02
Mar
By belinda@wayofmindful
2 Comments
Events, Walking

As I walked out from Cyffylliog…

Highpoint of the walk – Full-day Mindful Walk, Cyffylliog, Friday 1st April, 2022

As I walked out from Cyffylliog…

The Clwydian Range of hills, an iconic wave of hills rising from the Llandegla plateau, as they march along the northernmost stretch of King Offa’s Dyke, are a sight to see.  I could regularly be heard extolling their virtues, saying that if it was possible to fall in love with hills and mountains, then the Clywdian Range stole my heart well and truly!  Dotted with a liberal sprinkling of Bronze and Iron-age Hillforts, bedecked in heather, trussed up in ancient paths and trackways – they are an intriguing bunch and there’s much to love.

No less the view of them from a distance.  I won’t bore you with the oft-heard cry, “You can see the Jubilee Tower of Moel Famau from Chester!”, although I just, ironically, have done.  The Vale of Clwyd is a long and winding, flat-bottomed boot-shaped valley, bounded on the east by the Clwyd fault line and Clwydian hills and in the West by the Denbigh Moors, Rhos hills and Clocaenog Forest.  Stretching from Llanelidan in the South (well worth a visit, by the way) and to the City of St Asaph in the North (also well worth your time) with its Limestone and Sandstone Cathedral – the smallest in Britain – you could spend a year in The Vale and still not know all its secrets.  

Since the Bronze age – and who knows, possibly long before that – the peoples of this area have been rolling down from the surrounding hills into the Vale lacing the land into a network of finely woven byways, roads and trackways that spawned the many hamlets and villages that make up the Community of this part of North East Wales.

And if you were to, on your way across The Vale, stop off in the, yes, almost yawningly, iconically beautiful market town of Ruthin – as you stand in the market square at the top of the town, you’ll see The Clwydians roaring up to the East of you and the Denbigh Moors, Rhos hills and hints of the Hiraethog gently rising to your West.  Spend a day in any of the three Vale towns of Ruthin, Denbigh or St Asaph, taking in the many independent boutique shops, cafes, restaurants, listed buildings, Cathedral and Castles, keeping an eye on those hills lest they creep up on you unawares, and maybe you’ll see why The Vale held such appeal for the Medieval Marcher lords and all those who came here before and after.

Take the B5105 out of Ruthin heading north-west, hang a right immediately after Llanfwrog for Bontuchel and you’ll find yourself in the land of interweaving river valleys, curving this way and that, cutting their way to The Vale, where the Afon Clwyd receives its three tributaries, Afons Clwyedog, Elwy and Chwiler.  Push further up the Clwyedog valley and the hamlet of Cyffylliog quietly greets you in a moomin-like embrace as the land roars up and folds around you offering river valley after river valley of peaceful walking and days of exploration, should you have the time.

From its stunning setting, Cyffylliog works hard to enchant, intrigue and inspire you, although she achieves those effortlessly.  The walk I’ve chosen to lead from here starts at the Red Lion pub (we’ll come back to that later!) and takes in views along the river valleys of Nant Gladur, Afon Corris and the Afon Clwyedog itself, right round to the Afon Concwest, as our path winds easily around the feet of Moel y Fron, Foel Ganol and Foel Uchaf.  As we walk, talk and meditate, unfolding before us the lace-like legacies of hunter gatherers, farmers, legionnaries, Marchers, drovers and wanderers draw us into this intimate corner of The Vale, enchanting us as the day unfolds and the rhythm of our steps and breaths settle us into our Selves and surroundings.

As we round the summit of Foel Uchaf, breath, however carefully anchored, is gasped away by the panorama unfolding before us as our eyes take in The Clwydian ramparts, down to the Eglwyseg and Llantysilio Mountains of Llangollen and beyond to the Berwyns, the Arenigau and Rhinogiau in the far distance, tracing round to Snowdonia and the Carneddau before landing on the Great Orme and back to the Hiraethog, Denbigh Moors and Clocaenog Forest.

A high point, in more ways than one, but not the last delight for this walk, by any means.  The hilltop road, who knows how old, takes us past Foel Ganol and hilltop farms dotted with fluffy white creatures until we dart off enticed along an ancient track, striking out into the blue yonder, to gaze upon the Clwydians once more before we begin our descent back to Cyffylliog and the Red Lion, with their country Ales, Curry nights and welcoming bonhomie….a fitting end to our walk through history.

The next Way of Mindfulness walk from the beautiful Cyffylliog is on 1st April – click here to book!

23
Jan
By belinda@wayofmindful
Mindfulness, Walking

Walking: Winter’s Rest

Oooh, I do love Winter – I know I gush lovingly about every Season, but, when we walk through Winter’s Solstice, I’m drinking, deep and grateful, from Winter’s Rest…

Winter’s Rest:

Winter’s rest
Breathe the breath of stillness
deep within our rooted feet
Roots dip down
through sap buried
not gone, nor forgotten
but drinking deep
of Earth’s nurture.
Drink deep, Dear One,
fearless of this long night,
recall shivers of dawn’s
first light, here before, it seems,
Winter’s rest is over.
Drink deep.

By Belinda Gammon

Visit my Events page for more information about Mindful Walks and other events

23
Jan
By belinda@wayofmindful
Counselling

In the Counselling Room: A Place to Roost

In the Counselling Room: A Place To Roost

In the counselling room, I often work with individuals who have experienced trauma – specifically relational trauma, complex or attachment trauma.  In the counselling room, individuals who come to work through this kind of experience, often talk of a feeling of “not belonging” – as if they must live on the outside of their family unit – outcast even, or perhaps feeling that they just don’t fit, fit-in. Such feelings become a part of their self-image, their ideas about themselves and there begins an ongoing experience of feeling like they don’t belong, don’t fit, or fit-in.  And what of how this feels within the body?  We have phrases in our own language that talk of “feeling comfortable in our own skin”, “So and So lived a few feet away from their body” and so on.  From my former background working in Shiatsu and traditional medicine, I have long been interested in how our thoughts and emotions reverberate throughout our musculo-skeletal and other bodily systems, lodging within them, as if a carbon copy of the original experience.

In this poem, A Place to Roost I talk of such “not belonging” and how it plays out in the body.  It talks of how our memories, thoughts, feelings and beliefs in general, but also particularly when we have experienced trauma, are stored within the body and how, over time, within a trauma-aware approach, we can safely reconnect with and come to terms with them.  It talks of how, at some point, from somewhere deep within the body, lost and buried feelings start their journey to the surface, where we might sense them, acknowledge and then hear them, reconnecting with the fuller part of our own story. 

A Place to Roost:
Life on the wing, blown here and there
Where’er the wind might take you
No place to roost, or rest, like you belong

Sunrise, sunset, each new day finds you feeling
Unsafe, hurt, angry and unloved
Alone and unprotected, your whole life long

No rest was there, for you here, in Mother,
No place to anchor, root or make your home
This not belonging, a Daughter of the unloved, 
the one outside the nest, was left to roam

This not belonging, takes shape within the body
Sinews taught, “Be taut at my behest!”
A tautness, was learned over and again over, to echo down the years
No place to rest, to roost or simply to call home

Lost and buried, this not belonging – daughter of the unloved, unsafe, not wanted feelings,
Sinews holding tight on taut alert
How, then, can it feel safe to root, to roost at home within the body!
To flee, and fly at sunset became preferred

I hear at dusk the distant rook-rook-cawing
Of flocking hoards, of roosting rooks in flight,
Day’s end of light, together, all enjoying
These feelings on safe branches now alight

This Unbelonging Daughter, now her parent,
To rest within these feelings now she lands
By laying on of deeply hearing hands, her own belonging
From hearing her own longing she understands
The echoes through the years now unfolding
Tautness gradually learning to release
The deepest of her fears, now her guides, are now bestowing
Her own safe space, a place to root beneath her tears,

So deep within does body’s wisdom echo
The rooks, her feelings, make their home, their nest
And in the light of heart’s warm hearth at sunset
And finally, to roost, to root, to anchor….yes, to rest.

By Belinda Gammon.

Visit my Home page for more information about counselling and how to contact me