Tag: light

Winter to Summer Solstice (2)

Day 2 sunset 15.42pm

What did you do with your extra minute of light today? Where you aware of it? Did you pause in that extra moment of light to contemplate the coming seasons? after all, spring is only a few months away.

I set an alarm on my phone for 15.40pm today, this gave me a minute to put aside what I was doing in order to pause at precisely 15.41pm for a whole minute, and although it has been a heavy dreich day, I stepped outside.

The top of Meall nan tarmachan visible through the clouds.

I am lucky to have a car port at my back door, meaning I don’t get soaked when its raining.

But the dampness still sneaks under the car port.

I stood for a moment but was soon drawn into the back garden. The rain hitting the car port roof behind me sounded like popping candy when it dances on your tongue. I was surprised at the abundance of bird song coming from the trees at the bottom of the garden, but then there is so much foliage for them to muster in, and the birds are fed well by my neighbour. My garden looks sad though, limp, brown and sleepy, I look forward to new shoots bursting through the earth, but first there will be snow.

My tired garden

As I turned to head back indoors, I passed the garden table, all wet, shiny and tinted with sky, and I felt a warmth, this table was our wedding sign and altered by a kind neighbour into a piece of furniture we will use for many years.

Not only did it bring fond memories of a wonderful day, but optimism of a first anniversary when the light will have fully arrived, the trees will be full once more and everything a little softer.

As I took my last deep breath of the cold damp air, I felt privileged to experience the moment in full presence before heading indoors to the warmth, to my wife and to a warm cup of lemon and ginger tea.

Why not set a reminder to experience a minute of sunset yourself.

Winter to Summer Solstice

Day 1

An inversion of fog has sunk below the mountains tops and settled on our tiny village. All around us the world has alerted into an underdeveloped sepia photograph with blurred edges and featureless faces.

The old mill, Killin

With such an abundance of thick fog, the village has felt cold and eerily dark. Its no surprise then that the the arrival of winter solstice yesterday was heartily welcomed.

An alter to welcome the return of the light

My wife and I did our first solstice ritual which, amongst other things, involved the lighting of candles and thinking of what the coming light means to us.

New life

The first warmth of the sun on my skin

The transformation of nature

Clean washing hung on the washing line

The sound of birds in the trees

New growth in the garden

Taken in Arbroath Scotland.

I am going to start recording my journey from winter to summer solstice, starting today, with the hopes of becoming more aware of the changing light. I feel this gives me an opportunity to take a moment at sunset to gather my thoughts, be still, and record what I see. A mindful moment.

Day 1 Sunset 15.41 UK

I was in B&M, so certainly not a mindful moment, but an awareness of the time lingered in the periphery of my mind. We came in for wool, because Helen wanted to start a new crochet project, and I needed dry stuffing mix for the Christmas dinner. Helen wheeled off in her wheelchair while I headed to the vegan section to see what bargains I could pick up. Five minutes later, and with a basket half filled with groceries that I didn’t need, Helen wheeled up behind me with a bewildered look on her face.

‘They’ve started selling Cherry Ripe, it’s my absolute favourite chocolate bar. I audibly gasped when I saw it. But it isn’t vegan.’

There was a look of disappointment on her face, but a glint of a memory pulled her lips into a soft smile and she was temporality transported to Australia, to a different time, to a time before us, before Scottish mountains, cold inversions and wheelchairs, to a time that shaped my wife into the woman she is today. I never saw her taste her first Cherry Ripe bar, but maybe one day, perhaps on a cold winters afternoon, when a cloud inversion has transformed the world into a blurred photograph, we will share our first vegan Cherry Ripe bar together. Until then, I will sit for a moment, after this post is sent out into the world, and listen to her tell me of that first taste, and learn something new on the first day of the coming light.

Vitamin Glee

blue bright citrus citrus fruit
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

I am filled with vitamin D, with a pink
lemonade kiss and a fancy free
Candy floss smile.

It is a marvellous and menacing mischief
that had now pumped up my heart,
and a vitamin glee that I have swallowed.

Rays of sunbeams are hiding in my sweater
and my unshaven legs – prickling
with joy, how glorious to be shown the light.

I am shimmering and dancing in my pants,
and there is a party in my bed socks –
And they rock, because bed socks do that.

And if my eyes were as blue as the sky
-and they are as blue as the sky,
they would be lost, in disguise and forever.

“What is this poem you ask me muse?”
“What is its purpose?”
“The purpose my beautiful fairy-tale wife,

Is that summer came for a day,
Like sand in my toes and a three wheeler bike
It snapped its elastic on my bum cheek and cheered.”

©Eilidh G Clark

My World in a Ring

For Helen

It was not mine when it caught my eye,

I had never seen treasure like this before;

An opal stone set firmly in gold

Had lured me into the antique store.

 

Now it sat in a box amongst breakfast and tea,

Eight slices of toast with a message in cheese;

Toast perfectly buttered and words written neat,

Marry me?

 

Such a mighty feast adorned my table

That my brain was not quite comprehending,

The offer of marriage in edible love

And the unanswered question still pending.

 

My eyes filled with tears and the word “yes” escaped

And the ring flashed like sun and like fire,

She tenderly slipped the ring onto my finger,

For my love, I just could not deny her.

 

I mused over the jewel that now circled my finger;

Of its journey, its life and it’s past,

Who wore it before me, and who gave it up?

Was it a symbol of love that still lasts?

 

Was it owned by a lady who travelled the world,

Who read Shakespeare and Milton and Pope?

Did she write words with new inspiration?

Did the ring give her courage and hope?

 

Did she sit in a café and hold hands with her love?

Did they fill life with lobster and wine?

Did they explore foreign lands, discover by chance

The opal amongst darkened mines?

 

My ring holds the secret to questions I pose

Locked tight in six claws of rich gold,

The oval shaped opal like a world filled with fire,

And serpents and magic and wonder untold.

 

The magic consumed me as I strolled to the light,

The stone changed from fire into ocean,

Its sky filled with morning, with sunbeams

And clouds and a light show of pleasure and motion.

 

 

My gem is unique in this world, like no other,

It’s a rainbow enclosed in a stone,

Revealed to the world through endurance and skill,

It’s a lifetime of pleasure I own.

 

I wear it with pride on my left hand, fourth finger,

I imagine the gem’s sweet voice sing,

“You are unique, you are precious and have

fire in your soul, and your world will live on in this ring.”

 

©Eilidh G Clark

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