The ravishing splendour of silence.
Between beech and briar, honeysuckle and oak, a soft nose and a girl set loose.
Dearest friends, Welcome
I hope your week has been kind to you. I hope you’ve found moments to be astonished at something that you will never forget. I hope that just for a second, or maybe more, this world held you in its awesome beauty and halted you in your doings whatever they might have been. And, above all, I hope you have found reason to be kind to love your loved ones, to tell of it even if it was only in the way your eyes were smiling.
I have two weeks from the constant cacophony of classes! The joy of knowing silence, a vacant space waiting to roll out before me, an exquisite calming.
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
—Henry David Thoreau Walden
Oh but I must be patient…
I had convinced myself that I was recovered from whatever strange debilitating bug had wrestled me to a whimpering mess last week, now, I fear it was bravado. I simply had to keep going so I did. Friday, an extra day of holidays kindly granted in lieu of working many extra hours, I was determined to clear the piles of accumulated admin/ironing/dust/cobwebs in order to have holidays free of the mundane. I even cleaned blocked U-bends in two sinks—a disgusting awkward job I truly hate—congratulated myself when all was done, only to wake on Saturday, all symptoms returned with cruel, debilitating vengeance, I am a pathetic, sniffling mess again.
The waiting in the silence though… ravishing!
Moments before it is too dark to see, just as the last sun beam sent its final glimmer of light to the dark spaces in the forest before setting behind far hills, before bats, still pendant on rocky overhangs uncurled their heads from under leathery wings, before an almost full pearly moon climbed high enough to bathe the hill in its luminous, ghostly glow, I am startled by feet shuffling’s in fallen leaves. They are heavy and slow, too slow for deer or hare or fox and I am, by my humble estimations too far from where badgers roam. The fine hairs on my arms prickle under their woollen covering, for surely there is but one such heavy footed creature to inhabit this hill. I shudder at the thought of a repeat meeting with his fearsome whiskered white tusked face in fast fading daylight, in the middle of a forest.
She appears from within the briars and the beech trees, stares at me quizzically through the gloaming from beneath long-lashed doleful eyes, kindly snortling’s emitting from her soft pink nose. She is quite alone, content to be so—as indeed am I despite gathering darkness—perhaps, and I think this is so, she is as startled by me as I am by her.
We stand a short while at a respectable distance, one from the other listening to every day evening sounds from the farm below; distant rumblings of a tractor, the farmer feeding cattle—too tightly squashed into winter quarters—their daily quota of acrid, silaged fodder, the church bell rings once to note the half hour, dogs are barking at the château in their endless tyrannical terrorising of its young tenant. As the soundtrack of every evening plays, I step towards her. Neither she nor I are fearful.
“Viens...1” I say gently in french—for surely she is not bilingual—as I approach her : “Laisse-moi te montrer le chemin qui te ramènera chez tes amis2”.
Now, it isn’t that I wish to be a botheration to good neighbours—please, don’t think harshly of me—I have spent twenty years here being everything but, nevertheless, as I stood stroking her soft warmth in gathering frigid air, a sudden, very unneighbourly thought occurs. This beautiful, gentle, honey coloured lady is healthy and quite obviously happy in her wild wanderings through the old beech forest, perhaps she plotted and planned a deliberate escape from the horrors of wintering sardine-like in a stuffy barn being nourished on the same meal daily. Maybe, she knows her way but has no desire to return home. I am plunged into deepest quandary; what do I do? Leaving her means the farmer will worry, perhaps he has been for days already but leading her back means another two months of confinement, well, we all know how that feels…
I whisper in her ear, “Qu’est ce que tu veux faire, toi même, dis-moi ma belle?3”
She looks at me with her huge brown eyes, hesitates only briefly, nudges my shoulder as if to say, ‘go’ turns slowly and without a backward glance, walks into the darkness of the forest, making the decision for me. With unquestionable relief I turn also towards home, leaving her to a vast, now moonlit wilderness.
To my knowledge she is still there.
At 08h52, six hours before the exact time of February’s full snow moon, on a day I know is going to bring sad—work related—news, a moment of pure catharsis happens. I am walking with Wolfie in the half light of morning, my dear friend Hazel—who I have never met face to face but dream of doing so—sends me a message from the Isle of Mull, she is watching the moon set into the loch her house overlooks as I watch the same moon set behind the hill. It is a most simple and natural happening but it fills me with joyful calm, yet more so still when I read later that day, the immense goodness of sharing magic by David.
While the war against your sanity and peace of mind rages, while they pray to their cruelly imagined god, plotting your humiliation, pleading for him to tip the scales in their favor, immense, healing doses of magic remain. They unfold a thousand times each day, step out from behind the cloak, wink in reassuring advocacy, remind you that, while hidden to some, they remain.
It is for you to calm your breathing, soften your gaze enough to see.
My breathing is calmed, my gaze is softened and I am sharing it with a friend I love who is sending her own calm gaze back to me. It is not so often I am thankful for the speed at which we are able to send thoughts and words via high speed optic wires but on this occasion, I love that we can.
Briefly; Honeysuckle is climbing through the branches of oak and ash, into wild fruit trees and over frosted ground. If my timing is opportune, when the sun is at a certain, very low height in the morning sky, the tiny new leaves light up ravishingly like strings of fairy lights thrown haphazardly through the woodlands. They are all the more beautiful for the lack of attention by human hand.
Tawny Owl is already building her nest in the barn, on two mornings I see her swoop silently in through a high opening. My delight is absolute.
I miss the recommended day in my Almanac for planting tomato seeds, read that the day following will be just as effective but cannot find my seed box anyway.
One blossom bravely opens palest pink tinted petals on an early plum at the bottom of the garden, I wait impatiently for the rest to have equal courage, though whisper they have prudence, frost is forecast.
A grey sky on Thursday threatens to envelope the hill entirely but in the end sits covering only the very top, nonetheless it is a heavy day in all respects.
I spend an entire morning with my dear friend Roger—and friends—I find him in a cantankerous mood, frantically flapping a tea-towel at fifteen—or maybe twenty-two, or even more—hungry cats of myriad colour and size yowling in his kitchen. It is a subject we have spoken of on many an occasion. There are cat rescue centres I tell him but refuses to allow me to intervene. He refuses, also, to have the females sterilised. They have multiplied and he loves them all. For the second time in the week, I don’t know what to do…
Scent from a clump of wild violets is so overwhelmingly heavenly I stand in its circle of perfumed air for too many minutes, forget entirely that I have a tarte au citron baking in the oven, present it as tarte au citron caramelisé which is eaten with much praise to the chef.
With love from the ravishing silence of winter break,
Susie X
Something I have absolutely adored this week and every week;
A note is left between the gates, a parcel is waiting for collection at the local Post Office. I haven’t ordered anything but I know already it is tiny and beautiful, crafted meticulously and sent with love, a small gifted treasure from
. What I didn’t know is that the tiny box would contain not only Elsa mouse, handmade with Emily’s clever and very patient fingers but all her mousey belongings too; a crocheted blanket, a bag of trinkets, a tiny bouquet of flowers as a gift for her new family and home. All are exquisitely made and I am quite speechless at such a kindness.Dearest Emily, I send you heart love and thanks, she will be cherished. ♥️
“Come…”
“Let me show you the way to your friends.”
“What do you want to do, tell me my beauty?”
I am grinning from ear to ear to see Elsa safe with you, she has found her way home, dear Susie. Enjoy the silence and solitude, I am glad to read of errant bovine and nesting tawnys, pendant bats and a setting snow moon. We are in Spain for a few days and when I see the moon, I will be thinking of you. Much love xx ✨💛
Love this one Susie. The cow especially. ❤️ I wonder where she is now? Such a beautiful interaction.
All of us under the same moon, yes I thought about this a lot last week and I also wrote about it, not on Substack. I loved David's Substack last week too.
And your connections with others, Emily sending you a gift, so much here Susie and all of it is wrapped in connectedness and love - whether between a cow and a human or the moon or those we have never met on other continents.
Have a beautiful silent week. xx