Walking the Energies: A Spiritual Practice for The forest or the City
The long season drifts on — Lammas turns slowly toward Mabon.
The Long Season: Walking Through Lammas
Lammas is the longest season in the Wheel of the Year; it drifts by like the wavering heat haze above the land. We sit in this time safely held in the Goddess's womb, enjoying and rejoicing in the bounty of her land. It is also the time for us to weave together the threads of our lives, recognising the patterns, our mistakes and corrections with Morgan Glitonea as our guide. Although Mabon the next sabbath and season feels far off in September (22nd September), this season has much to teach us in this long summer days and allows us to rest.
I feel this is a time where the turning of the seasons is most acutely felt, as the days shorten, the early morning air becomes damp, the mists rise and the birds start to flock ready for their long migrations.
What Does It Mean to Walk in the Energies?
I often speak of linking with the energies feeling the turning of the seasons or linking to the ancestors or Place. All of these come from the same overarching principle of becoming one with the flow of the energies of the land and goddess.
I'm extremely fortunate to live in a rural idle barely touched by the modern age or humanity. The modern trend is to suggest that we can only connect in in the wilderness, nature or a rural setting, however walking in the energies it's as readily accessible in the urban landscape as you practise attuning your awareness to the constant fluctuations and changes in energy around you (I include a small practise at the end of this blog).
The very first step is to understand the six principles of energy at first outlined by Alice A. Bailey and expanded on by other writers such as Kathy Jones.
A little more lore: the six principles behind this walk.
A Tale of Two Walks: Rural and Urban Energy
No destination, no expectation — just feet finding their own way through the heather.
Quietening the mind, one step into the ferns at a time.
Walking the Rural Landscape
Every morning I walk across the land I live as the sun rises, during these walks I encounter nature in many forms and linked to the land. This daily routine has actually made it quite difficult to describe how I flow and link to the land because like any everyday task we repeatedly do I do it instinctively with no forethought.
Firstly I think it is important to remember when we set out to not have a predetermined Purpose to the walk. I am never really sure where my feet will take me before I set out I have no expectation of what will occur. Much like when we visit a sacred site it is important to remember but it may just be a pleasant walk with no great revelation or or spiritual awakening. This is awesome not an exercise to get your steps in and route March for miles.
As I walk i I feel myself quietening not just physically but also my mind quietening, settling into the peacefulness around me. I start to notice the scent of the earth and vegetation, the many varied birds chattering in the bushes, the feel of the air on my skin, the vastness of the sky above and the feel of the ground beneath my feet. I then let the land guide me either with signs of animals the follow, the flower of a stream or just an intuition a feeling that this is the way I should go.
At some point I will find a place that I wish to sit and settle allowing the energy is to flow about me freely, this is when I will practise Expanding my awareness to join totally with the flow of the land around me. This is the time when I often find myself surrounded bye the various animals big and small, my child has rightly pointed out that because I walk there so often these various creatures no longer see me as a threat but just a curiosity to stare at and ponder.
Walking the Urban Landscape
Even here, on the railing above traffic, something is quietly alive.
The Heron again: patient, watchful, just as present here as in the forest.
I am from walk in the urban landscape as I am at heart a city girl coming from Birmingham. So I shall tell a story of the most recent visit I had to this large and sprawling city.
The first night there I walked this new yet once well-known land down by the canal. Here I felt the hustle and bustle of those around me some anxious some excited some in love some lost some sad etcetera as always, several people stopped to talk with me a while.
Underneath this I could feel the echoes before when I was here many years ago and it was a dark and dingy area, only frequented by the outsiders, the weirdos, and freaks only our club open. This brought back the energies of that time, that teenage me, the fun, the laughter and the dancing, the anticipation but also the undercurrent of frustration, isolation and fear that made me push back and demand to be seen, acknowledged and heard no longer hidden.
Below that again, I could feel the earlier industrial beginnings of this place glimpses of figures from that time, sounds of the barge people as they travelled the waterways collecting goods to carry across the newly built arteries of England. All of these energies are part of me and have shaped who I am at this time.
As I set out on my morning walk, I was as usual visited by a bird friend, the graceful and wise Heron one of my favourites and ever present on my forest walks. I then went to an art gallery and I stood with the many paintings feeling the energies they hold of the artist's idea, imagination and creativity, of the model's motions and transformation and embodiment themselves to become the goddess they depict in that snapshot of time. I became absorbed in a painting of the goddess Medea, the power of this goddess radiating across the space come on I could see the artists deep reverence for her in his use of symbolism and I understood his motto I truly embodied this goddess as she sat for hours in stillness.
All of these energies are part of me and have shaped who I am at this time. As I set out on my morning walk, I was as usual visited by a bird friend, the graceful and wise Heron one of my favourites and ever present on my forest walks. I then went to an art gallery and I stood with the many paintings feeling the energies they hold of the artist's idea, imagination and creativity, of the model's motions and transformation and embodiment themselves to become the goddess they depict in that snapshot of time. I became absorbed in a painting of the goddess Medea, the power of this goddess radiating across the space come on I could see the artists deep reverence for her in his use of symbolism and I understood his motto I truly embodied this goddess as she sat for hours in stillness.
The very fabric of the urban landscape comes from the land each brick and stone were once part of the earth; They hold memory, they hold the power of the earth. This is where our ancestors lived not the Wilds I walk which are inhospitable but here in the urban landscape. You all said see Mother Gaia reclaiming urban spaces up through the cracks in the pavement through the mortar in each wall she comes back. So it is that sometimes there is more power in connecting with the energies of an urban space in the current trend for rushing out to nature and gatekeeping these links when most of us who live in a built-up area.
Developing this practise not only allows you to feel the energies of the land more fully, but all say enables you to put those protections in place that shield us from the energies of everyday living So we do not become overwhelmed and are able to be an effective and constructive empath/ healer.
The birds are already flocking — the season is turning, whether we're ready or not.
A Simple Practice for Walking in the Energies
A simple starting point to grow your practise it's to firstly sit in your own space that you know.
Step 1 Clear your mind, let all your busy thoughts drift away. One way I do this is to focus On each chakra starting at the root and working up to eventually reach the crown.
Step 2 Look inside see your heart see the energies of your heart, feel them flowing around your body.
Step 3 Feel your energies from your heart spreading out around you to form your aura, sense if it's strong is it stretching far from your body or is it close by
Step 4 sense what is around you the smell, the sounds of the room, the touch of the air, the feel of the floor beneath your feet.
Step 5 Now stretch this awareness out further to hear the noise from outside the birds, the wind in the trees or the sounds of other humans
Step 6 Now pull yourself back into your body and slowly put your protections back in place to avoid overwhelm
Step 7 Consider how you felt the energies in your body, where you sensed the subtle changes, how they felt e.g. warm, tingly, cool
Step 8 As you practice more try undertaking this technique in different surroundings and compare how each one feels to you.
Thank you for reading my thoughts on how I connect with the Land and work with Her energies.
Saxon Su is a Priestess of Avalon based in the New Forest, on the Hampshire–Dorset border. She offers seasonal ceremony work across Hampshire and Dorset and reflective online tarot readings across the UK, alongside tarot lessons and mythic storytelling rooted in land-based goddess tradition.
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