The Tides
For a number of years now I’ve watched the coming in and the going out of the tide on the Medway river. It never ceases to fascinate. It seems to me that the river is most at rest when the tide is out. I think it’s a bit like breathing – exhaling is always easier than inhaling, emptying easier than filling; and then there’s that brief in-between moment of sheer rest before the next inhalation. Today, as on many days, I saw this brief moment of rest and felt that in the tidal nature of my own breath the Medway and I breathe as one.
The Call Of A Dove
Where I heard the call of a dove.
A Reflection:
This morning I stopped and listened to the cooing of a dove. The gentle tone, so soft on the ears, evoked sudden compassion in me and my eyes moistened with emotion. What is it in a dove’s call that does that to you?
I’m convinced that when you begin to gaze into the heart and essence of nature, there is a hidden and non-codified morality that draws you irresistibly into its transforming presence.
Word Pictures – Tube Trains
The train bursts in with a wind and a whine. Doors open, people pour out, others push in, each knowing where they’re going. No aimless wandering and vague stares on tube stations, only direction, movement and purpose. I’m caught up in the human flow going up and coming down the elevators. I catch myself joining a myriad of glances across streams of passing lives. I reach the exit. I touch my card and the gates bang open. Above me the city waits.
Words
The dappled light in the woods never fails to move me.
A Reflection:
Isn’t it strange how at times when you try to put thoughts into words, you have the immediate feeling of the thoughts being cramped and inadequately expressed.
Words are powerful, yet, can be so constraining. There’s always the inevitable complaint, “It just didn’t come out the way I wanted it to.” Perhaps that’s why we experience more being said in the art of silence than in that of speech.
There is a language beyond words, we’re simply not proficient enough to hear and understand it.
Autumn Colours
A Reflection:
The colours of Autumn are beautiful. Being the season of nature’s entry into death it never fails to amaze me how nature dies with such effusive expressions of colour.
In the movie “Legends of the Fall” the narrator describes Tristan’s death as a “good” death. Well, it seems to me that every year nature dies a “good” death only to awaken again with another show of colour and vibrancy, that of Spring.
Wonderful how in the process of dying or awakening nature is always effusive with colour.
Two Birds
The fields of barley around us are being harvested. I love watching the harvesters. There’s a sanctity to their work. It was fields like these that inspired Sting’s beautiful song, “Fields of Gold.”
A Reflection:
Yesterday, I was standing in our backyard watching the sun going down, when suddenly in the stillness, two birds started calling out to each other. The rolls and chirps and melodious song were beautiful. They echoed under the red and expansive sky. Communication was going on, something beyond my comprehension, yet recognisable to a part of me that in itself is a mystery. A thin veil had been lifted and I was staring into a reality, both mystical and ethereal.
Prickly People
Took this image along the road on my walk yesterday. Reminded me of those prickly people you have to handle with kit-gloves, like us sometimes.
Flowery Carpet
We were hiking along the River Darent in Kent, between Horton Kirby and Farningham, when we came across this field beautifully carpeted with Buttercups, Dandelions, Daisies and a few spots of Red Campion. We just had to stop, have lunch and ponder this captivating little scene.
My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature.
Claude Monet
Absence
Absence lies at the heart of our seeing more clearly. It’s often in something’s absence that we suddenly begin to see it in a new light. It was Kahlil Gibran who said, “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.
Architectural Spirituality
I was touched by this little piece of architecture. As I looked at it I perceived a sense of order, symmetry and beauty. Somehow the colours too radiated a calm and a peace. No doubt, there is a form spirituality in the essence of architecture.
