Dawn Wind Song

Morning bike ride > Luton > Cockernhoe > Ley Green > Hitchin. Journal Notes

Left house at 6pm : no lights [on bike that is], along country lanes : windy : cloudy moon : almost no traffic on road. Once through Cockernhoe in dark : just gliding - almost silently along the road : loose sense of the hills : just flow : a SLOW bike ride : can barely hear tyres on the road : wind in trees : gliding along : natural light : full moon 2 days or so ago : sky just beginning to lighten : I find a gateway into a field with a clump of trees whoose wind song invites me to stop : I lie down on the damp cool grass : it isn't too cold or wet : and I gaze up at the swaying branches silhouetted : the sky lightens with a pinkish tinge : I hear the wind and, as the airport is only a couple of miles away, planes taking off and the smell of fuel in the wind : But I am here, lying : beneath the trees : SLOW, calm, surrounded by the waves of the wind song.

After a busy few weeks and the sadness of my wife's miscarriage, this is my first chance to go out and just "Be" : to be slow, unrushed, where time has no relevance : where I can greet the day and stop : the dark of the night is beautiful : you use different senses : during the day there is almost too much to take in.

Having been inspired by two recent tv programmes Extreme Pilgrim [Peter Owen Jones] and Earth Pilgrim [Satish Kumar] today is a slow day : I just want to do something - walk, cycle etc - but in a way that encourages my sense of the now :being where I am.

[I cycle on, as the sun rises, to find a sheltered place in which to write my journal]

Now I am sheltering beside a bridle path by the foot of a thick hedge : holly, ash and oak : sheltering out of the cold wind with a multitude of layers on : the golden sun is just above the horizon : but I think the clouds will soon mask its light : there is just enough to momentarily highlight the landscape.