What happened to such sacred land?

[Fkeu'itan]

This post ties in to a poem I just posted. You can read it here.

I would also like to say that this is a long read, but I just have to get everything I feel off my chest. (You may also think i'm completely nuts by the end of it, but just stick with me. )

So I have just returned from a weekend trip to a place unbelieveably close to my heart. It is an amazing country park on the south central coast called Penbre. I have been going to this place for many, many years - every single year since I was 3 years old - and needless to say it's sacred land to me.

I went there this year with a new set of eyes. went there for the first time ever when I could See...

And what I saw was so unbelieveably painful.

I remember back 15 years ago to a place virtually untouched, unmarred in it's beauty. A place of rolling fields, wild and thick woodland and rugged and beautiful coastline disturbed only by a small village.

And what I see now is hulks of glass and metal. Office blocks, apartments and multiplexes. Spas, golf courses and hotels... The change was not instant. I realise that now. it was the result of years of growing popularity. Of demand and supply. Of sheer unadulterated greed.

This journal entry I made the night after my experience explains my feelings better;

Originally Posted by Fkeu'itan's Journal

So I have returned to Penbre - a place I have been to many, many times in the past. Some of my earliest memories lay here and it is a place truly feel connected to, a place of utmost importance to me.

So it is with a heavy heart that I write what it has beome. Over years past, greedy individuals saw the potential for economic abuse of such a wonderous and beautiful place, quick to capitalise, they have sprung their fancy office blocks, high-fidelity apartments and glass-fronted monstrosities all over her face like ugly scars.

And it only looks set to deteriorate further. The shopping complexes and spa-facilities are spreading themselves all over like a virus, an infection.

Luckily the park itself remains largely untouched, yet even this is being twisted, exploited for profit.

Some ways are subtle. Others are not. Turning the trees into some fairground attraction is certainly not the prior. [Talking about these tree-top adventure things that are very popular in this country at the moment. 'Go Ape' is the company that runs the aforementioned one.]

Those I am with see not the sadness in such a scene. What used to be untouched is now reduced to a mere ride. A joke.

Is it too late to remember how it was?

And yet I was not to express such worries, such problems, lest I be deemed insane, a joy-killer, as over-reacting. Do only I see the indecency, the sadness to such a depressing scene?

And yet, in all her hurt, in all her marred beauty, she still smiles to me.

[Break for Poem]

I really need some meditation time alone this weekend, I will be ever so sad if I cannot. This is my Pandora, my Tree of Souls, the holiest place for me, and this, the place I can be closest to her.

I thought everything was lost. The magic of the place I had such a deep connection with was being sapped away. That nothing in this amazing place rested untouched by human greed, that all the the life, the very soul of the place had been divided up and sold to the highest bidder. I was in a very dark place indeed.

That night, I meditated. I needed to escape. And in a dream, something approached and spoke to me. It said;

Originally Posted by Unknown

Without radiance of beauty, what is a man's soul?

And it told me to answer the question next Thursday.

Shocked and confused, I then went to sleep.

***

The next day I had to myself. I had said to my parents the day before that I wanted some meditation time to myself and, as per usual, they gave me the weird look and said "But i'll be worried, it's too dangerous" etc. etc. So it came as a real surprise that they could actually see my needs instead of making me feel trapped, even if they don't deliberately do it.

So I had a lot of time to think about the previously mentioned situation. I walked bearefooted in the woods, explored parts of the park I didn't even know existed, meditated on the beach and just generally had some really hard thinking time.

That night, I felt the connection coming back just that little bit, but it was blurry and it was difficult to really feel the place I was in.

***

The final day and it was really, really beautiful. The sun was out and altough there were clouds in the sky, they only served to further enhance the beauty.

I could tell that something, whatever it may be, had changed.

We took a walk down a small gravel track, a track that leads through the forest section of the park and that's when the realisation hit me. This part of the park was completely untouched. As it was when I walked through it as a small child fifteen years ago. The grass was long, the wildlife was abundant and the trees stood tall and strong. The roar of the road was gone... Except for the sound of the birds, only the wind disturbing the branches of the trees gently, making them creak and sway in the light breeze, could be heard. Nothing but natural woodland could be seen. It was a place that was truly wild.

Just as I remembered.

It seemed not everything had left this place, not all had been destroyed or harmed by the force of human 'progress'. This was what still remained.

And it was beautiful beyond words.

So there you go. My weekend.

I really have no idea what spoke to me in the dream, but the words to me were as clear as day and it is most certainly an order I will keep.