Fog
Well, the fog rolled in for the days leading up to the new moon and the Winter Solstice this year - I enjoyed having some thoroughly wintery weather to accompany my celebration of Yule, such as it was.
I went walking, and out there in the fog where I couldn’t see for more than a few metres I reflected on how different life is when there’s only so far to look at. I went up into my favourite fields, knowing that the hill would appear the closer I got, and it did, and with it all the horses. How interesting that from the road you simply couldn’t see them, would not have known they were there. And then a thought which thrilled me a lot - why, now I’m standing on this hill, no one from the road can see ME!
It was nice to have a rest from being seen, to withdraw from the worldly ways of presenting a certain Lewis to people and things, and to simply enjoy the cover. Once you get over the fear of what’s out there, you can concentrate on the things are that in here, the things that you are naturally drawn to in times of fog.
It’s in keeping with the time of year to look inside, when the nights are long and the days are cold, when activity is at a low and reflection comes easily. It was a strange comfort to withdraw into myself - but where am I, and what am I, and where do I withdraw to? I wasn’t sure, but I knew it was somewhere I hadn’t been for a long time.
The place I use as the focal point of the fields when I speak to the land there, the gorse bush alive with yellow flowers at the top of hill, told me just what I needed to know: “It is time to withdraw into your heart”.
And so I learned: if we are to be happy and at peace with ourselves, and by extension the rest of the world, we must learn how to do this - to withdraw into our heart from time to time, to listen to what goes on in there, until we no longer need to withdraw from the world to listen at all.