Spring is on its way, or maybe not!

After a few days of brilliant warmth drawing forth growth and throwing capering hares and snooping pheasants out on the meadows, I find myself sitting at my usual place in the kitchen gazing out at thick fog enveloping the house. The previous light-filled skyline elegantly disappearing in the vanishing point on the horizon so as to lure the promise of reawakening has died out. Surprisingly, I find myself at ease with the closeness offered by the fog, a protective bubble scarcely pierced by the headlights of the milk lorry taking the morning’s delivery to the dairy. The black kites and the larks are grounded, no longer gliding to hunt down mice or soaring in the skies to release their song.

The eye of the mind gives way to the eye of the heart at ease with gazing into the cloud of unknowing. Carefully, and with watchful intent, it scans the narrow band of grass in front of the kitchen catching the white dots of the daisies who have retreated into their buds waiting for the return of the sun to display their joyfulness. The same for the clusters of yellow winter aconites who have diligently been appearing with each wave of warmth. Even more startling, I find myself relishing in the unexpected tunnel vision persuaded by the fog, appreciating the comfort of being enclosed. The intense fire in the heart, kindled by the excitement of the first signs of spring, gracefully welcomes the invitation to slow down and simmer in the nascent fracture cracked open by the first quivers of eagerness.

Are all these seasonal movements compressed into an experience of tunnel vision? No! The metaphor is unfitting and does not do justice to the intimacy offered by closeness. It also conceals the invitation to turn within and voyage among the stillness and fertile darkness where things and people become charged with dream, readying themselves to step fully in the light after the winter hibernation. It is the eye of the mind which plunges into tunnel vision as the thick fog of confusion and indecisiveness rolls in and settles in spaces of depression and despondency. The eye of the heart maintains the bird’s eye view regardless of inner and outer meteorological circumstances, dwelling in the brimming darkness, patiently harnessing the mind of time from within the cloud of unknowing.

Seductive closeness directs the eye of the heart towards the first lines of David Whyte’s poem Start Close In