Forests

There was no blog last week for various reasons so I didn’t want to miss another one. I’m writing from Rivendell retreat centre where I’m leading a retreat called “Creating compassion for the cries of the world”. The blurb on Rivendell programme said:

How can we, as Buddhist practitioners, respond with compassion in a world marked by chaos and uncertainty?

What is the Dharmic response to meet the cries of the world, our own and others’?How can we draw on the richness of the Dharma to respond with honesty, courage, and inspiration?

A topic that inspires and moves me.

Rivendell is in East Sussex. Their website tells us that Rivendell has been successfully established as a Buddhist Retreat Centre for nearly 40 years. Situated on the edge of a small East Sussex village, the retreat centre itself is housed in a former Victorian rectory. Surrounding the house is a lovely garden, beyond which lie fields and woodland. If I’m honest, it’s a bit suburban for my taste (basically I’m spoiled by Dhanakosa) but it’s true that the gardens are gorgeous and the house is comfy. There are beautiful old woodlands here. It’s situated in Ashdown Forest. The local forest website tells us:

Covering over 10 square miles, Ashdown Forest is one of the largest open access areas in South East England.  Situated within the High Weald National Landscape (a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), its lowland heathland and deciduous woodland habitats are home to many rare and threatened species.

With a rich human history from Kings and commoners to smuggling and industry dating back centuries, Ashdown Forest is also the setting of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. 

It is quintessentially English and very lovely.  Apparently, a habitat rarer than tropical rainforest, the unique heathland of Ashdown Forest is home to some of Europe’s most threatened species. It’s the retreat centre I know least of all in the UK I think, other than Vajrasana, so I was pleased to be asked to lead a retreat here this year and happy with the theme.

Today is the mid point of the retreat and a silent reflective day.  When I was thinking about the programme we were having a heatwave - remember that? Seems such a distant memory now. My vision was of us meditating outdoors and spending time walking and reflecting.  But…. The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft agley an leave us naught but grief for promised joy! This morning was the wildest weather since we got here and that is saying something. It’s rained every day, the wind has howled and the skies have been grey. This morning the rain was torrential but by the afternoon it had cleared with a bright blue sky and sunshine. So, we could do our reflective walk after all. That’s what got me thinking about ancient forest, ancient trees and the lives they have witnessed. 

This turned my mind to the forest around Dunkeld in Perth and Kinross. In the summer of 2006, we rented the campus of Butterstone School just outside Dunkeld for an ordination retreat - where our very own Moksavajri and Satyavajri were ordained. It was the biggest ever women’s ordination retreat (still holds that record) with 28 women being ordained. I loved it! The surroundings were gorgeous, right on the banks of the wee loch of Butterstone. Every morning, before meditation, a number of us would sit on the wall looking down to the loch and watch an osprey hover then plunge into the water, flying out with fish for the babies being nurtured in nests nearby. There were deer and red squirrels and too many wonderful things to write about today. Maybe another time.

My feelings and response to these two forests are different. The forests are different in themselves. While Ashdown has ancient trees that are several hundred years old, the Scottish forest is likely to contain trees from a much older, continuous forest ecosystem that existed long before human management. Dunkeld is part of the ancient Caledonian Forest in Scotland and represents a much older woodland ecosystem compared to the managed heathlands and woodlands of Ashdown Forest. I find myself wondering what each of those forests have seen, what ancient truths live in the Yew and Oak trees of East Sussex and in those of old Caledonia. 

Ashdown seems to me to be deeply English while Dunkeld seems quintessentially Scottish. Ashdown has that perfect English countryside feel - rolling hills, the heathlands, the Winnie-the-Pooh connections, and a sense of being a traditional English landscape. Dunkeld and the ancient Caledonian Forest feel so distinctly Scottish - wilder, more rugged, with that deep Celtic history and those ancient pines that have stood for centuries. I am struck by how nature and culture intertwine to create such different identities across the two landscapes. I say this not as a comparison but as an expression of how my soul and spirit respond to landscape.

And, of course, there is the wonder of Dhanakosa, the retreat centre that holds a special place in my heart.  The centre itself has memories I cherish, forged over years of going there. The whole area is magical, thin, a liminal space. There are also ancient trees around Loch Voil which would have witnessed centuries of history - from the neolithic burial chambers up Glen Ample to Rob Roy MacGregor's burial there. It's a spiritually rich landscape that perfectly complements retreats! I feel that ancient, liminal landscape offers something quite special to people - the mountains standing guard over the loch, the trees that have witnessed centuries of human history, the thin place quality. It's not just backdrop; it becomes part of the inner work offered there.

This is all part of my reflections on this retreat of responding to the cries of the world. As well as the dharmic basis of the Bodhisattva Ideal, I’m structuring the days around Joanna Macy's spiral from her Work that Reconnects: gratitude, honouring our pain for the world, seeing with new eyes and Going Forth. The work is all about that deep connection between inner and outer landscapes and really embraces the idea that our personal healing is inseparable from healing the Earth. It is proving a very potent marriage of workshop and dharma.  And overall, or underneath, there is the energy that is Bodhichitta. That strong heartfelt wish to alleviate suffering. The core of being a Buddhist Activist.

Oh and just before I end - Ashdown has Winnie the Pooh, but Dunkeld is the very forest that Shakespeare immortalized in Macbeth! The area around Dunkeld and Birnam was once part of the ancient "Great Birnam Wood" that features so prominently in the play. The famous prophecy states that Macbeth "shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him" .

What's fascinating is that there are still ancient trees standing there today. 

The magnificent Birnam Oak is thought to be over 500 years old and while it wasn't alive in the 11th century when the real Macbeth lived, it could well have been standing by the late 1500's when Shakespeare is believed to have visited Scotland. It's 90 feet high with a girth of more than 24 feet, and has a hollow at the bottom big enough for one person to sit inside. Such trees are essentially the last survivors of that ancient forest that Shakespeare wrote about. It's incredible to think that, when we were walking in the Dunkeld area on an ordination retreat in 2006, we were treading ground that inspired one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, and among trees that are living relics of that very forest!

Winnie the Pooh - Macbeth! Make of that what you will.

Meanwhile, as ever:

May all beings be well, may all beings find true happiness and its causes and may all beings be free from suffering.

Where the Bodhichitta has not yet arisen

May it arise

Where it has arisen

May it flourish

Where it flourishes

May it never die