On Bank Holiday Monday, I was really looking forward to a day of rest. I had been more socially active than is good for me. Don't misunderstand me: I love people and I love being with them. But being with people, especially when there are a lot of them or when I'm entertaining them, does tire me. So after two days of cooking for friends, I really needed that holiday. I needed it to re-connect with my practice.

I decided to take my new rule of 'not trying' seriously. I wasn't going to try to be spiritual. I wasn't even going to try to listen. I took a drink outside with me, into the warm day, and just sit there, allowing myself to be present.

The day really was gorgeous, one of the first warm days of the year. The wind was softly playing with the Elder's leaves. I just sat there and smelled the sweetness of the summer air, felt the breeze on my face, and listened to birdsong. Now and again I sipped the citrus flavour of my drink.

I don't know how long it took to start feeling the effect of all this on my body. The wind was caressing me, and I allowed myself to be touched deeply by it. After a while, I could feel the pulse of energy in the earth that is pushing the fertile growth of the season. I allowed that pulse to flow through me. I could feel the current of the season all around and inside me, and followed it to wherever it would take me.

My body felt vibrantly alive, like the world around me. I let go and surrendered to the current of that time and that place. I became part of the garden around me, and of the land as far as the ridge to the north and the hill to the south. I allowed myself to move with the same energy, and it felt like dancing. Sitting still, I was dancing with the spirits of the place and of the season.

Since that day, I have stuck with that practice. I let the current of the season take me and fill me. It is different yet similar every day. And at the centre of it, I find a sense of peace and rest, a stillness that is otherwise quite hard for me to reach. I finish my daily practice feeling like Beltane: vibrantly alive and filled with creativity.

When you are so inspired, you need to use it, otherwise all the energy gets stuck inside you and grows stale. I have made that mistake many times, thinking I can hold on to the feeling. Recently I have discovered that the only way to keep that sense of aliveness is to allow the energy to move through me and into my life. Sometimes I dance it, there and then. Sometimes I take it to my work for the day. Some pretty good Dutch lessons have come out of this fertile flow. I have finished my long-standing crochet project with this flow, and actually done some gardening.

Today, the weather is cloudy and less warm than it has been since the bank holiday. Still the current flows strongly, but it feels different, somehow more contained than on a day with endless blue skies. Still the wind is dancing with the first dog roses and the one iris who is showing her yellow face. And I am dancing with it, into a day of teaching.