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

The Song of Wandering Aengus

 

One of my all-time favourite poems and so wonderfully set to music by both Donovan and The Waterboys below.  The last four lines conjure up an image that calls to something deep within, the search for the perfect place and time, and the pull of the sun and moon on the human heart.  Yeats certainly had a way of translating human longing into beautiful words.

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

(William Butler Yeats)

Donovan's Adaptation

 The Waterboys

December Sunrise

(Photo - Wikimedia Commons)

I watched the sun rise this morning, and I do not have the words to convey what I saw.  The adjectives, descriptive terms and analogies ran through my mind but not one can do justice to what I witnessed.  I cannot draw or paint to show you the beauty of the morning so I must use words, however inadequate, to describe the scene.

At first, a sea of pinks and purples ran across the dark sky and a red glow appeared along the horizon.  This grew in intensity and burnt orange-red, upwards and outwards, until looking at the sky in the east was like looking into a burning fire.  The sun peeped over the hill, bright gold, against the flaming backdrop.

I moved cross the bedroom to get a better view and saw the sun behind a line of silhouetted trees. It climbed higher in the sky between the two extended main branches of an oak and appeared as though it was enveloped and nestled by the limbs of the tree.  I wondered how many years the mature oak has stood in that spot and the number of times the rising sun cast its light on it. The thought struck me that no matter how long I live, I will never see as many sunrises as the oak tree.  

From the moment I stopped to look at the sky, the ‘to do’ list had tugged at my conscience like an impatient child tugs on its parent’s hand.  Now, I dismissed it from my mind and continued looking out the window.  Yes, there are things to do and places to be but I have only a limited number of sunrises that I can watch, finite opportunities to drink in the beauty and timelessness of nature.  I didn’t waste time this morning nor was I idling; I was living - truly living, if only for a few moments before the mundane took over.