Tag: Wrekin

Greenness is All About Us

Greenness is all about us in nature, and especially so in Shropshire now that summer is here!

This poem I think is self-explanatory, and the photo of The Wrekin, seen from The Lawley, tries to capture a landscape full of so many different shades of green!

~

The greenness is all about me

              growth exploding

from the silent being

              of the earth

                             where mysteries are daily enacted

Encounter with the root of life

              searching deeper

stretching higher

              towards the clouds

that call insubstantially

              from a beautiful blue heaven.

The Darkness Opening Into Morning

Mary Oliver wrote these beautiful lines:

“…the darkness opening into morning
Is more than enough…

Think of Sheba approaching
the kingdom of Solomon.
Do you think she had to ask,
‘Is this the place?'”

from ‘I wake close to morning’

I find dawn a wonderful, magical time in Shropshire, at all times of year. This photo of The Wrekin was taken one early morning in August. Now it is May there is are the countless songs and calls of the birds’ daily dawn chorus.

As she says – “more than enough”!

The Wrekin at Dawn

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!

Inspired and Connected

What gets you excited, inspired and feeling connected?

For me, it can be something as simple as a sunrise!

I pass The Wrekin every day on my way to where I work. It can be cloudy, hidden by mist, ominous, and sometimes, as on this day, spectacular.

A reminder we are an integral part of our beautiful world, connnected, whether or not we choose to accept it, and whether we choose to destroy or preserve.

And who would choose not to defend a planet that we can be so connected to, and that can be so awe-inspiring?

“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

New Day, New Hope

~

Always

Move on

.

From the powers

Of the past

.                                                 

That draw you

Ever backwards

.

The sun rises

On a day of new hope

.

And today’s

Combination

.

Of creatures

Living and being

.

Will never recur

In time’s memory

.

So turn your mind

And your inner eye

.

And always move on

This way.

~

The Wrekin at dawn, October 2021

Nature’s Powerful Presences

Recently I was walkingin on The Lawley in Shropshire, and we paused to admire the Highland cattle in an adjacent field.

They were handsome, strong, charismatic even!

I think Aelbert Cuyp must also have found cattle fascinating in this way, in this painting I recently came across.

They dominate this painting by him, as they do many others by him. There are as much a part of human life as the windmills and the church, the sunlight and the sky.

Human life is moved to the sidelines and into the background. For the time we spend gazing at this beautiful painting, we are absorbed by animals, the creaturely world of the cattle.

Do you ever feel that, looking at cows, at sheep, at birds, at a pet cat or dog? They have a fascinating, separate existence from us – related to our existence, and yet so different!

Sheep on Wilderley Hill, with The Wrekin in the background, Shropshire, October 2021

In Cuyp’s painting, their existence is monumental. They even seem to have something of a sacred meaning for him, as they do in some other cultures. They are there, and it feels as though we are privileged for a while to be in their presence, a presence which is material, dignified and powerful.

Makes you think, the next time you walk past a field of cattle or sheep!