🌿 🥾Enlightened Walks & Talks 🎙️🌱💬 9th–15th March 2026

This week’s walk and reflections are dedicated to a young woman I met recently who reminded me how powerful it is to trust who you are from the very beginning, and to the mothers who lovingly support their children as they explore their own path…

Words Beneath My Feet

On a blustery morning at Sutton Bank in North Yorkshire, often described as the finest view in England, I stepped onto the woodland path. The ground beneath my feet held unexpected words.

“Follow me.”

“Fly along upon these words.”

“Spot a rosy round of robins.”

Instantly I was transported back to my classroom days.

Those phrases felt exactly like the sort of prompts I once loved using with children; invitations to observe, imagine, and translate the world into language. Some of my favourite lessons never happened inside four walls. They unfolded outside, where a path could become a poem and a birdsong could spark an entire story.

Standing there, it struck me that the teacher in me had never disappeared.

She had simply found a different classroom.

Earlier this week I spent time encouraging a young person who is beginning to explore her own spiritual awareness. It was not a formal reading. It was something quieter, offering reassurance, inspiration, and the gentle reminder that trusting oneself is often the first step of any journey.

In that moment I realised something important.

Teaching was never something I lost.

It was always a transferable gift.

My role is not simply to tell people what the future holds. It is to help them recognise that they are capable of discovering it for themselves.

Learning does not belong exclusively to schools.

Sometimes it begins on a woodland path.

A Flash of Yellow

Further along the trail, a brilliant splash of colour caught my eye.

Gorse.

Its luminous yellow blossoms glowed against the muted tones of the hillside, instantly pulling me back to childhood memories of Flower Fairy books; those enchanting illustrations where every plant seemed to harbour its own tiny magic.

Nature has a remarkable ability to reopen that sense of wonder.

Gorse thrives in the most exposed places: poor soil, windswept slopes, rough terrain where other plants struggle to survive. Yet it blooms with unapologetic brightness.

A small but powerful reminder that resilience often flourishes in unexpected conditions.

Sometimes life does exactly the same.

Repacking the Rucksack 🎒

As the path wound through the trees, I found myself thinking about Dora the Explorer.

My children loved that programme when they were small. Dora always carried a rucksack filled with useful tools, a map, a compass, whatever the adventure required. 🗺️ 🧭 🪏

Walking along, I realised I was carrying my own invisible rucksack.

Only this one was filled with experiences gathered across years of life.

Some of the items inside it I have consciously taken out and returned. Some were never mine to carry in the first place. And some of the most valuable tools had simply been buried beneath responsibilities that accumulated over time.

The ability to teach was one of those tools…

It had never disappeared. It had simply been waiting quietly in the bag.

Explorers do not stand still forever. They climb, pause, reassess their pack, and then continue.

The tools we carry today are rarely the same ones we started with.

But often they are better suited to the journey ahead.

Growth is not about discarding the past.

It is about repacking it wisely.

The Forest’s Quiet Alchemy

A little further along, the forest offered another teacher.

A pale bracket fungus growing from the side of a tree.

At first glance it seemed delicate, almost decorative. Yet fungi perform one of the most vital roles in nature: transforming decay into nourishment.

Old wood breaks down.

Nutrients return to the soil.

New life begins.

The forest understands something humans often resist.

Nothing is wasted.

The tree may weaken, but the ecosystem strengthens. One form of life loosens its hold so another can emerge.

Standing there, the message felt unmistakable.

Letting go is not an ending.

It is part of the cycle that allows renewal.

Old expectations, emotional patterns, and roles we have outgrown do not vanish into nothingness. They become fertile ground for what comes next.

Nature composts experience.

Perhaps we are learning to do the same.

When the Forest Looks Frightening

The woodland changed again as I walked on.

The trees here were ancient and contorted, their branches twisting into shapes that looked almost theatrical. Instantly they reminded me of the forest in Disney’s Snow White, the moment when she runs from the Evil Queen and everything around her suddenly appears threatening.

Branches become claws.

Trunks resemble monsters.

Yet something important happens in that story.

When Snow White stops running, the forest transforms.

The trees never changed.

Her perception did.

Standing among those twisting trunks, the symbolism felt strikingly familiar.

The fungus had shown how letting go nourishes the future. The gorse had shown brightness thriving in harsh conditions.

And now the trees offered another insight.

What initially appears frightening or uncertain may simply be guiding us forward.

Sometimes the next step means leaving a familiar hell and stepping into an unfamiliar heaven.

The journey often looks darkest just before the clearing appears.

The View from the Ridge

Eventually the path climbed toward the summit of Sutton Bank.

Clouds still hung low across the sky. The wind tugged at my coat, the air crisp and invigorating.

Yet the valley below stretched endlessly into the distance.

From this height the landscape unfolded like a map; fields stitched together in green mosaics, villages nestled between hedgerows, roads winding quietly toward the horizon.

Moments like this arrive in life, too.

We have climbed the mountain.

Done the work.

Faced the forest.

And suddenly the view expands.

It felt as though the arrow had already been drawn and the bow was steady, but before releasing it there is always a pause.

Where do I aim next?

A ridge becomes a decision point.

A valley becomes possibility.

Clouds become uncertainty.

Even on a grey day, the summit reveals something profound.

The future is wider than the past we have just climbed away from.

The Crossroads

A little further along stood a weathered signpost.

One arrow pointed towards the Cleveland Way.

Another towards Sneck Yate.

A third towards Dialstone Farm.

Three directions.

Three paths beginning from the same place.

Life often mirrors this moment on a hillside trail. After a long climb we arrive somewhere and realise there is not just one way forward.

There are many.

Sometimes we pause there for a while.

The arrow is drawn.

The map is open.

The valley stretches ahead.

Which path calls us next?

The beauty of crossroads is simple:

None of the paths are wrong.

Each one simply leads somewhere new.

A Quiet Full Circle

Just below the ridge lies the famous White Horse carved into the hillside, the place where my husband proposed to me.

Standing there again felt quietly significant.

You cannot see the horse from the bench. It rests just beyond the edge of the escarpment.

Perhaps that is fitting.

Some things in life work quietly behind the scenes before revealing their full shape.

This year is also the Year of the Horse, a symbol of movement, courage, and forward momentum.

Standing above the hillside where the horse lies hidden felt like a gentle reminder that sometimes the next stage of life begins when the horse finally leaves the stable and begins to run.

We do not always realise how far we have travelled until we return somewhere familiar and notice how different we feel.

The landscape remains.

But we do not.

Riding the Current

As I stood there, a glider drifted silently across the sky.

No engine.

No effort.

Simply riding the rising air that lifts from the escarpment.

It felt like another quiet lesson.

Progress does not always come from pushing harder.

Sometimes it comes from reaching the right height and allowing the current to carry you forward.

Shedding the Old Skin

As I walked back toward the car park, one final symbol appeared.

A carved wooden snake winding its way up a post beside the path.

Across cultures and centuries, snakes symbolise renewal and transformation. They grow by shedding their skin, leaving behind what no longer fits so something new can emerge.

After a walk filled with signs and reflections, the symbolism felt almost poetic.

Sometimes moving forward is not about adding more to the backpack.

Sometimes it is about gently shedding what we have already outgrown.

And then continuing the journey a little lighter than before.

Walking with Nature

Friday the 13th, once associated with the goddess Freya and the rhythms of the natural world, arrives this week.

Long before superstition clouded its meaning, it was a day connected with intuition, cycles, and the life force flowing through nature.

Perhaps that is the deeper thread running through this walk.

We are not separate from nature.

We are part of it.

The same currents moving through forests, hillsides, and sky move through us too.

When we slow down enough to walk and listen, the landscape often mirrors the journey already unfolding within us.

Sometimes the forest teaches us to let go.

Sometimes the summit reminds us to look ahead.

And sometimes a simple path quietly reveals the next direction on the map of life.

All we have to do…

is keep walking. 🌿

This walk forms part of my Enlightened Walks & Talks series, weekly reflections from paths and landscapes across North Yorkshire and the UK.

If this reflection resonated with you, you’re very welcome to leave a comment or share it with someone who might enjoy it!