"Of all things guaranteed to make the body more restful, I can think of none better than sitting in the centre of a woodland area or by a calm stream watching peaceful waters flow. Peace is the perfect marriage between a person and the planet. As Albert Camus said, 'Peace is the only battle worth waging.'
Within each man, woman and child can be found a centre of stillness surrounded by silence, This is what I have come to know as the serenity of the soul. Its importance lies not in it being able to show you the way; it is the way!
It is not surprising that being close to raging seas fascinates mankind and that being beside still waters calms him. Far better, when stressed with the everyday worries of life to find some peaceful stream to sit by and allow your cares to drift away with the current of its passage. It is no coincidence that water covers 71% of the earth's surface and that without it we could not live. Look therefore upon water as representing the mother and matrix of nature, and still rivers as the medium of solitude and perfect peace.
Over the past three months I have been in considerable pain and without having the ability to mediate that pain, my life would have been very hard to negotiate. I have lived with a degree of pain in my legs every day since the age of eleven years and have mainly used relaxation and meditation as opposed to analgesics to manage that pain. As a person who has practised relaxation training for sixty years and taught it for fifty, I know the importance of distraction and imagery in the process of finding relief. We each have different scenes which help us to relax and to focus our mind away from pain. Mine has always been either the verdant and vibrant woodland or the passage of a peaceful stream. Both scenes bring the body back into union with the beauty of nature and represents the peaceful passage of life. It becomes physiolgically more difficult to feel real paIn when you are experiencing a vivid image of beauty which induces peace and tranquility of mind, knowing that the longer you can hold that peaceful image, the longer you will block the passage of pain to your body.
When I have my local operation in hospital on one of my painful hands today, my mind will be not on my hand, but on my peaceful stream which flows through my woodland. Have a nice day." William Forde: September 25th, 2015.