relaxedCa was leading and asked us all to bring something that reminds us of our favourite part of the natural world - I was trying to work out what to bring, but ended up digging out a couple of sunset photos (taken on actual film, to much amusement) as I find when out and about with the camera I take an awful lot of landscape photos, in particularly of landscapes with interesting skies. A quote from Goodnight Mister Tom comes to mind - "I could never tire of painting the sky for it is constantly changing". It turns out quite a few of us had the same idea and had found similar photos of sky and fields.
Later the topic moved on to thin places - this also comes out of Celtic Christianity, and means places where the physical and spiritual worlds seem particularly close. One I found many years ago is this spot:
Hidden to the side of a path between Titchfield Common and the Chilling cliffs are steps leading down to a boardwalk through the trees, along and above a tiny stream. I just find it an incredibly peaceful spot to pause at on a sunny day, listening to the stream burbling along and birds chattering in the trees. The boardwalk has an inscription carved in it - "as time passes slowly by this place, pause awhile, then so must we".
Another one is St Mary's church at Hook-with-Warsash:
I've walked past it several times, but the other day I was attempting some geocaches around Warsash Common and thought I'd give the church micro a try. And having walked into the churchyard and found the necessary clue, I had some time and so decided to explore some more. Doing so turned out to be well worth it and I spent much longer looking around than I'd intended to (abandoning the geocaches due to lack of time) - as with the boardwalk above it was just so very peaceful, and also despite it being a grey overcast day inside the building was very bright and airy thanks to a large pair of clear windows at the rear of the church. Some churches have a particularly spiritual feel, and this is one of those.
