I’ll tell you how the sun rose, —
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”

Emily Dickinson

There’s sometimes a deep silence at the heart of a daily walk: the silence of natural elements fallen and becoming. The silence in colours changing before one’s eyes. The silence of flight, and of the omnipresent mountain, the placid cow, or horse, or flock of sheep. The silence of the hawthorn hedge because the air is now still. The silence of memory and of tomorrow. And there’s often a silence just beneath the surface of my slight breathlessness: and it’s the classroom where I keep on learning who I am: and sometimes I say softly “That must have been the sun!”

Serotonin – that magical complex that makes us glad to be alive: made and encouraged in us by way of exercise, open eyes, ears and skies.

How we humans are susceptible to beauty! Open sky and autumn colours lift my spirits – and open not just eyes and ears but also heart and mind – the effect magnified by coffee and hot toast while my cheeks are still glowing from the effort of the climb; watched now by a timid thrush whose tiny face is almost hidden by the yew tree …