I am writing the newsletter early this month as, lucky me, I am heading to the Austrian alps with some dear friends on Friday. It got me to reminiscing about mountains as it has been over 20 years since Ric and I lived in the ski fields, traversing not only the slopes but 2 summers and 3 winters. A truly blissful time.
I grew up spending every holiday in mountainous regions, snowdonia in the summers, skiing in the winters (my parents having met on a ski trip and my dad being the rock climber and mountaineer type) and whenever the icy cold clear blue sky days come as they did last week, I crave to get up high and breathe in the clearest air I know.
In the current training I am doing with the college of therapeutic shamanism, we are encouraged to spend time walking through our world imagining how it would have looked before domestication. Without the concrete streets and huge buildings, without the wheat fields and grazing cattle, I mainly imagine a lot more trees. Oh and what the world would feel like if I was barefoot all the time!
In our current modern world, I think the huge snow-capped mountainous terrain of the alps may be the easiest place to imagine the ‘old world’ without having to use much effort. Although the glaciers may have melted back over recent decades, the scenery has not changed beyond recognition in the way it has elsewhere. This is especially true in the winter when every year the snow comes and everything is covered in a beautiful white haze. And yes, there may now be chairlifts and little hut restaurants but the scale of the world there is so huge, they seem almost insignificant.
So I will endeavour to enjoy the view and imagine those same mountains thousands of years ago. They are so ancient, it will be an honour to be in their presence, to connect to their sense of time where one second may be a human lifetime. I will also try and imagine how slow and measured human life would have been in the cold months, every ounce of energy hard won and used wisely. I will also zip around on two planks of wood and enjoy those chairlifts and restaurants too!
February 2024 marks not only the Celtic celebration of Imbolc and the Chinese New year of the Dragon, but also ATTIC actively reentering the world after 4 reorientation years.
Ric has spent the last 30 years exploring the movement energy medicines such as Qigong and Tai chi, while I have been learning about our original spirituality, Animism, experiencing all life as interconnected and sentient. The tea offers us the bridge. It is a gentle portal into our personal growth. It’s purpose is to still and centre us, welcoming us into ourselves so we are more receptive to all the practices we go on to participate in. Whether heading to work, sitting for meditation, off to a yoga class or cooking dinner, it finds the place where our left hemisphere collaborates with our right hemisphere and brings us back into being a healthy human, offering us expansion, personal growth and a better perspective on living.
We will be offering face-to-face experiences of this work (information to come). We thank you all for sharing the journey and it is comforting to know you already cherish such moments every day, with every cup of tea.
Wishing you a joyful slide into the promise of Spring and we look forward to talking to you again in March.
Anne and Ric x