18/11/2025
What might outdoor walk & talk therapy look and sound like? In trying to answer this question, as I reflect on how it works, my thoughts go to poetry. There is a wood with a path under beech trees, where I work outdoors in this way. It never fails to amaze me how human hearts unfold, opening uniquely to the landscape as it receives them. To give a feel of how this process might look, sound and feel, the following poem, I hope, provides such a narrative as would offer you the reader a subjective view…
Walking up through fiery floor
Feet in restless rhythm
On, up, round – stopping
Fronds of fire above, all around
Arms of fire gesturing, inviting,
Wellings up, heaving to my shoulders
“So readily there!” I notice with surprise,
Just below the surface…
I could reveal it here
To the woodland’s embers
The onward pace, the intimate space
The rhythm, rhythm…
And then…The Space
Its vast embrace
The sky…clouds moving, moving
Strangely soothing, soothing
Looking down the line, the hills of lime
To cool, grey distant shapes
Soothing…strangely.
The knots inside, as they slide
The tears do glide…freely.
The knots, still there…the land aware
Its aeons quietly attending
To this next moment
Of life that’s flowing
Down to where the ground is waiting
The energy to receive
The breeze – it stirs – that feels so good
Around me unfolding
Tuneful sounds, their rhythmic jabs
The spirit massaging.
Some passers by, they seem to know
My moment’s not for sharing
And in their slowly passing thru
Perhaps they show their caring.
And here I sit
Weighty carverns clear
With breath more freely flowing.
Between my Self and the hills of lime
There rests a jointly knowing.
I let my gaze flow out
To rest upon the land before me
Awareness flowing with the air
Flowing with the landscape
The changes it will freely allow
to rest within its knowing.
Belinda Gammon, November 2025.
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