Tag: hill

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

A Few Small Stumbling Steps

~

Here

On the top of Brown Clee

~

It is no mystery

Why hills give

~

That sense

Of perspective

~

Human life

Must accept with humility

~

That all

Our little dramas

~

Are just a few small

Stumbling steps

~

In

Eternity.

~

From the summit of Abdon Burf, Brown Clee Hill, September 2021

Transcendence and Endless Horizons

“We are made for transcendence and endless horizons”

Richard Rohr

From hills and mountains, beaches and harbours, you get that sense of “endless horizons”, that draw us out of ourselves. Shropshire has plenty of the first, and none of the rest!

This photograph of Corndon Hill was taken from the ridge of Stiperstones, and the cloud creates that sense of endlessness.

And there is something transcendent, also, I think, to the experience of being on top of a hill.

You have that sense of a changed perspective from ordinary life, even a sense of special connection with nature, the universe, with God.

It expands my sense of being human – made for transcendence and endless horizons.

Out of the Darkness

The Wrekin looms out of the darkness on a Shropshire morning in March 2021. I drive past this iconic hill Monday to Friday every week, and sometimes it just speaks of life, for good, to me, as it did on this day…

~

Out of the darkness

It looms

~

The curving back

Of a dragon

~

Slumbering

Deep within the earth

~

As if long before

I was

~

Or any were

There was a primordial birth

~

Murmuring

Before rock

~

Took shape  

And girth.

~

In the Silence

When you climb a hill, you sometimes experience a special kind of silence.

‘The Lawley’ is one of the Shropshire Hills – seen on the top right-hand side of the photograph taken from The Long Mynd, also featuring ‘The Wrekin’ top centre left.

As you get higher in your climb, the views become more and more stunning, and the silence deeper and deeper.

It can feel like “a new kind of silence”.

This poem was my attempt to that experience one day:

~

There’s a new kind of silence

On the Lawley this morning

~

A kind of inner silence

On the Lawley this morning

~

As if a new kind

Of consciousness

~

Was slowly

Dawning

~

That has suffered

And died

~

And has risen

Again

~

Here on the Lawley

This morning.