For the series of Movement workshops, regular farm volunteer Molly Jaeger drew on her extensive experience in dance, yoga and the Feldenkrais method to lead the group through a series of activities that enabled an exploration of the connections between our bodies and the landscape. These quiet and meditative sessions led to some quite weighty and memorable insights.

Molly introduced the workshops by speaking about the movement we experience internally, movement of thoughts and the emotions, the systems of the body, so that even in ‘relative stillness’ there is lots of movement that we might not be aware of.

The July sun beat down on us as we moved through Molly’s exercises. We started with a qi gong technique where we vigorously threw our hands in front of us, over and over and over, and then experienced the invisible forcefield of energy this created. We moved over the dry, springy grass, mindful of the sensations we experienced within and outside of our bodies. One participant reflected:

I started to feel more ease of movement once my mind was connected and aware. I began to feel the triggers, the messages, were getting there before I’d physically taken the steps. I felt like there was more movement and more capacity for movement.

The exercise that perhaps caused the most dramatic reactions of the Mindful Movement series was walking through a dense willow plantation. Molly led us up to the wall of willow then instructed us to move through it to the other side. There was an audible gasp.  At first it didn’t seem possible that we could penetrate this mass of solid growth. But everyone persevered and one by one we made it through the thicket. Molly then sent us back again!

Walking back I was more conscious – the fear of the unknown had gone and I know – there is dense bush but I know I can past.  The first walk I was consciously – fearful if I could put it that way (Mindful Movement participant).

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I was more concerned about stamping them, damaging them. Trying to find a path that was much less denser so that I could cross that way. But it was a playful – like there was some kind of communication so it was – you’re there, I’m here, I’m going into your territory, but still I find my way. So it was a playful way of reaching that. I didn’t expect to enter their territory. They were so strong and formed. They had made their own boundaries but still I was entering in between them so it was something different.  And when we’re turning back I get tie to sense the texture of the stem. And it was so different- the variation in the same patch over there, it was so beautifully created and I never noticed while going the first time. So when coming back I was more open to the minute differences and changes that there were (Mindful Movement participant).

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I regressed about 60 years [laughter]. I could have happily stayed there for another half an hour. Until my mum calls me in for supper [laughter]. The first time was like going through an obstacle. The second time was like rejoining a friend [laughter] (Mindful Movement participant).

Through the Mindful Movement workshops, participants gained insight into their surroundings and also into themselves.

One exercise in the second of the workshops involved us taking a mindful meander by ourselves. After we had come together again, Molly gave us pens and paper and invited us to write about our experiences. When we shared our experiences afterwards, one participant reflected:

I realised I find it very difficult to walk without a purpose [laughs]. I find that quite a challenge. Just – to not have a purpose. And the writing – I’ve not written anything. Cos I write lists and I write instructions and I write to teach the kids to write but I have nothing else to write [laughs]. It’s too difficult…. So I found it quite challenging really. But then when I came down through the willow, here, where the kids normally play, the right way, not the wrong way – I couldn’t push myself to do that again [laughs] – I did notice, thinking about vision, that if you look through the willow on a sunny day there’s like 3000 colours of green. On the leaves. Cos from here it just looks like the same green, doesn’t it? But when the light catches all the different angles there’s so many. So you kind of stand there and look up a little bit and there are so many colours of green. I did notice that.

In the final session, our movement became more playful. We began the workshop under the shade of a gazebo. By eleven o’clock the sun was already high in the sky and beating down relentlessly on the browning field, gasping for water. Each week we watched it slowly withering, the ground hardening and parched. And yet in places there was still lush green grass, standing tall against the sun’s onslaught.  With trepidation we enter that long grass, slowly moving through it. Some participants sat in it, disappearing from view. We disturbed a large hare which shot through the grass, startling us as much as we had startled it.

Later, leaving the security of the gazebo, we headed to the market garden, such a different environment, manicured and straightened into rows, the vegetables alternating with stretch of black plastic weighted with bricks and sandbags. We moved as a group now, inching our way across the field, stopping to look and observe, sensing each other’s movements and negotiating each stop and start. One participant opened a bean pod and shared the beans around. We improvised a ritual with onion leaves and made shadow patterns on the black plastic. We played freely and silently, sometimes leading, sometimes following, until as a group we make the silent decision to return home to the shade.