I love the thought that light calls to us at different times and places – beckoning us out into the world, promising before we’ve even set out that there will be something worth seeing, something to get the endorphins circulating, something to provide the shot of dopamine, something to encourage, restoring hope and promise. Today feels like Spring, softly softly, is definitely underway!
I love the thought, too, that the gradations of light are constantly changing – just as we are.
I love the thought that, as evening falls, darker shades of light play their part in the calling, too. The delighted skipping of vigorous little lambs slows down and they draw closer to mother. Little birds head home to nests and quieter night song. Geese flying in formation know exactly what time it is and how much further they need to go – and so their honking steadily quietens in the course of ten minutes or so. Nearly home.
And – also slowing down – my heart and mind turn to books, contemplation, connections, gratitude and rest. Tonight I recall the light of the morning, the brightness of noon, the going down into afternoon and evening, the darkening and the onset of night, each in their own way utterly unique and ‘for this moment only’, and each a fractal of life’s delight.
All night my heart makes its way however it can over the rough ground of uncertainties, but only until night meets and is then overwhelmed by morning, the light deepening, the wind easing and just waiting, as I too wait (and when have I ever been disappointed?) for redbird to sing
Mary Oliver
Mid-morning in Lakeland – the light deepening, the wind easing – and I find myself wondering whether the late, great, Mary Oliver ever visited England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales. Driving down from Edinburgh bright and early today, I listened to a brief radio segment about a music lover’s neighbour not being especially bothered if he didn’t hear music. Not anti-music, just not much in need of it. And mindful of all that Handel’s Passacaglia (and more, oh and more!) brings to my life, I found myself also reflecting on my love for, need for, poetry. If it were not, I would miss it! – for every time I’m moved by, touched by, the sight, sound, scent, taste or touch of something, my heart, soul, mind and body are grateful for poetry’s being holder, explainer and expression; grateful for poetry’s being the diving board from which we continue to move gladly ‘to create’ – and thereby the more fully to live.
Newly returned, I note the dew on my lawn in Lakeland this morning. A slightly sharper air. The soil-scent of Autumn is present, albeit that the morning dewdrops will soon glisten awhile in still very warm sunshine, and then take flight until tonight.
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Autumn is lovely in Lakeland – and in the beautiful Edinburgh that will have turned quite golden by the time I’m there again next month. I’m aware toward summer’s end of a slight attendant melancholy with the turning of the seasons – whilst simultaneously revelling in the different beauties that each new season brings.
I enjoyed a pleasing haircut in Edinburgh the other day, so thought it only fair that my Lakeland lawn and pyracantha be given a trim. Very satisfying!
Yesterday was a good day in a number of ways – and among these my lovely new Royal Dutch Gazelle Grenoble C5 HMB arrived, so I’ve been filling my lungs with fresh Lakeland air and have already whizzed through 25 miles of endorphins-inducing sights and sounds … 😊🌱
Angel Rodriguez is one of my favourite photographers. His exhibitions (link) of the fabulous Dutch cycling experience have long inspired me, and I have fallen hook, line and sinker for Royal Dutch Gazelle bikes in particular during my visits to Amsterdam.
Lakeland is, of course, somewhat hillier than the Netherlands but, with the wind in my wheels in the last 18 hours or so, and seated comfortably in the recognisably upright cycling position, my experiences of all-things Dutch and of the UK were gladly drawn happily closer.
Warm thanks to friends in both Lakeland and Edinburgh for these wonderfully contrasting photos this morning. ‘On fire’ in the Lakes and ‘under haar’ beneath the Crags – both very atmospheric …
Deep blue sky, dew on the lawn, green, red, orange and gold in the trees, a warmer coat, perhaps a scarf, enjoying breakfast baked apples hot because there’s a slight nip in the air … beauty in autumn everywhere.
I’m told that our human eyes see ‘only’ a limited spectrum of colour. I can’t count the ever-changing colours and shades present to me in one small rural garden though.
I sometimes think I’ll spend the rest of my days pondering the miracle of what it is to be a human person, to be sentient. So many extraordinary ‘happenings’ need to take place within the confines of my brain to bring about every experience I have.
So, too, for the golden labrador next door. What moves her to bark? And how does an apple tree know how to consistently make apples every year? Or Michaelmas daisies know it’s Michaelmas?
Ah, colours. And questions. My Spanish teacher asks, ‘¿tú tienes preguntas?’
‘Sí, yo tengo muchas preguntas,’ I reply, ‘siempre preguntas!’
This morning’s rain gave way to a beautiful afternoon and a fabulous drive down to Ambleside and up and over the Kirkstone Pass. Returning home with lungs full of good clean fresh air makes for a happy Sunday afternoon occupation!
Forever delighted by silhouettes of mountains and trees against the sky – brightest blue, or overcast and dotted about with cotton wool, there’s never a day when an hour’s drive in Lakeland is not rewarding. The scenery is constantly changing and never appears the same twice. And so it is with us. Vibrant with energy, unique beauty, and giftedness too, we can’t hold off change in the dynamic art of our lives, even if we wanted to.
Dozens of lambs cheerfully cavorting like mini jump jets – many of them calling ‘mmmaaaaaam’ – have added to the sunshiny beauty of this Mothering Sunday. I’ve been chatting on the phone with my 86 year old mum while out walking this afternoon. Were I still to have her energy, enthusiasm and zest for life at that age I shall be a happy man! Meanwhile ‘happy is how I look / and that is all …’ – be it in Lakeland, in Edinburgh, or in dozens of other wonderful places, all around the world. And happier? – yes, when I think of the peace that must come for Ukraine and other war-torn nations – sooner, rather than later.
Each season bears unique joys to us. There’s a mellowness about late summer / early autumn here that I’m always grateful for. A softening of the light. A softening succession of reflection at both morning and evening. A softening awareness of the importance of home – wheresoever ‘home’ may be for us at any given time.
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Wildflowers have attracted hundreds of bees and butterflies so that the garden is full of the hum of satisfied pollen-seekers quietly going about their business. I’ve revelled for half an hour this morning in recalling a lovely Instagram photo I saw recently – of two replete bees, sleeping in the soft petals of a poppy, two of them together, because apparently they like to hold each other’s knees and feet while they sleep! Who knew? And the butterflies speak silently of the complex metamorphosing journeys they’ve been on. And so do I.
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The red squirrels are stocking up supplies and I feel close to them as I stack the log store with sweet smelling kiln-dried ash for the stove. Occasionally split logs are reunited – or at least seen close to each other again – and their rings speak of their story too, and I wonder where the engineered oak boards of my little sitting room once flourished elsewhere, and from whence came this ash, knowing how well it will scent and warm home until it becomes whatever comes next.
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The slant of the early sunlight illuminates the promises of the morning – and asks to be remembered should tomorrow be a grey day. And the colours of the garden flowers prompt thoughts of harvest – and especially, this morning, somehow, of the warm scent of harvest bread from a distance, far away …
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Evening meals begin to move away from salad-stuffs, turning towards the more substantial – buttered and minted potatoes, greens and steak pie.
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And after brisk walks, lungs full of fresh air, and daily reacquaintance with the long backbone of the Pennine Ridge and the Ullswater Fells – sometimes under mist and sometimes mirage, autumnal movement towards books and the piano again. The gentle, slow clip-clopping of horse and rider passing my window suggest that they, too, are inclined less to rush today and more to a quieter, calmer contemplation.
I know these gifts are important, and reasons enough for profound thankfulness in a world which is also beset with fear and wonder, a sense of separateness – between one human and another, and between humankind and other life forms too. I ask myself in late summer to make time to be aware of others – near and far, in peace or fear. I seek to be more aware of the gift of the breath in my body, and in every body. I wonder in awe at the sleeping holding of the bees’ knees, and the instinct that directs a red squirrel’s calendar. I celebrate the ‘I see!’ miracles that unfold into sunlight from the incomprehensible depths of wildflower seeds, and the life-story record written in the rings in trees.
And you and I contemplate the cyclical dying, and the rising of the light … 🌻🍂☀️
