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Tuesday 9 March 2010

Hopton Titterhill and Black Hill: Part 3

Saturday 6 March 2010
Landscape. How I love that word. It is a word I use a lot in the context of my journeying and the environment that is laid out for me in my daily walk through life. I'm up on Black Hill now, just a couple of miles from Hopton Titterhill, and looking westwards. Before me is the wonderful hilly landscape of the Welsh borderland between Knighton and Clun. The sun has penetrated the hazy clouds in a few places, otherwise the light is subdued and shadowless. Today I am just going where I feel lead, no distinct plan of action as such. Now I am sitting by the roadside overlooking a revealed valley. Only since a year or so ago has this view been seen once again after many years of being obscured by a tall conifer plantation. The conifers have been felled and now the view has returned again and I could sit here for hours.

What does this view have to tell me about my journey? Revealing, or revelation. Something that was hidden for a long time but which can now be seen. It used to be there in one form or another - before the conifers were planted. Perhaps the view that I see of my life was also, too visible, once a time ago. A momentary glint in the eye of the Divine that set my life alive in the knowledge that it would, one day, be revealed. Now this phase in my life is opening up and I admire the view.

The sound of the wingbeat of a crow brushes across the hillside. A buzzard calls, far below me. I am on the edge of a view - at a vantage point. I am not in the view itself, that will come later.

The earth is still quite dormant and there are still tiny patches of snow in sheltered hedgerow edges. The valley has yet to wake up to the full energy of spring. Perhaps the biggest challenge I will face in my new job is that of dealing with different and more varied people once again. What can my view tell me about how I should relate to the new people I am about to meet?

Peace: hold your peace and know your own confidence and belonging.
Difference: everyone is different. Nature is diverse. It can be good, it can be cruel. Co-existance is a key to survival.
Sounds: just listen, and don't interfere with the balance of what is before you. Think before you upset the balance.
Creativity: is part of the natural energy of nature.
Light: and therefore energy, will come and go. Some days may be pale and shadowless, others will be bright and full of contrast.

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