Hedgerows, Beaches and Frost

Yesterday I walked along the beach at the edge of the River Forth with its famous Forth Rail Bridge. It was a crisp beautiful day sunny yet still the frost could be seen on the grasses and hedgerows. It is a marvellous feeling to be able to drink in such beauty and wonder. Sometimes it becomes so overwhelming that the inner being feels overcome by it all. Yesterday I felt just like that for a moment. So I paused, and instead considered small aspects of it, bit by bit.


A handful of sand, allowed sifts though my fingers, grain by grain. How many millions to make this beach? Some of the driftwood washed on to the shore by the incoming tide, creating patterns as it was captured and held in place by the seaweed. Shells no longer required by their incumbents discarded adding to the myriad of beauty.

The light, catching the grasses and dead flower heads, sparkling with the jewels of frost. The whole scene a thing of wonder and yet each section, each ingredient a marvel in its own right.

In the face of such, the painter reaches for the canvas and paint, to capture the moment that others may also share the joy. The sculptor reaches for the slab of stone and the chisel to create a decorative head for a column that will remember this moment for centuries to come. The poet reaches for the pen and composes words that pluck at the inner strings of the reader. The composer creates a melody from the sounds of the birds and the waves.

They will all be different because each going with the Tao will see it in their own ways. The viewer the reader and the listener will be inspired to greater things, because each will bind with the creation to make yet another in their mind.

We are surrounded by the inspiration of artists day by day, moment by moment. I saw an abstract painting yesterday, I think probably one of the first abstract from this particular artists and it captured all of the patterns and colours of my walk and took me back to enjoy it again. My own painting added to this blog is from a very similar experience and captures just a small part of a wondrous landscape.

At one with the Tao we can see in the infinite the minutiae. The artist can chose the svastness or the small but they cannot ever ignore.