Staff WellBeing Walks – 20 November 2024
Winter Wonder Wander
Mindfulness Outdoors Experience
Thankful for the bright and dry, winter’s day we were gifted. It was a wonderful experience to enjoy the sun’s movement through the day together in our two separate but very much connected groups.
We began our mindful outdoor experiences by taking some time to orient ourselves to our intention. To this time and space that is guardianed with such care and connection by the local human and the more-than-human community that lives here year-round. The intention on all our mindfulness outdoors session is to increase our awareness and decrease our disturbance on this land. We do this by slowing down and coming to our senses as present moment anchors to guide us out of our busy thinking and doing modes and into our direct felt experience and being modes of mind.
The Anne Valley Walk offers a wonderful window into the gifts of diversity – wandering from wetlands to woodlands, and knowing the geology dates back as much as 480 million years.
Turning towards the season unfolding in the present moment, we connected with the element of ‘Water’ to inspire some mindful movement that helps to both warm and arrive more into our bodies. This winter element invites us to rest, reflect and conserve energies. Just like the hedgehog – one of only two mammals in Ireland who hibernate – and whose presence in Ireland was first recorded in the 13th century in Waterford!
We connected to the rhythm of reciprocal breathing, remembering we breathe in oxygen-rich air gifted by the plant life around us and as we breathe out, we gift back our carbon-dioxide that they need for growth. We experienced a naturally arising appreciation for this time together.
With mindful walking and talking, we walked gently and invited our attention to anchor through each of the senses, from touch to hearing and seeing with fresh eyes. Noticing that when we allow ourselves to align with nature, we naturally respond with ease.
As we wandered the trail, we stayed curious to let the season reveal itself to us, cultivating curiosity and seeing the magic of winter tree forms and the listening to the soundscape of our human and more-than-human world.
We moved upwards to reach the ruins of Dunhill Castle, its name revealing a more ancient site predating the 13th century Norman build. The ruins tell its own story (from duchas.ie) – how the Countess was slighted by Cromwell’s army when her buttermilk was not enough to quench the thirst of her defenders.
Reducing our disturbance by slowing down and quietening our words, we settled into our sit-spot shelter of Dunhill Castle, looking out to the ocean view. Our ‘sit spot’ time allowed us to enjoy a nourishing feast of quietening the heart and mind and savouring the warming sun or cooling air of the moment.
As we took time to share our experiences, we enjoyed the nourishment of tea and the precious gift of bearing witness to each other’s reflections and experiences. Closing with the invite to reflect on the seeds of intention for ourselves in the next few months: seeds captured by written word on birch bark to be planted and nourished by the darkness of the earth’s soil until they bloom in spring/summer.
“draw alongside the silence of stone,
let her stillness claim you”
– John O’Donohue
Thank you all for spending some time together on our Mindfulness Outdoors Experience together, at the Anne Valley Nature Reserve & Wildlife Walk, Co. Waterford.
Sharing some of the steps of our experience together and the authors I mentioned to inspire connection with the gifts of this season.
Feedback is also welcome on your experience of our time together. You can click on the button below to bring you to an online form where data is gathered anonymously.
With much joy and gratitude for a special time together. May this time serve you well and inspire your future wanders outdoors.
Wintering by Katherine May
Wintering is a poignant and comforting meditation on the fallow periods of life, times when we must retreat to care for and repair ourselves. Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. Thoughtfully, May shows us how to come through these times with the wisdom of knowing that, like the seasons, our winters and summers are the ebb and flow of life.
Nature’s Calendar: The British year in 72 Seasons by Kiera Chapman & friends.
Inspired by a traditional Japanese calendar which divides the year into segments of four to five days, this book guides you through a year of 72 seasons as they manifest in the British Isles. A collaboration of four women and their twitter audience, they present the microseasons from ‘Snowdrops emerge’ in the first days of January to ‘Tree skeletons and sky’ at the close of the year, each fleeting season is epitomized by some natural phenomenon, be it a plant coming into bud, a burst of birdsong, or a cobweb spangled by dew.