Foreseeing ramifications
Dear Monty,
I'm not sure that what I write makes any sense at all, I know I confuse Charles Hawes charleshawes@veddw.com, and I am in awe of those who write well. But life and our actions and reactions to its ebb and flow are sometimes difficult to make sense of, so I suppose this is a way of working things out.
What follows is a record of responses over three days from last week to the environment both wild and gardened and having space to listen to what was being said.
17/5/14 Birdsong, streams and the movement of sea air through the trees - the only sounds to greet the senses this morning. I'm on a journey up to the top of the mountain, I need to go there, I have no plans or specific thoughts, I'm on the way to commune with angels. An adder basks on a sunny bank along the path, and cuckoo calls drift in echoes from either side of the mountain, and I'm softly buffeted by the wings of fritillaries.
Oh Carn Ingli !
From up here in the still of the morning I hear posts being hammered in the distant fields above the Gwaun Valley. Everything sounds near,
Raven wings
Bees
The sea
The bubbling curlew.
Completely alone save a narrow dog
I feel the curves and dips
The broad common
The granite outcrops
A place where prophets sing songs
This mountain is alive with God
No need for huts or stones or crosses.
19/5/14 Humid day - even after a thunderstorm. Hopeful? - No not a hope so much as an unfulfilled longing that you know in your logical mind is never going to be fulfilled - it can never be fulfilled by another human being. So we distract ourselves with good things and sometimes not so good things.
I began to see you in my youth - you revealed yourself even then - small excerpts of your character your soul your love - long before I met you.
Here I am in the quiet beauty of this holy place
Seeing jewels in the turquoise interior of a discarded eggshell
In the verdigris of washed up - beached copper wire
And in the golden pebbles.
These and the simple joy of birdsong
The scent of hyacinthoides non scripta
The pounding stream that pounds with my heart
Riches
Riches
Riches beyond measure
Who finds love ?
Who finds satisfaction in all things ?
I suspect no-one ever experiences lasting peace on earth - not even those who find the author of peace.
True rest comes later
Now we have trouble
Each day bringing enough of its own.
We are like tides
Sometimes we ebb and flow in calm silver pools
Other times we rage with foam stirring up sand and mud
Flotsam and jetsam
20/5/14 We spend days, weeks, months, years building - building
We build empires
And then we watch them crumble beneath our feet
Yet we continue to build.
History tells us that empires fall
Yet we continue to build
Refreshed by sitting on the mountain again
Hills draw me
I draw hills
Uplands with heathers cropped by sheep
Grasses
Winberries
Young tender ferns.
I wait for God to speak - and he does
At the top of Carn Ingli I watch an iridescent moth with antennae as long as cat whiskers
Crawl about the granite - as though aimless
Iridescent on a dull day
Dull but with moments of sudden light.
Who condemns us now ?
Our judgement is all wrong
Today I felt the hill was against me
I fall into gorse spikes
Toff pulls on the lead worried by sheep
My legs tired
My head confused
Why does my body yearn - when it is crumbling ?
There is life beyond life
I will live in my shed and find God
We all have an instinct to search
What other beast does that ?
Like this moth they exist in what they are
For brief moments or long upon the earth.
---------------
Monty you once said to me 'more power to your creative elbow'. I'm sure you meant that from your soul.
I suppose some would regard me as sad ! I am sad a lot of the time - but also immensely happy. We cannot give this kind of happiness directly to one another because this kind is deeper and is ironically without words.
Gardens and art come the closest for me in terms of passing on this type of happiness, although I know they can make some people bad tempered if they are praised blindly, we are all critics, but there is a joy beyond criticism in the making of a garden no matter what the size or ambition, it is a temporary joy and that is part of its fascination for me.
As a post script I add these photographs of Dyffryn Fernant dyffrynfernant.co.uk It made me happy.
Paul.
I'm not sure that what I write makes any sense at all, I know I confuse Charles Hawes charleshawes@veddw.com, and I am in awe of those who write well. But life and our actions and reactions to its ebb and flow are sometimes difficult to make sense of, so I suppose this is a way of working things out.
What follows is a record of responses over three days from last week to the environment both wild and gardened and having space to listen to what was being said.
17/5/14 Birdsong, streams and the movement of sea air through the trees - the only sounds to greet the senses this morning. I'm on a journey up to the top of the mountain, I need to go there, I have no plans or specific thoughts, I'm on the way to commune with angels. An adder basks on a sunny bank along the path, and cuckoo calls drift in echoes from either side of the mountain, and I'm softly buffeted by the wings of fritillaries.
Oh Carn Ingli !
From up here in the still of the morning I hear posts being hammered in the distant fields above the Gwaun Valley. Everything sounds near,
Raven wings
Bees
The sea
The bubbling curlew.
Completely alone save a narrow dog
I feel the curves and dips
The broad common
The granite outcrops
A place where prophets sing songs
This mountain is alive with God
No need for huts or stones or crosses.
19/5/14 Humid day - even after a thunderstorm. Hopeful? - No not a hope so much as an unfulfilled longing that you know in your logical mind is never going to be fulfilled - it can never be fulfilled by another human being. So we distract ourselves with good things and sometimes not so good things.
I began to see you in my youth - you revealed yourself even then - small excerpts of your character your soul your love - long before I met you.
Here I am in the quiet beauty of this holy place
Seeing jewels in the turquoise interior of a discarded eggshell
In the verdigris of washed up - beached copper wire
And in the golden pebbles.
These and the simple joy of birdsong
The scent of hyacinthoides non scripta
The pounding stream that pounds with my heart
Riches
Riches
Riches beyond measure
Who finds love ?
Who finds satisfaction in all things ?
I suspect no-one ever experiences lasting peace on earth - not even those who find the author of peace.
True rest comes later
Now we have trouble
Each day bringing enough of its own.
We are like tides
Sometimes we ebb and flow in calm silver pools
Other times we rage with foam stirring up sand and mud
Flotsam and jetsam
20/5/14 We spend days, weeks, months, years building - building
We build empires
And then we watch them crumble beneath our feet
Yet we continue to build.
History tells us that empires fall
Yet we continue to build
Refreshed by sitting on the mountain again
Hills draw me
I draw hills
Uplands with heathers cropped by sheep
Grasses
Winberries
Young tender ferns.
I wait for God to speak - and he does
At the top of Carn Ingli I watch an iridescent moth with antennae as long as cat whiskers
Crawl about the granite - as though aimless
Iridescent on a dull day
Dull but with moments of sudden light.
Who condemns us now ?
Our judgement is all wrong
Today I felt the hill was against me
I fall into gorse spikes
Toff pulls on the lead worried by sheep
My legs tired
My head confused
Why does my body yearn - when it is crumbling ?
There is life beyond life
I will live in my shed and find God
We all have an instinct to search
What other beast does that ?
Like this moth they exist in what they are
For brief moments or long upon the earth.
---------------
Monty you once said to me 'more power to your creative elbow'. I'm sure you meant that from your soul.
I suppose some would regard me as sad ! I am sad a lot of the time - but also immensely happy. We cannot give this kind of happiness directly to one another because this kind is deeper and is ironically without words.
Gardens and art come the closest for me in terms of passing on this type of happiness, although I know they can make some people bad tempered if they are praised blindly, we are all critics, but there is a joy beyond criticism in the making of a garden no matter what the size or ambition, it is a temporary joy and that is part of its fascination for me.
As a post script I add these photographs of Dyffryn Fernant dyffrynfernant.co.uk It made me happy.
Paul.
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