Wednesday 20 January 2010

The Tranquility



My heart is with nature and its primeval echoes this morning. I was awoken by an exotic bird call that has reminiscences of the jungles of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru and my time on predawn commons in England. This morning my walk with Chocolate dog into the Lamma hills overlooking the islands and sea that surrounds us was infused with a beautiful melancholic atmosphere. The soft light of the sky with its intermittent grays and luminations, the soaring Kites, the darting low-flying birds, were all completely at ease with the 20-storey tower blocks on the far shore and the incessant traffic of the shipping lane. The giant cargo ships, like metatonic whales that refuse to submerge, always entrance me with their refusal to slow down or ever stop. In this realm, with its distant panorama, the machinations of civilizations are seen in soft focus as integral to the environment.

Ridiculous as it may be, I have always romanticized the half-rusting cargo ships with their promise of exotic unknown lands... even though they are merely carrying everyday stuff, in their wholeness they seem to embody and belong to the sea and its mystery, more than to the commercial world.

The longing to be, rather than to do, is connecting me to the peace that veils the extraordinary frenetic business of the spirit world that underpins the natural world, like the hidden almost frantic paddling of the remote-control ducks in London parks.

How lucky we are to have some safe distance from the edginess of what we call nature, yet how we yearn for that full immersion in the fecundity, vitality, colour, and smell, the transiencies of weather and voices of the wilderness.

The heart is impossible. That is what makes life worth living, for the reality of existence is impossible; the possible and so called actualities of the mind are nevertheless quite wonderful distractions from the unsolvable and ungraspable truth.

Surfing the waves of ephemeral feelings, this is LjL signing off……

No comments:

Post a Comment