Betwixt Lakeland & Edinburgh
Photo by WildOne at Pixabay
Sometimes – I hear a tap tap tapping though I’m looking at a photograph of a typewriter – which image makes no sound; I encounter story in silence where no keys have yet shaped words; I feel what is over an horizon though it be beyond my sight; I sense poetry busy in the act of creating; I touch that which is not yet present. Sometimes all of life presents as mystery to be aspired to – and hoped for. Some times.
When I am among the trees …
they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”Mary Oliver
Early morning light and early evening light often bring Mary Oliver to mind: she and her trees, she and they shining, whisper ‘it’s simple’ – and I’m stilled awhile, again, to wonder at the assertion, and to love and reach out to the light – and the light-bearers.
Thanks to our guides whose
constant-shining steadfastness
brings wayfarers home
Sometimes, when reflecting on ‘One Year Ago,’ we can see a gentle pointing, back then, to a way to go. This gifts a degree of confidence that we’ll all be shown what we need to know, when we need to know it.
And if, as the years roll by, we observe that time and place and circumstance are our quiet guides, we might become the more willing learners – confident, steadied and quiet enough, often enough, to hear our teachers’ best love and wise counsel. So the colours in Worlds of Wonder continue to reveal themselves, beckoning us to continue our becoming.
A log fire feels vaguely daft in the middle of May but it is decidedly chilly in Lakeland today, and drizzly. Warm colours required. And fireside coffee. And probably a couple of hours with Left on Tenth – courtesy of David Kanigan whose book recommendations (and photography) illuminate my days …
😊🙏🌱
Joyous laughter watching old Pingu films, and many a nugget of wisdom has come Poppa’s way today – away on sleepover with young grandchildren. But the best counsel of the day, in the family bathroom of their new home: ‘wash your worries away’
Update: I’ve been trying to recall the name of the song evoked by ‘wash your worries away’ – and it’s come to me: the lovely Dick Van Dyke rendition of Hushabye Mountain. Alice Fredenham’s cover of the song is here – hauntingly beautiful, I think …
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Even the simplest of gardens bring so much pleasure and it’s funny, isn’t it, how memories of things long past come to mind when we’re pottering? This afternoon I found myself humming the theme song of a Sunday afternoon radio programme I remembered from boyhood:
We’ll sing the old songs
like you used to do,
We’ll sing something simple for you,
something for you.
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Darting housemartins are back and nesting in the eaves here.
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50 Years of Lindisfarne. Three generations out foot-tapping tonight! Oh, how music rolls back the years and clears brain-Fog (on the Tyne).
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Ah, that inimitable musical intro! I can hardly wait for this evening …
… and what a fabulous, fabulous evening it was. Absolutely stunning!
Absolutely zonked today – complete with headache arrived out of nowhere. By late afternoon I am hugely grateful for home and the prospect of an early night. Deeply mindful of the fleeing and the weary …
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wind in my wheels 🌱 