The Beauty of Silence...

Re-enchantment

The magical wonder of snow can be lost by a couple of degrees warming turning the white falling flakes into dismal rain. It is precisely the same elements of moisture and air, humidity and wind, yet the shifting of the one variant of temperature creates a totally different outcome. I have only managed three snow days in the mountains this winter, due to a combination of mostly busy diaries and a very unpredictable weather which meant days set aside for a climb would sometimes be literally a washout. Ina and I did have a good summitting of the Cobbler with the spikes on our boots giving us the grip we needed in the the last snow of the season, and I felt again the sheer wonder of walking in crisp, hard snow as the world fell away around us. It looks like it's gone for the year now though and we have to wait 9 months probably to get out onto the white stuff again. The hills just look wet and sodden now and most uninspiring... and yet...they are exactl...

Lambing Snows and Holy Week

(photo courtesy of Abi Bull, Isle of Skye) Lambing snow is the name given to an early spring snowfall that can catch some of the wee lambs out who are born at the start of the season. Farmers have to watch out for this and, given care and shelter, the lambs are usually able to survive. It coincides too with the images of daffodils emerging through a covering of late snow, a similar sign of hope and new life in a forbidding and even hostile environment. Nevertheless there is something beautiful of this setting of fragile life against the rawness of nature, something that speaks to the heart of the human condition and the poignancy of it all. I write this on a Good Friday which is set in a global context of much uncertainty and even fear and desperation. The centuries old story that we are taken back to again and again by the turning of the season, of a God who died for a suffering and broken world, seems to have more resonance than ever. ...

A Solstice Nudge

A Solstice Nudge At 3.47am this morning the solstice took place and the earth started its' long journey back towards summer (in the northern hemisphere at least!). I always feel my heart lighten a little when this happens. It’s all about the direction of travel as I have so often said to people struggling with circumstances or a seeming lack of progress. And the fact that I know we are heading towards warmth and light makes all the difference in the dark and the cold. It reminds me that my current situation, however stalled it may feel, will one day pass. Such a change though rarely takes place in a dramatic and obvious ‘before and after’ kind of way. Rather it feels like a nudge. You would have to be looking very closely to notice that little tilt of the earth that starts the process. I’ve just been looking at my weather app and over the next few days the sunset time moves by a minute each day: today:15.44; 23 rd : 15.45...

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