Held

my breath

‘Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last! What a task

to ask

of anything, or anyone,’

(Mary Oliver - Snow Geese)

Some days arrange themselves in such a way that you’re instantly aware of their brilliance and want to immerse yourself in it, become part of it. Saturday was one such day. Coated entirely in a heavy hoar frost and lit by a glorious sun in a crystal clear blue sky, I could not wait to be outside. Warnings had been issued in the media about the intense cold, recommendations made for older people to remain indoors for safety. Pah! Not a chance....this older person felt the intense pull of a glittering world and without even having a wash, kitted herself up to walk the stone hard fields and plunge into the glimmer. No fear. Teeth were brushed, felt impossible to meet this vividness with a claggy mouth and off I went. BB remonstrated from his body bed, I still have a cold, he doesn’t understand that there is something gravitational at work and I’m powerless to resist. Is this how Scott of the Antarctic felt? Pulled by an invisible thread.

Even as I approached our field at the back of the cottage, I stopped and gasped. Momentarily stunned by the picture it presented. In that instant I knew the veil had been torn in two and I saw with more than my eyes, I saw with my heart the full expression of God’s love in and through creation. A pure gift, free and abundantly offered. I was held. Later in Mary Oliver’s poem she says:

‘.....I

held my breath

as we do sometimes

to stop time

when something wonderful has touched us’

She is right. I held my breath, I wanted to stop time, I was touched by something wonderful.

Moments like these are impossible to describe in words. I took photo after photo to gather it to myself, hoping to retain the feeling it invoked in me. I walked and snapped. I oooohed and aaaaahed. I talked to myself of the beauty, I was really quite mad with it and the desire to roll around like a dog on its back in the magnificent landscape, was overwhelming. This I resisted.... Inside my chest, heart fluttered like the wings of a bird surprised and disturbed from a tree roost. It flapped inside me, I think it was pure joy. I felt it’s irregularity and thought ‘if I fall down dead right now, I am happy, life complete’. I walked and walked, with not one step of disappointment. Gift upon gift was bestowed and I feasted upon it. There was an understanding within me that this event would never be repeated. Maybe there will be other days that scintillate, where a hoar frost has outlined and defined every blade, leaf, twig, stone and stem, maybe there won’t, but how this day has been configured is unrepeatable. Everything, but everything sang its own loud song. Perfectly harmonised and resounding in the silence of the morning, an alleluia chorus.

If I were to name all the things I love.... this particular day is very high on the list. Perhaps top of the list. The humans in my life could be disappointed to learn this, they are no less loved, but the extravagant love of the connection I felt came unexpectedly and without any requirement or prompting from me. It was just ‘take this, and this, have more, more, here, and again, it’s just for you.’ Unconditional. Human love always seeks a return I think.

Even parental love looks for the child to reciprocate. Here, I was a child where nothing was expected of me. The freedom of it was extraordinary. Never felt before.

I’ve written about ‘thin’ places, where the divide between the here and now and that other place, that Divine space, is completely present and felt. Where you simply know without any shadow of a doubt, you walk in the company of.... I’ll leave you to fill in the blanks. There is nothing between yourself and your Creator or if you prefer, you are completely one with the Universe/ God/Source, name it what you will, but you never want it to end. It is a glimmer of the truth and I suspect is always there, but we build the wall, hoist the veil, blinker our senses with all kinds of triviality and separate ourselves. What fools we are to lose ourselves and miss the miracle.

I think I stepped out into the landscape of that day as a child, with a child’s heart and as a consequence was fully receptive and engaged with all that was on offer. Probably why Jesus spoke of children as the way to access the truth. There is no intellectual grandiosity in them to bar the way. They accept the mystery and miracle without question. I stood briefly and timelessly in ‘the kingdom’. My own human cleverness (which amounts to very little) was absent but with a naive willing openness present to what is now.

17 “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Luke 18:17

Arriving home, the walk took much longer than I thought, time was lost on me.... I didn’t want to come inside and lose the connection, returning to our warm kitchen with a full English waiting for me was utterly delightful, but immediately reinstated the world. A world where I live an unquestionably lovely life, but it isn’t ‘it’. I wonder about these glimpses, these shimmering, shiny time capsules of no time. No mental application of mine can offer an understanding of revelation, perhaps it’s better to leave well alone and just continue with gratitude. There have been many ‘thank yous’ both on the walk that day and since. Mary finishes with this:

‘Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.

Maybe I won’t.

It doesn’t matter.

What matters

is that, when I saw them,

I saw them

as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.’

We speak the same language, Mary and I, a sort of mystical ordinary. My next cup of Elderberry tea sits steeping on the table. My throat aches, a new development of the cold that lingers. It’s another bitter Winter’s day with no glitter to speak of, but tonight we have a Snow moon. The first full moon of the year. Venus has been shining so brightly when the moon was but a sliver, that nightfall brings its own glimmering magic, sunrise is copper coloured. Who could fail to be captivated by it all, held, hold your breath. Till the next time,

A

https://youtu.be/ttEMYvpoR-k?

si=RBJYBwf_z2NI9HLD