people, and putting paintings I have done over the years alongside relevant pieces of text. Basically it is about my spiritual journey, insights that have come to me as I travelled. I am not putting it together chronologically but the chapters follow the passage of a river from the watershed to the sea, just as our lives come from the ‘all that is’ and at the end go back to be as one. Watershed, Babbling Brook, Still Pools, Rapids, Full Flow, are just some of the section headings. As I get further on with the project I will need readers and feedback so would love to know if anyone would be interested in giving me that sort of assistance please.