Again the weather has blessed us with a bright clear day.
It did not seem like that when I set off, coat tied to my saddle in recognition of a band of dark cloud looming to the west. The northwesterly breeze intervened, however, driving rain away to the south where it appeared to be soaking the neighbouring line of hills.
We rode in the sun, then, myself and one who learned to ride in order to join one of my holidays back in 2007. How wonderful that someone was sufficiently inspired to become a rider, buy a nice mare and occasionally travel across England to ride with me again. It is rewarding to experience a part of the legacy from those years in Transylvania.
Recent experiences are like midwinter sunshine, providing welcome clarity and the motivation to move ahead into fresh discovery.
During this past autumn life had reached a level of complexity and activity that navigation seemed best represented by a hurried journey across rough terrain dodging storms. It was hard work against a background of too little clarity, I got muddy and was soaked from time to time.
A few free days, however, gave me time to climb a hill and look about. Meanwhile a friendly wind drove storms away in a happy respite from a gruelling bleak norm.
In these days roughness of terrain has taken on a new meaning. These is challenge, of course: but pertaining to lifetime aims rather than the artificial constraints of work. Carl Jung's late writings about Job are especially thought provoking as they raise questions about my perception of the nature of God. Am I falling prey to the temptation to anthropocentrise God? (My thanks to J Ruth Kelly for flagging the cultural meme towards anthropocentricism of the spiritual.) The challenge, for now anyway, is to grasp the innate complexity of the spiritual and psychological.
I grew up amidst people who peddled spirituality reduced to a simple system geared up to rote learning. The mystery was stripped from it, leaving a basic menu that ultimately failed to banish a deep hunger. Psychology, of course, was pushed into a corner. The human-centred concept of original sin makes everyone evil by nature, so why analyse a dark dirty psyche? My goodness, talk about being sent out blinkered into a fearsomely complex world.
With what monstrous fear of the consequences of intellect I had been sent out into the wide world seeing darkness in every corner. The depth of history escaped me, the breadth of spirituality did not register, whilst only the transitory beauty of the present provided the least respite. Well, those days are over: thoroughly and permanently kicked into the long grass of the past.
I sought enlightenment and found some who offered a little light. However, to make their lamp seem to burn brighter, those people had fashioned a contrasting dark mist around and about. In that gloom sin circulated like a corporeal body, lurking ready to corrupt even the few to escape the imaginary clutches of original sin. Meanwhile human nature badly understood in the absence of a psychological perspective wrought havoc. Their fog not only kept eyes upon their flame which guttered like a candle in a smoky tavern, it kept incipient wanderers like me from seeing the daylight above and beyond. It held us until frustration combined with restlessness to generate a journey: faltering at first until the wider terrain became visible and the sun shone through.
Today, then, is a double metaphor: bright clarity after confusion representing progress towards enlightenment , and a fellow rider to show me how my striving may yield unexpected and welcome legacy.
The land offers timeless beauty: an entrancing backdrop older even than the archetypes that make me who I am. I ride over the hills and journey through the terrain of the psyche: doubly a traveller.
I am looking forward to the coming year.
Comments