The Right (Rite) to Roam
When was the last time you roamed...just for the sheer pleasure of it?
Freedom comes,
when we look beyond the window
Freedom comes,
when we step beyond the door
when the eyes see beyond
and the ears hear the silence
Freedom comes.
When the body slows
and the mind stills
Freedom comes.
When one’s footsteps are slower
and one’s awareness is greater
Freedom comes.
When one feels safe to roam
roam
roam
beyond the here and now
beyond the heather and moss
beyond the oceans and rivers
beyond the mountains and pathways
beyond the cities and the gates
beyond the here and now
Freedom comes
Freedom comes.
Freedom comes.
Glen Affric - Scottish Highlands - September 2023 ***
Hello my dear friend,
How are you today? I have taken a couple of weeks off from writing to you, mainly because I have, as you know, been travelling with my family. Some days I have so much to share with you that I want to write and write and write, and then when I get to the computer or to a piece of paper, I have absolutely NOTHING to say.
Do you ever find that - When your heart and soul becomes so FULL of impressions and wonder that you want to share them AND quietly hold them both at the same time?
Do you ever feel that at times those impressions and experiences have affected you so much that you are more in a space of integration than a space of sharing?
My dear friend, have you ever experienced life so deeply that your senses become so filled with so many sensations and impressions that while you want to share with others there are no words in you to explain or share or say or even do anything other than be silent and still within?
I have felt like that over the past few weeks.
I have felt that I have been so FULL that I have been unable to share.
Until, maybe, now.
Travelling. It takes you from here to there in so many different ways. Sometimes over the oceans into faraway lands. Sometimes, and most times, over the seas and into landscapes deep within.
Where have you travelled and trod of late, my dear friend?
Where have your feet taken you?
Where has your mind taken you?
Where have your emotions taken you?
Where have your dreams taken you?
And I wonder, were any of those places the same place or were they all different?
Me. Glen Affric - Scottish Highlands
Do you know that in Scotland you have THE RIGHT TO ROAM?
I LOVE THAT.
To be able to Roam where-ever you want: up mountains and in farmlands, through heather and through moss, in landscapes that are marked, and others that are not.
Those words - The Right to Roam - have affected me in so many ways.
I invite you to say those words to yourself.
The
Right
To
Roam.
Maybe repeat them again
SLOWLY.
The.
Right.
To.
Roam.
When I heard those words for the first time I had to repeat them a few times to myself to ensure that I heard them properly. To repeat them so that I ensured that I understood them.
THE RIGHT TO ROAM.
I had to ask, what did that actually mean?
To roam anywhere? Really? Without any boundaries? WOW! Is that possible? Can that be real?
Oh, I roam easily in books - becoming so deeply absorbed through the words that the landscape I read and the characters I read about becomes so real that when I look up from the pages and look around I have to pause and think, “Am I really only in my room?” Sometimes it takes me months to pick up another book because I like to roam back into the plot, character and story line over and over again.
Another way I roam in my life is when we go for walks as a family. At each cross road we take it in turns to go left, right or straight ahead. Roaming in the same streets yet in a way that invites discovery, new sites and new pathways that one would not normally roam if one was just going from here to there.
Glen Affric - Scotland.
And then I stopped to ask myself “Where ELSE do I roam freely?”
And I had to pause..
I realised that I have stopped myself from roaming in certain areas of my life.
Why have I stopped myself from roaming in my imagination and in my dreaming?
When was the last time I roamed into my vision and purpose?
Why do I fear roaming beyond the furthest boundaries of my abilities and gifts?
It made me sad to know that I have limited myself. That I have played small.
It made me sad to know that I stopped dreaming and imagining.
It made me sad to know that maybe I just became too serious, that the day to day life of bills and expectations took over from the inner calling where passion and excitement meet and merge to CREATE a greater landscape within.
And yet something else happened to me when we roamed freely in Scotland, the land spoke and the rocks spoke and the spirits spoke
and in that something else in me opened up.
A Rock Friend I met along the way. We shared a long conversation about Time.
Isle of Lewis. Scotland.
In the roaming there was no time.
There was no need to rush or be somewhere.
There was no need to feel pressured or stressed, anxious or busy
and in that my spirit breathed out and CONNECTED to something GREATER.
The right to roam slowed me down. It made me feel expanded and alive.
It made me feel connected and full. It made me feel at one with something greater.
The Right to Roam has opened something in me.
Something in me that wants to be FREE.
Something in me that is both timeless and wild
Passionate and wise.
Something in me that is craving solitude and also wants to be in community
Something in me that has enabled me to feel my wings and to let the wild one in me feel free
The Right to Roam has invited me to dream again
and to know that in my dreaming I can roam and roam and roam.
What about you?
What does The Right/Rite To Roam mean to you?
Where do those words take you?
Where do those words invite you to go?
and will you?
Callanish Stones. Isle of Lewis
*** We travelled to Glen Affric on the recommendations of Molly from Hippy Highland Living
And to the Isle of Lewis and its surrounding landscapes on the recommendations from Ralph Tonge
Post script: I know I am very very lucky to be in a position to roam freely from one place to another. To even have the freedom to roam in my thoughts and beliefs as I share them with you. To be able to get up each day and know that I can feel a sense of FREEDOM in where I am and what I am doing makes me feel very very SAFE.
I know there are millions who are unable to do just that.
May one day there be peace in the world, where everyone can have the freedom to roam in mind, body and soul.
Related to what your wrote here today. The integrating without words, the freedom to roam. It is a rite, a worship! Our world can be very segmented and divided in so many ways. Roaming is a beautiful invitation, to move beyond boundaries, both inner and outer as you beautifully stated here in your writing. I feel I have been doing this lately, with this time of integration I am in. Being with where it is taking me. I find myself at times in unexpected places, new horizons and landscapes. And other times I feel stuck, held rigid by the borders and limits I self impose or am complicit with. Yet both the roaming and the limits are teaching me, forming and creating something yet to be stepped into and known.
I resonate with this a lot this week Sam. The sense of having so much to share, yet it all being stored somewhere for safekeeping. Almost as though there is sacredness in it that can not be given away on a whim, (that's just come to me). In the same breath I am craving freedom, but I don't yet know for what. I want to fly on the wings of an eagle, swim with the salmon and sit in commune in the woods. It's a pull, a 'rite', but I feel stuck, so there is conflict for a while. You've reminded me that in my imagination I can roam anywhere and I accept the invitation. Thank you. 🙏