Tag: landscape

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!

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

Seasons of The Wrekin

The Wrekin is an iconic, landmark hill in Shropshire, and can be seen for miles and miles around – so is a familiar sight and is much-loved by local.

Locals use phrase “Going all round the Wrekin” to mean “Going the long way round / into too much detail / all over the place” – it does take about two hours to walk round its base, and it is a strenuous climb to go to the top and down again!

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…

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Out of the darkness

It looms

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The curving back

Of a dragon

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Slumbering

Deep within the earth

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As if long before

I was

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Or any were

There was a primordial birth

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Murmuring

Before rock

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Took shape  

And girth.

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