Yearning for a Place in the Woods

I have a deep yearning in my soul for a place in the woods. A place we can raise our children, a place we can run around naked to our hearts' content, a property large enough to share with other like-minded folk.

I have had this dream for years now. It is not a particularly unique dream, as it goes, especially not among pagans. I think so many of us long for a wild community gathering space, and many of us have ventured out and created such spaces. Of course, being pagans, every pagan property has its own energy, intentions, and structures. 

On most of these properties that I have been privileged to visit, I feel fed. I, too, long for an Excremeditation Chamber like at Lothlorien (the cat's pajamas of composting privies), or a bath house like Short Mountain, or the magically tricksy wilds of Cerren Ered that shrink and enlarge and can snare even the most experienced resident into lostness. I see the children being creative and radiant and doing their own thang, and my heart leaps with joy for them. I see the more fey residents of these properties, the ones who fit there perfectly but do not fit so well in "mundane" society, wandering about very naked, adorned with wild things, avoiding most of the festival crowds. 

I dream of this with an intensity that is almost physically painful. I dream of living in a configuration that causes me to get up in the morning in my own space, step outside to the natural world, and walk to my destinations in order to visit, to cook large meals, to garden, to meditate, and most everything else. I can see myself being much older but still spry from hoofing it up and down the side of the mountain. 

And at this time of the year especially, I long, I yearn, I pine like bad poetry for land I know I will live on for the rest of my life so that I can plant bulbs, a dozen or so each year, and watch as more and more of them come up in brilliant color every year, greeting me, greeting the sun, an affirmation of life, cycles, and commitment.