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Love Every Creature!

“Love every leaf,

and every ray of light.

Love the plants.

Love the animals.

Love everything …

love the whole world

with an all embracing love.”

from Dostoyevsky, ‘Brothers Karamazov’

It was the first time in my life that I had knowingly seen the small copper butterfly – on a recent visit to The Hollies, a nature reserve in Shropshire, just up from Snailbeach lead mines near The Stiperstones.

With a wingspan of a just a few centimetres, it would be very easy to overlook this little beauty, but its bright coppery colours contrasted strikingly with the green grasses and wild plants all around that it was impossible to miss.

You get the most fantastic views of other Shropshire hills at The Hollies – Pontesford Hill and Earl’s Hill…

And of course The Wrekin…

This photograph of the Wrekin shows holly trees to the left (some of the oldest holly trees in England grow in this spot – 400 years old!) and also one of the many beautiful rowan trees that grow there.

On the walk back to Snailbeach, of course there were views of sheep – this is Shropshire after all…

And some beautiful “tree writing”, as gnarled, twisting branches seemed to want to say something to me in arborial hieroglyphs!

But really it was the day of the small copper.

How could you not love it?!

The Surprising Predictable

“Even the predictable turns into surprise the moment we stop taking it for granted”

David Steindl-Rast

So a local walk that has been made many times and is completely predictable … isn’t, when you are consciously being alert and mindful and grateful for what is around you.

David Steindl-Rast’s saying is so true!

Glancing at the local, familiar landscape, The Wrekin seemed lit up by the golden views of harvesting…

And just looking up at the sky reminded me to wonder…

And then on the path in front of me was a beautiful common darter…

It was a case of the surprising predictable that wasn’t predictable at all!

David Steindl-Rast, in his book Gratefulness, goes on to say that in the surprising there is also the element of the gratuitous. Humans didn’t make this beautiful earth, or the clouds.

So the least we can do is wonder at, and appreciate, its surprising predictableness!

Swan

Photographing this swan was a real blessing, and I then read a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver about another of these majestic creatures:

“Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air, an armful of white blossoms,

A perfect commotion of silk and linen as is leaned into the bondage of its wings: a snowbank, a bank of lilies…

A white cross streaming across the sky, its feet like black leaves, its wings like the stretching light of the river?

And did you feel it in your heart, how it pertained to everything?

And have you too finally figures out what beauty is for?

And have you changed your life?”

from ‘Swan’ by Mary Oliver

The Power and Goodness of Greenness

Being surrounded by the green of countryside does something good to us. I grew up in south London, where the predominant colour was grey! But green is the colour of Shropshire, especially now in midsummer.

When we are young we have to learn to consent to the goodness of life, and the greenness that surrounds me now represents that – goodness – and life for good, as I called this blog when I first created it a few years ago.

Consent to it all

To all its greenness

Life, nature, God –

So shall you grow and green

Your soul.

Looking towards Caer Caradoc and The Lawley from Brown Clee Hill, July 2022

Summer’s Beautiful Lease

Shakespeare felt that the British summer was never long enough:

“…summer’s lease hath all too short a date”

But however long or short it feels, I still think England in the summer is as beautiful as anywhere else on the planet.

Butterflies, too, have a rather short lifespan, but, like us in the summer, they really make the most of all sunny days, and on a recent visit to Brown Clee, the highest point in Shropshire, I came across this beautiful comma butterfly below.

The colours are so vivid – the deep orange contrasting so powerfully with black, reminiscent of the colour scheme of tigers! Looking closely, thought, and you can also see small patches of yellow. This beautiful creature makes the thistle look very drab!

Thomas Gainsborough painted this beautiful painting of his children chasing a butterfly:

The butterfly stays just out of reach on the left-hand side.

Just like perfect summer days – and childhood.

But each has such a beautiful lease!

The Significance of Silence

In the settling silence

Even the swaying of a stalk of grass

Seems to have such significance.

A recent walk up Brown Clee Hill, the highest point in Shropshire, took me to this view, and a silence so complete that the buzzing of insects was the only background sound.

In that settling silence, even the swaying of these stalks of grass seemed to have such significance.

Looking east from Brown Clee Hill, Shropshire, July 2022

Change Your Perspective!

If you are determined, you can find unusual perspectives on what has become familiar territory.

A bird might be lurking, camouflaged in the undergrowth, detectable only by a slight movement or sound as it hops along…

Mistle Thrush

Or a butterfly may be balancing on a single blade of grass…

Gatekeeper butterfly

Even something as ordinary as a thistle can appear quite majestic if it has the tenacity to stand up tall in a wilderness of grasses…

…and looking closer, what’s happening on the plant itself?

I was struck by the contrast of trees living, and dead, co-existing peacefully…

…and with bark that contains eyes – or are they mouths – or faces?

Even the turbulence of water can produce fascinating shapes…

Otherwise conspicuous creatures disappear amongst the long grass…

…whilst between the treetops a hilltop soars…

…and a few cows watch you curiously as you return to where you started.

Where was I? It was Attingham Park, a National Trust property in the West Midlands, just outside of Shrewsbury, UK.

Maybe you can try a change of perspective the next time you visit a familiar place, to keep life good?

A Glory of Swans

In July, I was walking by the River Severn in Shropshire and encountered a group of beautiful swans, as photographed below. They were a glorious sight and I tried to capture the moment in this poem:

~

A glory of swans

On the River Severn

As if heaven

Could be found here

In this place

On earth

As if this moment

Was pre-ordained

From before

All birth.

Here and now

On the River Severn.

~