Letter to Monty - whetting the appetite for life

-
Dear Monty,

Three musings (or unedited drivel)

26/11/12 How can the mechanical sound of a car engine in the distance bring a sense of comfort ? Yet that sound did just that a few moments ago. Perhaps it unlocks a memory from the past, a good memory of belonging and safety within a loving family. Perhaps it is linked to my childhood spent on another hill in another house. The little end of terrace house on the hill above the sea in Swansea with its view over to the docks and the steelworks in one direction, and the curve of Swansea Bay to the Mumbles in the other.




Forgive the old pastel drawings, they serve to remind me of my roots.

There is a positive thing about growing older that gets lost - 'older and wiser' is the saying. Maybe it isn't wisdom but a distillation of experience and knowledge. The small things take on greater significance, like memories evoked by sounds. Life becomes enhanced by the brevity of it - becomes more beautiful.

28/11/12 I have been taken by your beautiful prose on the silver flood at Longmeadow. You captured in words the beauty of something centuries old - the rhythm of the living earth.



Your house is presumably spared, so the flood is a spectacle and not a disaster. Ancient houses built on flood plains can probably take a flood in their stride, unlike our modern homes. We build against nature at our peril.

A full moon casts an ellipse of silver cloud behind the firs above the mountain.



1/12/12 We move toward the middle of Winter - frost nips and rain crackles on the frozen ground.




Christ came not at Christmas - so many myths mixed with truth.

' There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land......... Because of this the land mourns and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying....
But let no man bring a charge, let no man accuse another ....... my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge'.




I think this knowledge can be seen in the pulse of the earth.

Paul.


Comments

  1. Gardener in the Distance7 December 2012 at 10:16

    Paul, I think you're right. The world ticks on to a rhythm we've forgotten.
    I love your pastels, by the way.
    There is, of course, acknowledgement of God in the land...it's just that it's quiet, and seems to go unheard in all the noise.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pity the cabbage white

-
Image
Dear Monty, Having seen you protect your newly planted cabbages from cabbage white butterflies - it made me realise that I haven't seen many this year. Despite warmth yesterday - a brief interlude with blue sky and a light wind there was a dearth of butterflies in the coal tip garden. There were honey bees, bumble bees, wasps, hover flies, a gangly legged wasp, one hedge brown, one speckled wood and a common blue - that is all. Oh and a frog sheltering in the shady hosta and a silent peregrine falcon swooping overhead. What has happened to all the insects ? What has happened to all the aphids this year ? Is it just me that is missing them ? I have seen no ladybirds or ladybird larvae - because there have been so few aphids - was it the birds that have snaffled them ? I worry about the lack of insect numbers. We walked through a wild meadow full of meadow cranesbill and meadowsweet with the purple haze of knapweed in the grasses and yet there were one or two meadow br...
Read more

Letter to Monty Don 48

-
Image
Dear Monty, I know that despite these rambles being addressed to you, they never reach your eyes or heart, but this question is most certainly directed to you : Can nature be ugly ? I am pondering this question sitting in my cupboard of a 'studio' where I am putting the finishing touches to paintings of  British native orchids, pollinators and butterflies for an exhibition next weekend. Now I believe that you understand perfectly well the response you may get when you make statements on GW - including the one about spent buddleja flowers being 'ugly'. I too have always deadheaded my buddleja for the same reason, and as you said to promote new flower spikes. But this ugliness is an intrinsic part of nature - it sets seed to create the next generation, the flowers last but for a few days. Is this ugliness a kind of acknowledgement of the frailty of 'beauty' .... and the cutting off and tidying away a kind of denial ? ( Perhaps I think too much.) I ...
Read more

Monty, where does the road take us ?

-
Image
Monty, I see you have returned to France. Your film reminded me of my visits to Paris as an art student between 1981-83. It is a city that cannot fail to make an impression with its wide open streets, avenues of trees, the river and public gardens. I particularly remember Versailles with its long canal. At that time I was not aware of having a particular interest in gardens, but the gardens at Versailles were astonishing. I saw them in early morning light, when there were not that many people there. I also remember being intrigued by the garden at the Musee Rodin. Strangely for an art student, it was not the sculpture that caught my attention but the garden with pyramid shaped topiary. Perhaps what I was responding to was the sense of order, balance and harmony. It almost feels as though I was meant to visit, and that the encounters I had which were sensually intense, were pre-ordained. There is one incident, which has great significance only to me perhaps, but which was of ...
Read more