The first is the pallid face when the light remains constant due to the universal cloud cover. It’s undistinguished and often wet. It drags us through the day in sombre mood and further hastens the dread of approaching winter.
The second is the jolly face when the sun bestows its beneficence from a pale blue sky and casts its glow on the warm colours of landscape and building alike. Myriad shades of red and yellow woodland delight the eye, and the low evening sun turns the dark tree trunks red while casting old limestone buildings in a shade of old gold.
The third is the face of vaporous air, less bright than the jolly face but still bright enough to encourage the dying leaves to glow in a final celebration of the inevitability of demise. And that’s the one which reaches the olfactory organs, filling the head with the musty scent of dead leaves on the woodland floor.
Finally there’s the magical face late in the year when river valleys fill with dense white mist, and floating above the fluid but impenetrable whiteness are the topmost branches of skeletal trees. There’s no colour to be seen anywhere, but there is mystery. That’s my favourite, and that’s the one I saw at twilight today.
And still I ask whether any of it is truly real. And still I ask whether anything lies beyond it, and if so what. And still I try to place it all within the concept of universal consciousness, and maybe one day I’ll know.
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