in these green mountains

“If you asked me why I live in these green mountains

I would laugh at myself. My soul is at rest.”

Li Po (701-762)

Mountains get into your blood. After almost five years of living in the Pyrenees, I miss their familiar contours when I go away. I am used to their monumental presence, the way they seem so fixed and eternal, and yet offer a visage that seems to be constantly changing. 

These mountains are indeed green, but they are also sometimes white, golden, grey or blue...

Every day the first thing I do is look up at the mountains, the unfolding peaks that tower over our little valley village to the east and to the west. Nothing else seems quite so satisfying.  

flotsam and jetsom

 

We've been walking in woodlands, across meadows and through salt marshes. But today I am in my favourite place, beside the sea. I walk along the shore at a snail's pace. I take baby steps. It's frustratingly slow and I seem to tire very easily at the moment. But this will have to do for now.

The sea  invigorates me. I feel the breath rush out of my lungs and the sharp intake of new air. The tang of salt spray, the sound of surf, the call of the sea birds.

Spindle in hand, I walk slowly and carefully, just at that place where the waters and the sand overlap.

I walk slowly because I am tired today. But also to keep the yarn that I am slowly creating from breaking and loosing the whole thing to the sea...

As I walk, as I spin, I find other fibres twisted together by man but also spun by Mother Nature herself, thrown up from the depths of the sea's belly to rest here a while on the sand.

solace

Somehow, spring seems such a hopeful time of year.

Somehow, against all the odds, we have made it through the winter.
Perhaps we'll make it through this blip after all?

As the days lengthen once more, the buds turn to blossom then leaves and the song thrush sings late into the dusk, I find solace in nature, in this season of renewal.