Landscape Memories

Have you ever visited a new place, experiencing it for the first time, and felt a strange, haunting sense  of familiarity? Like you know it so well?

This happened to me yesterday, when my DB and I walked the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail. As soon as we set foot on it, I felt the resonance. It reminded me so much of Dolgoch Falls in mid-Wales, perhaps my favourite walking place in the world. The lively sound of the water as it chuckled and gurgled its way over the rocks; the sun-dappled oaks and beeches, their trunks furred with vivid green moss; the wonderfully evocative smell of the damp ferns, now beginning to turn into brown bracken -   all these were so familiar, so well-beloved.

And the path itself, an eclectic mix of textures, widths, and colours. Partly a network of exposed and ancient tree roots, the dirt between them carpeted with moss, and last year's leaf mould. Partly naturally outcropping stones, and chippings of slate. And partly concrete steps, laid to make the going easier, aloe with stout posts and rails which also serve to prevent the adventurous from straying off the path, in search of a more advantageous viewing point.

Even the background sounds were the same - the deeper rushing roar of the falls themselves, the twitter of birdsong, and the baa-ing of the sheep on the fells above. It was magical.

Every so often, I stopped, closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and gave thanks for such beauty, and for all the people who work to care for such places, so,that people like us can enjoy them, and re-connect with the Divine.