There’s no ‘But what is it’, today. The series will continue for a few weeks, restarting next Sunday.

Three of us have been busy doing a ‘dry run’ of the plans for our ‘Journey of the Hero’ workshop 6-8 May, centred in Keswick. We’ve been crossing lakes, walking up hills and following rivers to mysterious stone structures… Oh, and a quick visit to a couple of ancient stone circles too.

It sounds fun… and it is – on one level – but its also exacting. You have to be certain that its going to be right. And that takes a lot of detailed thinking and creative imagination, which, as any psychologist will tell you, is at the heart of the ‘magical practice’ of encouraging things to happen.

The central issue you have to get right for each of the weekend’s segments is timing. You envisage a visit to, say the Castlerigg Stone Circle, a mere 3000 years old, and decide that will make a great beginning and finale to the ‘Journey of the Hero’ weekend. But that’s just one place and there can be several miles between each location, and that needs careful planning. A convoy of cars, each following the other, is not an exact science; not when they have to pull out, separately, onto a busy dual carriageway.

Believe it or not, we have even developed a ‘protocol’ for this that – if followed – ensures we all arrive together.

We known the drill. We’ve been doing this since 2013. On Tuesday, I’ll be writing about what it’s actually like to plan and execute a ‘magical landscape’ workshop.

For now, below is one of my favourite shots of the past three days: Ashness Bridge on the shore of Derwent Water, near Keswick.

The magic’s already in the landscapes. To work with it you just have to tease it out… On Thursday, in the Preparation of Magical Landscapes (2) post, I’ll be looking at this fascinating process, and how everything ‘comes together’ in the last week before the event.

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog