Megan Eaves

walking along a portion of the north downs way, unexplainable experiences. i’ve never walked here before. otherwise known as the pilgrims way in reference to the fact that pilgrims have come here to walk along the route that st augustine (of canterbury) trod from lyons and rome to canterbury in the late 500s.

the sun is bright and high and a light breeze notes it’s now the first of september and i can feel the beginnings of the end of the year on the air. sunflowers point their faces southward toward the star, now starting to make its own pilgrimage south from this high latitude for the winter. a magpie hops in his tuxedo colours along the path ahead. everything is still in late summer heat, then leaves rustle. the dry chalk path is lined with a gentle layer of dust and small white stones not unlike many trails i’ve walked in the desert.

when did i start believing in signs? maybe i always did. doesn’t the modern world we’ve made teach us to put aside the things we feel but cannot see?

augustine was not the first person to walk here – trading trackways from folkestone to stonehenge followed these chalk hills as early as 1800 bce. after augustine died, canterbury became a pilgrimage site and several centuries later, this formed part of the epic road, the via francingena, along which christians travelled to and from the holy see.  later still, thomas becket became a figure of great veneration after he was slain in 1170 by four of henry II’s knights on the stairs to the crypt inside canterbury cathedral. canterbury’s status as a destination of pilgrimage was solidified, though the modern-day trackway that one walks through southeast england now was lost for at least two centuries and rediscovered in the 1970s.

the day wears on, the trail winds between the tunnelling green of holloways and out on chalk downs with views to yellowed hayfields already harvested and gone stalky for the autumn. i take my lunch on a bench at the lenham war memorial below a giant white cross carved into the hill.

later, past lenham, then harrietsham. more holloways, more fields, more hillsides, northwest forever. the path is straight and unwavering with few ups or downs and virtually no turns. just before hollingbourne, where i’d planned a refreshment at the 13th century coaching inn (and aptly named) the dirty habit, the path opens and the air stalls and becomes almost unbreathable. the whole world goes quiet.

i couldn’t say how long ago i dreamed of this exact spot on this exact path. several years, perhaps. the dream had lain dormant in my subconscious until the moment i arrived on the path and remembered it completely. in the dream, the sky had been covered in thick, grey cloud and the atmosphere was foreboding. nothing further happened in the dream, beyond my presence on that path. i stood for many minutes, staring at the ground ahead, trying to convince myself this deja vu was some trick of memory i’d already walked somewhere else, but the thick air remained and my soul knew for sure this path was the path of my dream.

what are dreams? the feelings of having been somewhere before. the sense you’ve met in some other lifetime. or that you can talk to someone on some other vibration. that your soul knows something your 3D body can’t quite define.

empaths, seers, mystics, those who can sense. we are told that this is nonsense. in different ages, these people have been cast away, hanged, tried by court, locked into prisons or mental asylums, burned at the stake, until science found some explanation for their feelings.

in the 17th century, galileo knew that the earth revolved around the sun. he could feel it. he could even observe it through his telescope, but he couldn’t prove it in a way that the ruling people of the day would make sense of. society blocked the idea as being unbiblical and galileo was put under house arrest, where he died.

the world is flat. the earth is the centre of the universe. there are no such things as other galaxies. the atom can’t be split. it is only ‘natural’ for humans to behave this way or that, until some other social norm replaces it, and we’ve completely lost track of the unseen world, our intuitions, what feels right. these days, most of us can’t even see the night sky, let alone work out what it means to follow our souls in the face of social onslaught.

let’s not be afraid of the magic, the unseeable, the things that move us which we cannot explain, the love we feel that seems contrary to what is acceptable. let’s recognise the paths we’ve walked in our dreams. let’s look for the signs and follow them. let’s love.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 
1 Corinthians 13: 12-13