Anthony Blackmore

Antony Blakemore

Colwall

I come out on the hills most days because I’ve been doing it for 45 years and I don’t know anything else. My body is, is now part of what the hills have made me, quite honestly. You can’t stay the same after 45 years of running on the hills. So I feel a close physical connection, but I also feel this more important, a close spiritual connection with the earth and the hills, of course, because I mean, they are absolutely amazing. The energies are out of this world.

In my 80th year. I don’t feel it. The secret is getting rid of anything that’s stopping you from moving forward in your life. Being in the hills, it’s part of everything I am.Just being able to run and be part of, well I love to be honest with you, and sharing it with people. That’s the most important thing, is sharing it.

I carry a talking stick. I carry it symbolically. I run with it. And it just feels right. It’s a beautiful piece of yew. It’s ancient yew. It’s the tree of death. Every part of the yew is poisonous, apart from the red berry. It’s a pagan tree. You find it in churchyards because they want to get rid of pagans. The Christians built their church in the churchyards where the yew trees were.

Anthony Blackmore Story

I come out on the hills most days because I’ve been doing it for 45 years and I don’t know anything else. My body is, is now part of what the hills have made me, quite honestly. You can’t stay the same after 45 years of running on the hills. So I feel a close physical connection, but I also feel this more important, a close spiritual connection with the earth and the hills, of course, because I mean, they are absolutely amazing.

The energies are out of this world, quite frankly. I would question going anywhere, Tibet or Peru, any sacred site to even come close to this, quite honestly. Well everywhere has got it. This just happens to represent it in a very visual form. So, I, I think what that does actually, it makes you think more deeply. I mean, you could be in the middle of the town, there’s lots of energy. Because it’s got such a visual impact, you immediately feel you’re, you’re on a slightly higher level of awareness. And as I work in that sphere of higher consciousness I feel it quite strongly.

For years I ran the hills because I did marathons and raced, but now over the last 20 years, I find this is Zen and the art of running. Because what it does, apart from the visuals and the immediate energies you get when you go out, is that it puts your mind into oneness. Because you go into fight, flight, or freeze, and your body running is in flight. So you’re running from something or to something. So the rest of the little things that seem to matter don’t matter because you’re fleeing. So you’re in flight, as it were and it just gives you that oneness which everybody talks about but no one can actually access because no one has the instructions. We didn’t come with instructions incidentally when we were born. So being out here is absolutely amazing. I couldn’t recommend it enough, to just get out here and do it, frankly.

In my 80th year. I don’t feel it. The secret is getting rid of anything that’s stopping you from moving forward in your life. Dealing with issues. We all have issues. But I think the one drawback of being human is we carry trauma. We don’t deal with it. We drag it along like a sack, like a weight, and we never deal with it. If you don’t deal with trauma, it becomes cumulative, so you have trauma 10 years ago. Something similar happens today and that from the past exaggerates the trauma you’re suffering today, leading to, as you will appreciate, mental health issues of all kinds. Iy’ believing that you you can heal it, and you can leave it.

I do a thing called a fire ceremony, where symbolically fire is the element that is a cleansing element, you know, of all the five elements. And I do a fire ceremony where we stand in a circle, with my drum. And I tell people to write down anything, anything that’s holding them back, moving forward in their lives. Anything that’s stopping them from moving forward. It doesn’t matter what it is. Even if it’s just a personal thing, like having no confidence or if it’s a physical thing like having a broken-up relationship and can’t move forward. I say, all you need to do, when I drum, is write down and burn this thing that is holding you back. And I recently did a retreat in Wales with lovely people, and they all wrote things down. But the amazing thing was, one lady said, “I had so many things to write down, but I only selected two, because I realised I could deal with the rest.” And that was really important to me, because I put her in a state of consciousness, of positivity, that allowed her to think, “I’m strong. I can deal with that.”

I’ve lived in Malvern since since about 1968. I taught art for 16 years but the idea of teaching art was to allow people to express themselves, and their feelings. I gave them the skills, but I wanted them to express themselves. That’s the most important thing, unless you’re documenting or illustrating something. So I always had that feeling that I wanted people to express themselves. But there was a little interlude in my life when I was a young man, I was a soldier. I did some fighting in the Middle East. And what’s happening in the world today just resonates with me. And I was talking to an associate yesterday, and I said, “I’m feeling really, really sad about what’s happening.” She said, “Well, you’ve got to rise above it.” And so when I say you can get rid of trauma, kind of think you can get rid of everything, but when something triggers something, it’s still a little bit of it left there, you know. So I taught art for 16, 17 years, at North East Worcester College. Um, and then I got sort of drawn into sound healing and this kind of work. It became a natural progression. So, I’m now saying to people, you can heal your wounds, you can find a oneness, you can find a higher level of consciousness to feel better about yourself, better about yourself, other people, and better about the world.

Being in the hills, it’s part of everything I am. Like I said previously in the beginning, physically I’m the way I am because of the hills. I just run the hills, I do run certain patterns on the hills.
It’s kind of my relationship and nature’s the same, you know, nature’s got its patterns and I, and I accept that. As a human being, we do have patterns, and if you push us out of our sort of comfort zones, then we get a little bit concerned, you know. So it is that pure relationship with familiarity. But every day I’m, I mean, absolute gratitude. Just being able to run and be part of, well I love to be honest with you, and sharing it with people. That’s the most important thing, is sharing it.

I carry a talking stick. I carry it symbolically. When COVID was around and everybody was in that COVID “I’m going to die if I touch anything” mood, I took this stick and I would open the gates with it. So on a very practical level, my talking stick became an instrument of, um, opening the gates and not catching a disease. And ever since that, I’ve kept it. And I run with it. And it just feels right. It’s a beautiful piece of yew. It’s ancient yew. It’s the tree of death. Every part of the yew is poisonous, apart from the red berry. It’s a pagan tree. You find it in churchyards because they want to get rid of pagans. The Christians built their church in the churchyards where the yew trees were.

I believe in the energies of the earth and the frequencies. Everything is made of frequency. And when we’re out of frequency, when we’re out of balance, we become ill spiritually, mentally, and physically. So my job is to get people’s frequency back into balance. And that’s why I use sound to do that. Yeah. So the sound I use is gongs and drums and rattles and stuff. Chanting. And it gets people’s frequency back into balance. And when we’re in balance, we’re okay. Spiritually, and mentally. Nature will tell you this, and if there’s any lesson I’ve learned on the hills, is that balance is everything.