Something in Mountain Air

Why we need to go to the mountains from time to time...

"There is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires.  Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences?"

(H.D. Thoreau, On Walking)

Happiness is....

      "The more childish and unworldly a person’s disposition is, the more happiness he gets from such simple things as air, water, sun, earth-mould, sand, leaves, bread, butter, honey, or the still more primeval sensation of a certain delicious drowsiness in his own limbs.  

This is what I mean by my recurrent image of the ichthyosaurus. What I am trying to indicate by “the ichthyosaurus-sensation” is nothing less than this simple primeval happiness in the immediate experience of being alive. 

To blink at that mysterious god, the sun; to stare at that equivocal goddess, the moon ; to watch the incredible shapes of the clouds, as they pile up above the horizon ; to observe in early afternoon, a certain yellowish light upon a brick wall; to note a certain dark-blue wave of colour, as it sinks down upon the roofs of a city after sunset; to catch the ink- black silhouettes of bare branches against a November sky, just before the windows are lamp-lit in a roadside village ; to feel the ploughed-up earth under your feet, and a cold wet wind upon your face ; to sit over a fire of wood or of red, coals, thinking the long thoughts of vague race-memories—all these things, belonging to a world of psychic-physical sensations that go back to the beginnings of consciousness, are the stuff of which the secret of life is made."

John Cowper Powys

In Defense of Sensuality

NOVEMBER SUNSET

"We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a meadow the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting, after a cold grey day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest brightest morning sun-light fell on the dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves of the shrub-oaks on the hill-side, while our shadows stretched long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more glorious still. 

The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance, as it has never set before, — where there is but a solitary marsh hawk to have his wings guilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright — I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman, driving us home at evening."         
 
                                                                                                                      (Henry David Thoreau)

Whispers on the Wind

 One of my earliest memories is of standing at my bedroom window gazing at the line of distant blue-grey mountains where I ran free in my imagination.  I spent a lot of time in those hills with a woollen rug rather than a carpet of grass beneath my feet. I longed to be among them, in the fresh air with the sky stretching above me as far as my eyes could see.  My room was at the front, over my father's newsagents and the chatter of the customers and sounds of suburban traffic drifted endlessly through the window and up the stairs.  

When I grew older, I escaped to the park alone and walked by the duck pond, following the paths that meandered under the trees and zig-zagged around the flower beds.  I loved those green places but they were bitter-sweet for they gave me a taste of nature that whetted my appetite so that I hungered for more, much more.  I wanted open spaces, miles and miles of freedom, rugged mountains, stone paths that crunched under my feet, chasms and boulders, clear flowing streams, grassy banks and meadows touched by gentle breezes that made the flowers nod and sway.  I wanted land, water and air all around me. The park was an escape, a place of solitude and quiet where I was happy and sad at the same time, mixed up feelings of childish pleasure co-existing with a deep longing, a mature feeling too complicated for one so young.  It was like a stone lodged in my gut that reminded me of its presence at regular intervals.  

As the years passed, I grew to understand this feeling.  I was a wild child.  Something called to me.  It was inside me yet also outside of me.  There was a tenor in the air and I loved its voice.  And I came to recognise that my father heard it too.  I saw that look in his eye as he stopped to listen to a song-bird, looked at a flower or stood with arms folded, leaning on the shop counter watching the rain bouncing off the pavement outside.

He came from a long line of farming people who were (and a few still are) embedded in the land.  The earth was not only under their nails but their skin as well, deep in their hearts and souls.  And so it is with me.  Some, across several generations, were torn from the land, forced from their home by economic necessity, myself included.  It is a terrible wrench and there is much work to do in putting down roots in a new place, not only physical but psychological and emotional too.  It is easy enough to pass your days somewhere but not really dwell there. 

I lived in another city for many years but never felt rooted in the place. Just as in my early years, I spent long periods of time in its parks and gardens but that familiar longing tugged at my insides and something called on the wind.  I began going on camping and walking holidays to the Lake District and Wales but still the voice whispered "come away."  In the end, I did.

I now live in a rural area amid hills and fields. Birds and small wild creatures are part of my daily life.  I feel my roots sinking more deeply into the earth with each passing day and my soul soars up among the branches of the trees and up into the star-filled skies.  This is freedom. 

The voice is still on the wind, it floats around me.  It is closer and I feel its breath against my cheek.  It whispers a different message now, its tells me that I am home.