Full Moon at Felin Uchaf
The beaches here are vast and empty. Mottled pink seaweed catches between bare toes as I walk along the wave-line, leaving Isabel playing with the boys in the cove. Grey sky, grey sea, a light rain; the changing of a season. A warmness is still present in the waning August air. Here we find ourselves at the tip of the Llÿn Peninsula, with the Snowdonian mountains to the south of us. Smaller hills closer by, with swathes of cloud hanging over their crests. Villages nestle at the shoreline; Aberdaron, Criccieth, Penllech.
I bat wasps from my hair, the dopey end-of-summer wasps, landing on arms and stinging for no reason. Crawling out of crisp packets and on to the cheeks of my chocolatey children. We sleep well and strangely, Forrest and I, in a big flapping apple-green tent, in a nest of feather duvets and sheepskins. We sleep ten hours, from sundown to 7am, Forrest waking to say, ‘That was a long night, Mummy,’ before rolling over and snoring gently for another hour. We too are dopey with the end of summer; the rushing, the sugar, and the doing for many hours of each day. Freshness not felt in my body for a long time. I think the lethargy comes on stronger from a shedding and an awakening. So much subconscious processing.
My heart, which has been boxed in, starts to feel sore here. I’ve not felt things, made no space to let her breathe. Now she stirs awake and jostles inside a little. We arrived at this place full of warmth and centre, and so by osmosis, the thawing begins. I notice how much I’ve forgotten how to fill my own cup, and how to do things alone. I notice how strong my longing to reconnect with nature and season is. To the spirit and smells of tree bark, batting branches and charging winds. Being here has me yearning for the wild, the rugged, the natural. I notice the familiar way I feel I don’t measure up to others. Too wholesome sometimes, and - here - not wholesome enough. Don’t know how to pump up the buggy tyre, or walk a slack-line, and dislike going four days without washing my hair.
Forrest and I wander through a maze of woodland pathways, through creeping brambles, blackberries, nettles. My Adidas trainers soon wet with rain from the morning grasses. Forrest glides up and down on an old swing we find, deep in the woods at the end of a trail. ‘Push me, Mummy! Push Me!’ When he climbs off I leap on, standing upright and soaring through the white sky. A laugh escapes my lips. It catches his attention. I smile to the mist and my son below me.
On our final evening at Felin Uchaf the August full moon rises late, hangs heavy and yellow in a sky that’s already turned deep navy. We take seats around the edges of the main roundhouse, a fire crackling in the centre. Sparrows dart in and out through a hole in the roof, to their nest high up in the beams. A candle burns inside the empty clay pizza-oven. I watch a mother and daughter chatting, looking into each others eyes, before resting heads together to listen to Daffydd tell stories of ancient Welsh myth and legend. His gentle voice calms a room full of restless children and moony adults. Stories of knights and underground lairs. I nurse Holden to sleep and place him in the buggy, the roundhouse now dark, except for the fire. Forrest climbs into a wheelbarrow and I cover him in blankets, stroke his cheek until he too nods off, like the other children dotted behind pillars and lying in enclaves. Hannah passes me her cider bottle to swig from, an act that feels so intimate for someone I only met this week.
Leaving is not a wrench, but if I stayed longer I could see it becoming a home very quickly. Leaving feels good and full of gratitude for new beginnings and deepening. Leaving feels like the next step on a path of re-awakening.
