First Response - Simon

Note: I'm editing these responses to remove last names and geographical clues. Participants will be invited to join a contact group soon. -- Ben

From Simon,  17 August, 2011

Hello There

Just wanted to thank you for your timely gift you were able to provide me with yesterday at [X] Beach.

I set off from home with a drawing to go to [X] for some obscure reason (synchronicity), noting it was low tide, with the potential to be able to walk around and sit on the little beach and meditate on the next stage of my journey.

I was suffering from writers block and not having enough inspiration to continue to write, from a number of days typing away at my first manuscript, 'Becoming A Butterfly'.

My walk took me down the track past the farm, the coot and the mallard, past half a dozen Red Admirals, any number of Gatekeepers, a Speckled Wood or two, numerous Large Whites and a rather special Small Tortoiseshell.

I stumbled across the main beach around the rocks an hour after low and up on to the little beach, desperate for a place to sit, drawn to that small patch of ground, on turning the corner I was overjoyed to see your masterpiece lying on the sand.

I used it, I did not change it, I sat on it, from various angles, I put my feet up and I dosed for 3/4s of an hour, I mused on the view, I watched two cormorants sit like sentinels on the rock, a third lay as the rocks across the bay, They were there to give me clarity of my situation and help me dive into the goal I have ahead of me, as well as other things too I would imagine.

I did not have my camera with me, otherwise I would have taken a picture of me sat there musing. My headache disappeared, my block crumbled, I felt refreshed.

My return journey was more joyous, past the Small Tortoiseshell and all of his distant relatives, back past the coot, the mallard and the farm, to home.

Keep doing what you do, it is delightful and I hope people's musings such as my own, inspire you onward. I watched a timely video at Haldon Forest the week before on David Nash work out in nature, of wooden boulders and the like, your dream sofa is up there with it. Keep carrying on, keep inspiring.

Thanks very much it was just what I needed.

Kind regards

Simon