Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Plus ca change. . . .

A late November morning in the village, and it is following the pattern or template for the season this far north. All is in darkness until some time after seven o'clock in the morning. Then the sun comes up slowly against the blue shown here, a single broad sweep of rosy cloud and colour staining the sky behind it on most days.

There are flocks of cooing doves on the roof this morning. The trees reach upward, and I see their attenuated shapes and their sinews as I can see them at no other time of the year. The blue, the gold, the rose, and yes, the darkness too - all flow together in perfect harmony, and they form a picture I can not ever hope to capture with canvas, brush and paint.

In conventional terms, these are just two views of the village on a cold morning in early winter. They are nothing special, but this is the place where my day begins. Here is my chapel, my personal shrine to the morning and my old mermaid sanctuary - this is the view from here. I drink my morning coffee and watch the sun rising through the kitchen window, and each morning I marvel. The world through the kitchen window is always the same, and yet, it is always different.

Village mornings are small, rosy and precious entities with defined parameters, and they are quite unlike mornings in the highlands. Morning skies in the highlands are vast rolling oceans where the sun comes up like ball of fire, and starry nights in the highlands seem to go on forever.

3 comments:

K Allrich said...

This piece reminds me of something Jim Harrison writes [and talks] about. He once dug a hole in the earth, and settled in to observe the small piece of sky and wildness that was his view. Sooner or later, he says, every thing comes by to visit.

Joanna Powell Colbert said...

Oh so beautiful Cate. Thanks for letting us see your morning and your sanctuary.

Anonymous said...

Dear Cate,
Thank you again for sharing with us, these branches are beautiful. They reach for the sky, unlike summer when they flop with their beautiful leaves hanging. Branches, like roots are lovely to look at.
As I walk in the forest, I love seeing the roots twining in and out of Mother Earth. These photos are beautiful, their long branches reaching for infinity, and in each their own way.
Just beautiful to look at and admire.