Taking a break from my blogs and my constant work with spirit rescue, I took Sam the dog for a life sustaining walk in nature, admiring the diverse trees lining the streets, such as the beautiful red copper beech whose canopy contrasted stunningly with the azure blue sky as we passed. I exercised my memory by addressing each variety of tree, such as the happy yellow forsythia, the slightly aloof lime with the heart shaped leaves and, down a quiet leafy lane in West Bridgford, an enormous old and spreading chestnut tree who, it has to be said, is always rather grumpy and not particularly interested in responding to my compliments about its beautiful self. I always felt the urge to loiter under this wonderful tree, perhaps drawn by the aura of sadness about him.
Today, however, I heard an explanation from Spirit by way of ‘health and safety’ and immediately cottoned on to the immense loss he felt that today’s children no longer scrambled and played in his branches. As I gazed into the centre of his vast trunk I was shown a bygone era where happy, knee-scraped, excited children, lost in a world of play and imagination scrambled in his supporting arms.
A little girl named Miriam, her wild blonde hair having escaped from its tight plaits, clambered confidently with bare feet and grubby arms and legs in this beautiful spreading Chestnut tree. Her snotty nose and old 1930’s cardigan spoke volumes of her carefree ‘unsupervised-by-adults’ childhood. Then there was a flash-flash-flash through time as I was shown how Miriam ended her days in a nursing home, lonely but reminiscing about those good old carefree days when she and her chums lost themselves in a world of freedom and nature. She had straight white hair, thinly combed to her gaunt face. I knew immediately that she had passed away but still remained lost in her childhood dreams and had not yet passed into the light. I had no clue to how long she had loitered on the earth plane and took out my trusty dowser – it’s chain invariably dangling from my jeans for times such as this – and stood there in the privacy of that quiet lane, with only Nature to witness the release of that old lady’s dreams of freeedom and happiness, to the only place she could repeat those childhood experiences to her heart’s content!
As for that beautiful Horse Chestnut Tree – synonimous with childhood – his Spirit was glad to have ‘sustained’ that young girl’s spirit, holding her in his arms until such time as she could be returned to her true home. He still, however, mourns for the old days, when life was free from the restrictions of health and safety and human children revelled in his playground. “And so say all of us!” sang a chorus of well-wishers from the other side, including a young again Miriam.
