Don’t fail the awe

A lesson from the peak of the year

It was 3.50 a.m. The birds were prepping for their longest day of song—tuning up, doing vocal stretches, a few coughs, the elder birds leading group huddles, delivering lively motivational speeches. It’s the big one girls and boys! I hit the snooze button only once then crawled out of bed, blindly grabbed some clothes, which I hoped were mine and not my wife’s. I crept down our rickety stairs without making too much noise. The dogs were asleep. When I called to them they lifted their heads slightly, huffed and told me to go back to bed. Naturally I bribed them with biscuits and we were off to the ridge, parking up at 4.10 a.m, which gave us half-an-hour to reach the summit. People had already arrived, all of them, no doubt, somnambulists. By the time they reached the summit they were awake, and a lively atmosphere ensued. Not quite wanting human company, as at that time of day I barely know my own name, I took a detour to a more private spot.

There was already a deep red glow in the east. I walked to a stone cairn, climbed to the top and sat down. The skylarks and sheep called softly, my dogs pootled about sniffing for dead things to lick. At precisely 4.51 a.m., the first sliver of the sun appeared over the distant hills. A few minutes later its top half was visible, bulging and deformed like some overweight burning thing trying to lift itself out of a chimney. Slowly it gathered and began to float clear, becoming circular as it climbed into the sky. I heard whoops and cheers coming from the little crowd. And then the skylarks got up, every one of them: mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, perhaps a hundred in total, rising in unison, filling the air with a cathedral of trilling song. The sun’s rays splayed into the sky like the hands of a conductor. For the next few minutes we were treated to an experience of pure awe.

There was a man on the hill, an athlete, dressed in trendy running gear. He had one of those strange drinking devices with a protruding pipe attached to his shoulder, a phone strapped to his arm—flashing and flickering, counting his heartbeats, measuring his altitude gained, his steps and speed. As the sun climbed he seemed to be running away from it as fast as he could, heading west as if from some terrible conflagration. When he reached the trig point he suddenly stopped, turned and knelt. I expected some sacred ritual to begin. It did: he grabbed his phone, took a quick snap of the sun, and in a heartbeat went back to his run. For some of us awe is too much, we can only handle it for the briefest of instants.

The rest of that solstice day was a washout for me, actually a descent. I’ve struggled with depression for most of my adult life. It used to be chronic and moderate, lasting months or even years, but just a tolerable sepia tint. These days it’s brief, acute and severe. My mood suddenly plummets, the demons arrive. And it comes when I least expect it. I certainly hadn’t expected it after witnessing so much beauty at the start of the day, but it seems to be an emotional-gravitational law for me at the moment that the higher I rise the further I fall. I spent that day in a spiral of hopelessness that had me groaning while curled into a ball. This I believe was a punishment for something not undertaken or completed.

I’ve been reading a book by Sarah Wilson titled “This one wild and precious life”. It takes in the things I worry about most: climate change, species loss, human loneliness and despair. She writes very honestly about her own mental health, her manias and descents. She suggests practices we can develop, both to manage our personal fragilities and at the same time give service to the earth, to be part of the (re)awakening which is so needed now. One of those practices is to “get wild”. Amen.

Possibly on that solstice day I didn’t get wild enough. I woke to the towering sun at the peak of her powers and I watched in awe. But perhaps just watching isn’t enough. An hour after sunrise I returned to my too-dark attic room, my bed, my books, which was far too tame on such a special day, literally the high point of the year. I should have stayed out, made something more of it all, made something, created a gift to the sun. I should have taken a big sheet of paper and painted wildly, letting the sun transmit her light through my every muscle and nerve, not just my eyes. It should have been a dance, my version of what was happening on other summits across the world, where sometimes even monkeys make offerings to the sun (see last week’s reading from Two Lights here). When the tiredness after such an early start took hold I could have slept out in the open, serenaded by skylarks. Under the open sky I get no dark thoughts. It’s been a lesson for me.

Yesterday I delivered some new paintings to Zillah Bell Gallery in North Yorkshire. It houses a large collection of my hero Norman Ackroyd’s etchings. There were a number of newspaper articles in the gallery about him. One which stood out described his process when he went out to the Western Isles to work, how even in the worse seas he’d sit sketching in a little boat, not noticing the water sluicing across the decks and the spray hitting his face. If someone spoke to him he didn’t reply. He was taking part in things, watching but also moving, intensely present to the awe. Creating his gift to the place.

One of the gifts of getting older is that you become a little translucent. People stop watching you. It’s an opportunity to shrug off conventions and dive deeper into wild relationship. One of the gifts of being an artist is that you can get a little wild, in fact you’re almost expected to. And every one of us is an artist. If you don’t agree with that just spend a little time around young children. When our boys were young, when we were out in the sun and wind, they took part, running around madly, singing, leaping, waving their little arms. I don’t remember either of them just sitting and watching as the sun came up. The deepest urge in us is to take part in the wildness of life. It heals us and it can also help heal the wounds of the earth. As Gary Snyder once wrote (and I’m paraphrasing here): “The deer like to listen to our songs”. To watch us dance.

It’s time to learn good practices. Therefore on the 21st of June, 2026, at precisely 4.51 a.m., if you happen to be on Hergest Ridge, you may see a man moving frantically around a large sheet of paper, throwing ink and paint. That will be me. Forgive me if I don’t speak much, I’ll be dancing to the awe.

You can find Sarah Wilson on Substack, and her book here.

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The swifts know how to dance more than most! This painting is now available at Zillah Bell Gallery (Ink and Salt on 320gsm paper, 70 x 90cm, in a black wooden frame)

There are also lots of prints of more dancing creatures on my website: