The area at the bottom of my garden – the space surrounding a gap through which you have to pass to get onto the lane – has always been a bit special to me. There’s a low embankment which I allow to grow wild during the summer months, before trimming it back in the autumn. There’s a section of field boundary hedge which has probably been there for around two hundred years. There’s a piece of land which is always left wild because there’s no use to be made of it. And there are three mature sycamore trees which shade the spot from the high noon sun in June and July. When the air is still and warm enough to allow for contemplation of the subtler aspects of life, I feel something there. Tonight I felt it stronger than ever, so strongly in fact that it almost startled me. So how should I describe this thing to which I cannot put a name?
A palpable sense of warmth, but not as we usually perceive it in terms of temperature. A notion that energy is running through my body, but not physical or electrical energy. A mildly euphoric mental state that has no recognisable source. These three and something else besides which I have no means to describe because there is nothing to which it can be compared.
And so I ask the question: Am I really sensing the subtle energy of natural growth, because that’s what it feels like? Have I gained a faculty of perception to which the majority of my fellow humans are complete strangers, surrounded as they mostly are by inert material and countless unnatural diversions? Or is this a mental aberration given genesis by the loner gene and encouraged by increasing reclusiveness?
My human mind doesn’t know the answer to that one; but a still, small voice inside suggests that maybe – just maybe – I’m privileged to have a faculty known to the animals and the ancients, but lost to the modern human. And delusional or not, it’s a pleasurable and immensely valuable experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment