MOOR MEMORIES

 

Saturday 23rd August 2014


High Egton Moor today is purple, it smells of Honey and I can see the Sea from here.
Walking through it's quiet solitude, my feet anchored in the geography, to the seldom visited though clear paths, my thoughts adrift in the rolling moors of my mind. It's a way of recharging depleted batteries, of clearing out the mental clutter, re-establishing a spiritual connection with the real world, astringing my soul, so I may once more face the tedium, the tiresome responsibilities and obligations of the coming days. Yet negative thoughts were creeping into my meditation, a venom, spreading like a stain, poisoning my space. No more than a little while elapses before I check it, this is not the way I mean to spend my time.
 "Fill your soul with good thoughts" I tell myself; saying the words out loud to increase their power. A few more paces then Kim presses into my thoughts with a clear presence and unexpected suddenness. I hesitate, mid stride, raise my head and look around. A few short paces ahead, at the side of the path, a boulder stands, flat topped and oddly bleached white. Sheep having sheltered in its lee, have worn a border around it, a narrow strip of cropped Heather and Grass. It has a slightly incongruous presence, a distinct isolation; sitting in the landscape, yet not of it. It seems absurd to pretend that Kim should force her way to the fore of my mind and such a prospect, a perfect invitation to sit, should coincidentally present itself in that same moment. It is apparent that I should pause a while and as I approach the serendipity is reinforced as I notice the stone is shaped like a heart.
I Rest upon it, beneath an infinite sky where a melee of Clouds jostle for space and yet there are breaks amid the confusion, azure patches show through the rents, particularly to the East where a lovely pastel blue sits above the deep indigo sea. There's peace here.
" I love you Kim".
That still means something, to me at least.
 I talk to Kim out loud, not something I usually do, I try to articulate something.
 " It feels like a long time." I begin, yet that's not it, " Its not so much a feeling of a long time since I saw you, which of course it is, since I held you in my arms, or since I kissed your lips." " No, it's more a feeling of a long road ahead of me; such a long way to go." I surveyed the empty moor, my eyes searching across the wide, shallow fold of valley that lay before me. In the vastness spread before me I search for a sign of another person anywhere. "With such a heavy burden." "No; it's not so heavy, it's just a long way to carry it."   I pause, considering the landscape, the impression was one far from emptiness.The Moor is actually full; full of sound, the rising warble of Grouse calling, the droning of Bees as they drift past, the soothing harmony of breeze softly hushing through Grass and Heather, I listen to the constant bleating of far off Sheep and hear the sound of the wind in my ears. "Yes, that's it, it's not so much a feeling of a long time,  it's a feeling of long way." "And I've travelled so little of it".
Somewhere from this cloud filled sky the sun breaks through, it shines down upon me, I feel its warmth, caught in a sunbeam. And yet it is that gentle warmth, that sensuous caress on my naked skin, that makes me feel cold.
 "Forgive me Kim." " I don't yet know how to be strong."
Now as always, choked inside of me, tangled thoughts and feelings, thick like tar in hot sun, unexpressed and suffocating for release, press heavily on my Heart, clogging in my Throat like a sob that won't come out. There's nobody I can share it with, people don't understand. I sigh, knowing this is not true, people do understand, but they can't walk the path for me, they're patient and sympathetic, but I've got to live each day, the pain is mine, it's personal. They may understand but they don't feel my pain, they can't share it, they can't take it away. As much as they may want to help, it is for me to endure, for me alone to endure. It's my path.
I sit, taking in the views, the gently rolling hills washed over by a sea of purple heather, the isolated stone houses with red Pantiled roofs, the enduring Farmsteads, mans endless optimism made tangible, the promise of the wide sky.
And if it becomes unendurable, what then?
Thunder rumbles out of the western sky, warning me it's time to move on.