Yesterday, 5 January, I walked in Hillfield Gardens, Gloucester, in the early afternoon. Overall it was bright and sunny, despite being cold. But in shady spaces there were residues of frost.
I noticed how they changed the look and feel of these spaces for me. They became quietly exotic, as if differently blessed than the green grass in the sunlit areas. A light dusting was enough to make a difference. The three pictures below show the effects of the frost’s magic dust on a small tree, and old puddle on the path and fallen leaves on grass. All very ordinary. But the touch of frost had made them special to me in that moment. They held my attention, and enriched my day. It was an instance of re-enchantment.
I have lived in Gloucester since January 2022. Specific locations in the city affect me in different ways.
The physic garden at Llanthony Secunda Priory is one of them. It feels both open and tranquil. Earth and sky are strongly present and jointly nurturing. It is a good space for unpressured reflection.
I was in the garden yesterday afternoon, feeling my way into 2026. It was a bright moment in the day, about an hour before the still early sunset. It was cold but not freezing. I was feeling good in myself. I wondered how my life with Elaine will unfold now that we are both a little more mobile. I reflected on the dance of loving and being loved.
As a left the garden, I acknowledged my fears about the wider world. I walked to another favourite place, very close to Llanthony, where the Gloucester canal begins its journey out of the city. There is irrepressable bird life in the foreground and a (to me) liberating expanse of water beyond. My picture doesn’t tell me what’s around the corner and I am reminded to live with unknowing. I didn’t walk any further on this occasion.
Returning home, I learned the news from Venezuela – in particular the kidnapping, as I would name it, of the President. I fear this may become yet another running sore in the life of the world. Modern Druidry, my spiritual anchor, has a strong commitment to justice and peace, where each is understood as compromised by the absence of the other.
Druidry isn’t an ‘above the battle’ path. Whilst not mandating any specific partisanship, this path does assert political values and points to a willingness to engage. So, in 2026, I’m asking myself more specifically where to put my limited energies, and how justice and peace work meshes with my contemplative inquiry. Indeed, this is where my inquiry has now arrived.
Monday 29th December. It is a normal working day here, in this period between the Christmas holiday and the new year. It is still dark outside, at 6.30 am, and likely to remain grey after sunrise at 8.15. Indoors, our minimalist decorations still proclaim a festive season. For us, this lasts from the Winter Solstice on 26 December until the Christian Epiphany on 6 January.
I’ve been experiencing an energy of latency throughout this period. I live in a place of winter gestation. In the natural world, birth doesn’t come quite yet. In this quiet in-between moment of a conceivably nondescript day, I can’t see 2026. I do not discern its likely shape or character.
That’s OK. I find that I don’t do want to strain at foreknowledge or resort to divination. A day-at-a-time approach, being alert and ready for anything, seems best. I know I want to be more open to the pleasure in simple things. I want to look for spontaneous festive moments that don’t depend on custom or calendar. They are part of my resilience. They make it easier for me, alone or with others, to face the challenges that come. In good heart, I am bracing for 2026.
There is rain on the window pane, and bleakness beyond: the closing in of early winter, with more closing in to come. It is not yet the festive season.
But the geraniums are heralds of change. Leaves may turn brown. Petals may be shed. But the insistent continuity of these flowers is a bright blessing in a grey moment, a vivid affirmation of the life force itself.
Contemplating these geraniums marks for me a distinctive point in the wheel of time, and the timeless Now that holds it.
A Scots pine in Hillfield Gardens (1), 28 November, 10.32 am. It stands out both as a tall tree and an evergreen. It asks me to look up and pay attention to it, and beyond it, almost losing sight of its deciduous neighbour. For me, this representative of the ‘eternal green’ has a commanding presence.
The Scots pine is one of the oldest trees native to Britain. It is also one of the trees associated with ogham lore (2), where the Scots pine is linked to the wisdom of overview. According to The Green Man Tree Oracle, ancient shamans of many traditions would literally climb to the top of a central tent pole or tree and “from this vantage point they could see clearly into the spirits’ inner world and come back with knowledge for the tribe or family they served” (2).
For me as for many people, the end of the calendar year is a time for reflection and taking stock. New year resolutions are a possible modern version of this process, but mine never really worked. They were overprescriptive and a way of setting myself up to fail.
‘Overview’ asks for a less driven and more contemplative approach, one more connected with Spirit. This is a good reminder as I start to wonder about how I am going to navigate 2026: divining what my contributions and satisfactions might look like as the Wheel continues to turn.
Alney Island at midday on 9 November. Looking up, I encountered a bleak majesty of now skeletal trees. Muted sunlight found its way through the grey clouds. In contrast, the river at my side retained a full, lush beauty.
As I walked, the tranquility of the scene was compromised at times by anxiety. The island is a wetland. It had been raining. More rain was due. The paths were puddled and muddy. The grass was soft and wet, half hiding twigs, leaves and slippery earth. I am still not fully recovered from my fall and this walk was a deliberate escalation in challenge. When I reached Richard’s Wood I stumbled over a tree root and nearly fell. At the same time I was able to enjoy a rich carpet of leaves at this late period in the leaf fall.
Among the trees I contemplated branches as living sculpture. It was as if I had reached a destination. Generally the branches were still holding on to at least some leaves. There were even new ones, in this fecund space. Eventually, my encounter with the wood completed, I turned round and made my cautious way home.
Where I live, autumn is becoming wintry. But winter has not yet come. Many leaves have fallen yet the trees are not yet bare. Whether standing against a severe sky or leaning in to water, they still witness their own vitality.
Along the canal bank, there are places where the green-gold beauty of autumn in this locality remains present, here on 5 November. I have a strong sense of continuing energy and life.
This feeling is most powerful for me when I hear the wind blowing through the trees and see leaves holding on even as the branches sway. Soon enough, these leaves will fall. Here and now, they are very much part of their trees.
For the first time since I fractured my shoulder in a heavy fall, I have walked beside the Gloucester canal. The period between 2pm and 4.30 on 28 October was particularly auspicious. Cool but clear. Blue sky and sunshine.
On this occasion, as I tentatively walked the paths, I found myself in a living world dominated by yellow and green. A fall was happening, but was not very advanced. I noticed my confidence in walking becoming more consistent and reliable. I felt good. I was at ease in the woodland world.
The walk was part of my coming to terms with an advancing age, in which the possibility of a damaging fall is priced in. I felt a little nostalgic for a distant past. At a time when I was impatiently looking forward to my fourth birthday I fell down a flight of stairs and simply got up again. I was pleased to have a story to tell my parents, but couldn’t understand their alarm when I told it. 1953 is indeed another country.
However most of my attention, on this walk, was on the walk itself. Pragmatically, it needed to be, and I was also increasingly held by the spirit of place and time on this benign late October day. I had a strong sense of here, now and home.
I had a goal of reaching a newly refurbished bridge for pedestrians and cyclists only. This would give me time to turn around and get home before sunset (roughly 4.45 now that the clocks have changed). A slowish two and a half hours is as much as I can manage as yet. From a recovery perspective, I feel on track.
I have now lived in Gloucester long enough to have a territorial sense of the city. When walking from a southerly direction, an elegant square and its garden signal my nearness to home. This signal is physical, emotional and psychic. My cognitive knowledge is secondary.
This signal is soon followed up by another, stronger one, closer to our apartment. Under looming grey clouds stands a tall, mature hornbeam. Once indoors, I will be able to look at it through our balcony windows – majestic even as it sheds its leaves.
The hornbeam is an iconic (I might almost say totemic) marker of ‘home’. Elaine and I do not individually own this tree and nor would we want to. But our city council does, with obligations towards it. That’s probably why it’s still there.
This sense of home and blessing: where does it come from? We are not migratory birds. But we used to be a bit more like them. Nomadic, but often within defined territories, however large, which we could get to know and love without the need for exclusive possession. There are people in the world who still try to live in this way but it is becoming increasingly difficult.
I speculate that part of my bodymind finds this arrangement natural, even though culture here is (mostly) very different. The feeling tone of my walking varies dramatically with different levels of newness and familiarity. In the approach to home, signalled not only by distance but also by landmarks, this is particularly strong. Perhaps this is the residue of a long lost pattern of life.
Contemplative Inquiry 