On This Mountain
Entry by: Sal
2nd April 2015
I step off the oak stile onto the petticoat of the Mynd and think of Lucy pushing through the fur at the back of the wardrobe and entering Narnia. The landscape is bewitching, beckoning me in.
The incline is gentle here, lulling me, in cahoots with the stream. I reach the bend, where the water’s intonation imitates a radio 4 presenter wafting through a neighbour’s open window.
Sheep glass eye me, their suspicion quivering. They move their space to facilitate mine but their alertness is resentful.
A large quarried slate slab straddles the bank where pied wagtails bob and waggle. I stop midstream, and see what note resonates from my mouth when I open it to chant. It is a low sound today and earthy. I sing for a few moments with a Red Kite spectator, dipping his wing in a fly past. As I deepen I feel roots snaking out of my feet and tethering me to the landscape.
Other small flits, too rapid to name indicate occupancy of the bushes. I catch a flicker of brown and a wing beat is percussion to my sounds. The biggies are airborne too, a pair of Buzzards surfing the mountain’s sighs.
At the point where -the –path-narrows- into –jaggedness is a Holly tree with a cleft trunk. It leans like a diver over the river, digging its roots into the hillside for balance. The cleft has formed a perfect two foot long oval and has become my wishing hole. There have been others but this one now serves to hear my supplications. I choose a small grey- mauve pebble, collect my thought and post it through the hole and into the river. It is my post-box to God, the river the postman.
I sing my way upwards and my body lightens and yet grows stronger. I am drawn to the Hawthorn clutching the bank, its roots visible like the veins on the hands of my dying Father. I touch one gently with my fingertip and sing. Here my voice is higher and resonates in my chest. Hawthorn is heart medicine.
At the cascade in the river I edge my way downwards, my toes gripping hoof tracks in the bank. I hunker where the spray falls on my face and washes it with prickles and light. This is as far as I will go today. It is not in me to reach the top, to seek to conquer and be higher. That is fool’s gold. I have dallied on the flanks and it is enough.
I have unravelled, unwound, my heart’s beat evened and beating on the side of Wise. The connection is deep. It is enough.
The incline is gentle here, lulling me, in cahoots with the stream. I reach the bend, where the water’s intonation imitates a radio 4 presenter wafting through a neighbour’s open window.
Sheep glass eye me, their suspicion quivering. They move their space to facilitate mine but their alertness is resentful.
A large quarried slate slab straddles the bank where pied wagtails bob and waggle. I stop midstream, and see what note resonates from my mouth when I open it to chant. It is a low sound today and earthy. I sing for a few moments with a Red Kite spectator, dipping his wing in a fly past. As I deepen I feel roots snaking out of my feet and tethering me to the landscape.
Other small flits, too rapid to name indicate occupancy of the bushes. I catch a flicker of brown and a wing beat is percussion to my sounds. The biggies are airborne too, a pair of Buzzards surfing the mountain’s sighs.
At the point where -the –path-narrows- into –jaggedness is a Holly tree with a cleft trunk. It leans like a diver over the river, digging its roots into the hillside for balance. The cleft has formed a perfect two foot long oval and has become my wishing hole. There have been others but this one now serves to hear my supplications. I choose a small grey- mauve pebble, collect my thought and post it through the hole and into the river. It is my post-box to God, the river the postman.
I sing my way upwards and my body lightens and yet grows stronger. I am drawn to the Hawthorn clutching the bank, its roots visible like the veins on the hands of my dying Father. I touch one gently with my fingertip and sing. Here my voice is higher and resonates in my chest. Hawthorn is heart medicine.
At the cascade in the river I edge my way downwards, my toes gripping hoof tracks in the bank. I hunker where the spray falls on my face and washes it with prickles and light. This is as far as I will go today. It is not in me to reach the top, to seek to conquer and be higher. That is fool’s gold. I have dallied on the flanks and it is enough.
I have unravelled, unwound, my heart’s beat evened and beating on the side of Wise. The connection is deep. It is enough.
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