Peering through the gaps
Field note - 2
The first hard frost of the winter. Sun coming up behind the hills, sky burning. I’m walking the steep track through the woods up to the hill fort. As the light intensifies the fields in the distance begin to glow, like shrouds lit by flares. A flock of rooks rummaging noisily in a fallow field. Cows in their byres calling back in bass tones. The road frozen, the stream threading through the valley bright as a firework’s tail. All this glimpsed through a tangle of dormant oaks, hazels and rowans — blue-black stripes, wires, nets, spikes.
It’s how we see these days — the real only through the gaps. We put pictures together like an unfinished jigsaw, piece by piece, the scene beyond seemingly another world. In the foreground is the fabricated world, machine made, a crazed puppet theatre with bright characters blitzing our attention any way they can. Oh the noise of it all!
Withdrawal sometimes seems impossible, but there are ways.
Here’s one:
Find a gap in the trees, the little clearing, the unobscured view. Stand still or sit. Watch the light change, the rain start to fall, the fields begin to shine or mist over. Watch how it all changes constantly, second by second, day by day. Make it your place of return and return to it often. Learn it: what surrounds you, what’s at your feet. Look closely. Get to know the old inhabitants — the robin guarding its square mile, the hysterical blackbird, the treecreepers, wood pigeons, jackdaws.
It grows on you this, and in you, pulls you back to earth — the real one. Makes you part of things. Slowly you learn a little resilience. The shadows begin to fade.
This weekend I’m publishing a second practice for connection to the land. It will explore springs, streams, getting to know your watershed, and creating the beginnings of a story-map for your place. It’s for paid subscribers. If you’re unable to take on a paid subscription, but would like to be part of this community, please email me and I’ll comp you a subscription for a time.
Thanks for reading!
J
This is exactly how I lived my childhood in central Bradford. Finding surprises in the battered pockets of 'wasteland', teeming buddleia full of butterflies. Reading stories set in beautiful-sounding wild woods full of creatures, and bucolic farmlands far away. Creeping under raggy blackberry hoops to watch the evening sky just before the (ironically now much missed) orange streetlights made everything a weird flat brown. On the rowdy bus watching the raging sunset reflected back from the millions of city windows. Thinking about how all that sandstone was dug and blasted from the hills around the edge. I always love your work here. Thank you for opening a portal for me, for taking me straight back!
Brilliantly observed, thank you.