It’s a sunny summer Saturday morning, day 2 of a 3 day magical woman’s retreat, and I’m busy blending some herbs for the herbal ice tea served at breakfast. The ladies are all a little weary of our forest hike coming up at 1pm later in the afternoon, as their fitness levels are not at the levels they would like them to be at.
The ice tea calms the nerves as I brief the ladies on what to expect for our adventure later that day.
A shortish hike (around 45min) down through the Auckland indigenious forest to the Big Tree, stopping along the way to meet a couple of other special trees and magical hollows, with a little connection to nature meditation with the Big Tree, and then a 30min hike back up through the same forest (uphill now) back to the lodge. This information, along with the herbal tea blend, seems to calm everyone’s nerves a bit and they went off for yoga and some sensory magic.
At a couple of minutes before 1pm we started gathering together, filling water bottles and the ladies testing their newly purchased Hogsback hiking sticks and shoe laces tied all up!
The summer heat already started building and I knew that we where in for a wonderful thunderstorm later the afternoon, which should be a powerful ending to a magical day for these wonderful ladies, I thought to myself!
After everyone gathered together and we where set to go, we headed off for our adventure!
By our second of three switchbacks down, I heard the first very far distant rumble… we will have enough time…. we make our way down to the Big Tree and I’m proud of the ladies, almost all of them where saying that they are not the fittest folks in town, but they still marched down like soldiers! We all take a moment to catch our breaths again, only to lose it again from the sheer breathtaking magnificence of the wonderful Monarch of the east! After everyone found a comfy seat around the tree, I started leading us into meditation using my Mala beads.
“Breathe in the forest magic, breathe out all your worldly stresses”
one bead at a time…
With about 15 beads left, another rumble came again, this time a little closer…
“breathe in the forest magic, breathe out your worldly stresses”
7 beads left… another rumble and I can now hear that some of the ladies are starting to nervously shift around…
“Breathe in the forest magic, breathe out your worldly stresses” 3 beads left… another rumble…
One of the ladies to the right of me turns to me and whispers: ” I think we are connected enough to nature, can we leave please?”
With a slight grin on my face I close the meditation off and everyone suddenly seems to have been filled with a jolt of energy, up and ready to head back up again in no time!
Another massive thunder bolt, and the heavens open up, rain pouring down, first a refreshing feeling as we power walk, but then harder and harder, as we reach the staircase at the end back up to the accommodation! We burst into the restaurant, sopping wet, laughing, filled with the magic of nature, humbled by her immense power!
With a nice warm beverage in our hands, we all felt alive.
After gathering all our things, we start making our way up up up, on the three switchbacks back up again, it’s never a easy trail back up again, but we march up, myself at the back making sure no one gets left behind, while being able to catch my breath and not look bad infront of the ladies lol. While still on the first switchback, another thunderous cracked is heard, and a couple of the ladies request permission to walk up ahead and not wait for the whole group, you know, to get refreshments ready for everyone. I agree to it and off they go like lightning bolts! The rest of us still making our ascent up towards the second switchback slow and steady. A few meters into the second switchback and mother nature decides to give everyone a scare and drop a lightning bolt within about 30 meters, no one is tired or out of breath anymore and the remaining ladies decide power walking is the name of the game and we power our way up and onto the third switchback, homeward bound now!
Sometimes connection to nature is a simple walk in the garden, other times it’s mother nature trying to charge your batteries for you with 100 million volts of electricity! Non the less those ladies knew that nature is alive!
Till next time folks
Adi Forestbeing