Rain in the night, and then suddenly again just now, gusting on a wind that also hadn't been there a moment before, as I opened the back door into brightness. An errant cloud, coming over from the unseen side of the house, coming ahead of this changed weather. I thought earlier of missing the chance to hang out laundry first thing, as I did yesterday, but that was when I thought that today's forecast of rain had passed over in the night. It's here, now, as promised.
How much we miss by virtue of our capacity to explain. Three days ago, in the car heading for the morning bus, it stuck me that the sun was higher, perhaps a finger's width higher, than I had expected it to be. It had risen behind clouds, I supposed, and thus risen into visibility higher than on other days. I have lost the capacity to be - what word here? - superstitious? The capacity to allow nature its mystery. The sun emerged higher in the sky. I am so unimaginative as to know that mountains had not been installed on the horizon in the night, or the dawn had been accelerated, or that reality had just been tweaked slightly by some cosmic agency, to get my attention, before being reset back to the usual routine.
There was a comet in the sky last night. Scientists have already explained that it was just a piece of rock burning up in the atmosphere. Thanks, guys. I see hedgerows and trees here frosted with buds; I see others still in winter. Most mornings, I see the buzzard that lives close to the entry road fly over my head as I return from the bus. I chose to believe that it all has meaning, and I like the fact that they have to bring the scientists in to validate the mundane explanation - what would we believe, without the scientists to damp it down? - but I sometimes ask myself a different question.
How big does the shift have to be, to exceed my ability, my inbuilt habit/capacity/inclination, to explain it away? The sun's higher than usual, must be clouds. Spring on some paths, winter on others, must be a difference between the hedges that get the sun, those that don't. Herd of zebras grazing on the field near the bus halt? Must be some kind of an escape from Newquay Zoo. Usual daily buzzard replaced by huge pterodactyl - it's obviously a radio-controlled model. But does it matter?
Acceptance is not "I accept that it is what I have just told myself it is." Acceptance is "I accept that it is everything it could be." A tree is always a tree, but what could a tree be? Discuss.
How much we miss by virtue of our capacity to explain. Three days ago, in the car heading for the morning bus, it stuck me that the sun was higher, perhaps a finger's width higher, than I had expected it to be. It had risen behind clouds, I supposed, and thus risen into visibility higher than on other days. I have lost the capacity to be - what word here? - superstitious? The capacity to allow nature its mystery. The sun emerged higher in the sky. I am so unimaginative as to know that mountains had not been installed on the horizon in the night, or the dawn had been accelerated, or that reality had just been tweaked slightly by some cosmic agency, to get my attention, before being reset back to the usual routine.
There was a comet in the sky last night. Scientists have already explained that it was just a piece of rock burning up in the atmosphere. Thanks, guys. I see hedgerows and trees here frosted with buds; I see others still in winter. Most mornings, I see the buzzard that lives close to the entry road fly over my head as I return from the bus. I chose to believe that it all has meaning, and I like the fact that they have to bring the scientists in to validate the mundane explanation - what would we believe, without the scientists to damp it down? - but I sometimes ask myself a different question.
How big does the shift have to be, to exceed my ability, my inbuilt habit/capacity/inclination, to explain it away? The sun's higher than usual, must be clouds. Spring on some paths, winter on others, must be a difference between the hedges that get the sun, those that don't. Herd of zebras grazing on the field near the bus halt? Must be some kind of an escape from Newquay Zoo. Usual daily buzzard replaced by huge pterodactyl - it's obviously a radio-controlled model. But does it matter?
Acceptance is not "I accept that it is what I have just told myself it is." Acceptance is "I accept that it is everything it could be." A tree is always a tree, but what could a tree be? Discuss.
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