Enjoying Autumn’s Beauty

Out walking around Dudmaston in Shropshire I met this beautiful group of geese. It’s not such an unusual sight around the River Severn, but the way they were framed by the colours of autumn made more beautiful by the warm afternoon sun made it a lovely moment.

There’s a lot to be said for just being and enjoying the beauty of autumn when we have the opportunity!

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

“The Pleasures of the Body in This World”

Although life brings great challenges, there are also great joys.

Lent has begun but joy is not something that has to be given up!

There is a lovely Mary Oliver poem about her dog:

“…Running here, running there, excited…
the pleasures of the body in this world.
Oh, I could not have said it better myself.”
from ‘The Storm’

There is so much to be anxious and fearful about at the moment, but anxiety and fear themselves do not promote generosity and caring. We also need to be open-hearted and compassionate.

The photograph shows a recent sunrise in Shropshire, UK, over our most famous hill – The Wrekin.

The sun rose over the horizon just afterwards, but the colours of the sky gave me joy, as did the synchronicity of the flock of rooks who decided to move across the view in their contrasting dark silhouettes.

I felt the pleasure deep in my body, as we do other pleasures. And one of the things I am hoping to give up in Lent is any narrow-minded materialism that makes me forget my emotionality and spirituality, my joy, my pleasure in being human.

And I hope that will make me also a more caring and compassionate person.

Sunrise, The Wrekin and Rooks – February 2022

Who Are Your Blessed Company?

Feeling alone, feeling abandoned – these are amongst the most terrible feelings we can experience as human beings.

And the opposite is true – a sense of belonging, of fellowship, of being loved – these are some of the most life-affirming feelings, what makes us feel on top of the world, confident, capable of realising all our potential.

For the poet Mary Oliver, nature often brings her that sense of consolation and belonging:

“I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying …
Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts…”
from ‘What Gorgeous Thing’

I wrote the following poem when I lived in Dorset, and had a similar feeling of closeness and consolation from nature:

Thrush hurls her song
in curls and spirals and dead straight lines
.
The trees stand as still as time
The hills look down benignly
.
The wind converses enigmatically
The river merely suggests itself so quietly
.
Even the buttercups
Nod their heads with glee –
.
I feel I am among
such blessed company.

And I wonder who – or what – are your “blessed company”?

The Comfort of Mother Earth

Mary Oliver writes:

“I too have known loneliness…
Oh, mother earth, your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this…”
from ‘Loneliness’

There is a comfort to be found in nature, perhaps consolation from the feelings of loneliness that everyone experiences once in a while. I wrote this poem about the “connectedness” we can sometimes feel with nature – a similar feeling to that described by Mary Oliver.

The wild birds

Inhabit these hills

And I, a walker,

Glancing down the valley

Dazzled by gleaming lights

Flung across the fields like necklaces

I feel connected

With the wind

The grass under my feet

God’s sky above my head.