After my wild camping adventure I found a truly beautiful campsite at Meiringskloof Nature Park, just outside of Fouriesburg. Breathtakingly beautiful! By now you’ll probably have realised that it’s seldom a direct and easy road to anywhere, and with Meiringskloof it was more of the same Google BS as before. Same but different. This time I was directed to an army base and told that this was my destination. The soldier at the entrance was having none of it and I had a suspicion that Google had planned a full on confrontation that was supposed to end with me being detained, or shot maybe. Sneaky! Escalation of our conflict. But the miscalculation on Google’s part was in his assumption that the soldier who greeted me would be an aggressive male itching for a fight. The calm and polite and very helpful female soldier and I had a lovely chat about what was going wrong with the directions. We engaged in dialogue to solve the issue and it all involved a lot of smiling and a big thank you from me. No tears, humiliation or mortal wounding. It comes naturally to us South African women. We had a day, or many, when the rock was struck. We stand together. And we do ask and we can tell. Strength!
Setting up camp proved to be a separate challenge on a stormy, rainy day. Timing is everything and I was minutes too late to avoid the downpour. I found myself standing and holding the one side of the tarp over my tent, and I couldn’t let go because, if I did, my tent would become soaked inside within minutes. I sadly hadn’t yet had a chance to waterproof her. So there I stood, imitating a tarp pole and wondering what to do. I decided to just be the tarp pole that I was clearly meant to be in that moment, and turned my head to face the pouring rain, laughed a bit at the situation and enjoyed the feeling of the rain on my face. The lightning was so pretty, but as a metal tarp pole, I admit I was quite nervous. The storm passed quickly and my tent was perfectly dry, so I felt that the shape shifting had been a wise choice in the moment.
I spent four days at Meiringskloof and it was true soulfood. I was again the only camper and had my cherished silence to myself. The campsite is protected by mountains on all sides and hasn’t apparently had any security issues for 50 years, so it’s a perfect spot for a nomadic woman camping on her own. I think it’s probably a bit late for me to be including that in my priority list though, after the Free State field trip. I had a visit from a curious mongoose (they control the snakes I was told) who sat next to my tent and shared energy with me. Ditto with a few beautiful flies. I think they were flies – they did fly so let’s go with that. They sat on my tent rope, also sharing energy. (I suppose I could call them sits, but I’m almost sure that wouldn’t be correct.)
My ankle was feeling a bit better so I decided one day to go on a short hike. Short hikes are never short hikes with me and getting lost in a forest is what I do. Forests love me. And don’t love me. When I visited the Jozani Forest in Zanzibar the energy of the forest trees formed such a solid barrier that I couldn’t walk in. It literally stopped me in my tracks. This has happened to me many times in my lifetime. It happened at a Mango Groove concert once where I couldn’t walk into the concert arena, so it’s all kinds of energy that does this. It’s something to do with my heartbeat. The energy barrier interferes with the rhythm of my heart and it becomes confused and starts beating erratically as my heart touches that energy point. It was such a frustrating situation at Jozani because the group I was with just carried on walking, unaware that I wasn’t with them anymore, and I was stuck watching them disappear into the forest, while the aggressive Zanzibarian mosquitoes jack-hammered their way through my insect repellent. The trick I discovered on that day is to almost jump through the barrier, so my heart only skips one beat, then returns to normal. So, sometimes I can feel extremely rejected by forests. By contrast though, some suck me in and won’t let go. That happened in Hogsback, where I disappeared into a forest time vortex for 4 hours before she let me go. And I got lost again, in the Meiringskloof forest. No big surprises there!
As I walked into the forest it felt as if there was an energy exchange happening, and once again a song started playing randomly via Spotify. It wasn’t one that was on any of my playlists or that I’d listened to before, my phone was off and in my pocket, Spotify was not open. It’s always disconcerting when you’re walking in a quiet forest and suddenly there’s a dramatic soundtrack. This one had a deeply tribal rhythm to it and, just like at Louvain Farm forest, I chose to let it play to the end. I’m wondering if forest energies have a wish to interact with other energies, like those of sound and then obviously music. Maybe as curiosity or as amplification of their own energy waves. I’m now hugely curious. Because it doesn’t seem random anymore.
It was after I’d spent time meditating at the stalactite waterfall, and was walking back, that I got lost. But just as I felt my anxiety seeping in, another song started to play. This time it was a YouTube meditation. Again, my phone was off, YouTube not open. The meditation calmed me and I figured out how to find my way out of the forest, but as I went “Oh, it’s that way”, the music stopped and a voice spoke, through my phone, saying “We spend so much time chasing after happiness, when there is wonder all around us”. This kind of thing happens a lot with me, but the energy connection and messaging on this walk just left me quite stunned. I’d spent a few days alone in silence, immersed in the mountain and forest energy, meditating on my life and the direction I’m taking (or not taking) and I feel that perhaps this message was to just be in the now, for now. To deeply interact with and soak in the magic of nature. The forest and the mountain, just like all of us, perhaps just wanted to be seen. And so I slowed right down and saw every leaf and rock and droplet of water and heard every bird song and insect vibration and water splash that I was able to. I love forests. Deep down I feel they love me too.