Shining Through: Embracing Light During Dark Times

When life feels grey remember that dusk precedes the dawn

My voiceover is again recorded outside. As the words are written around and punctuate the images, you’ll get the most out of listening if you’re able to view these at the same time.

Welcome to this week’s letter from the moss.

Let hope shine bright like a diamond. I offer this up as a prayer more than a promise within. My letter below was written and recorded just before the world unravelled a little more. Those we have trusted in the past to safeguard people and places now have other agendas. From finding small moments of joy and colour amid the greyscale I am in need of my own advice, and more, looking for a lantern or lighthouse, and trying to remember that dusk always precedes the dawn.

You have to make a living; I understand that. But you also have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world.

Oprah Winfrey

It's easy to forget, or forgo, the vibrancy of life. The world outside is draped in a cloak of grey, the sky an endless stretch of muted tones that mirrors the headlines seeping into every corner of our consciousness. As we struggle to balance our desire to be happy with the knowledge that others are suffering, it is important to remember the light.

Brightness might begin at your back door. It’s still grey but I stand listening to the birds. So many birds, chattering excitedly in the trees along the bank.

Later on the moss out looking for photos the joy turns out, ironically, to be graphite grey. I’m new to sketching outdoors, but am enjoying this different way of looking at the land, and trying to loosen my lines. To not be too careful. Water soluble graphite has become an instant favourite.

Bringing colour back

I’m not always sure where some of the seeds for my ideas come from. Was it the birch tree I walked under, spilling its fruit on the ground? Perhaps the love child of the thistles, carried on the breeze? Last week I knew the chain of thought, the question that led me to exclude the remaining colour from an already grey day.

Sunday morning I’m wondering “How did this begin?” I printed a few of the photos on copy paper. Reason is lost in the mist; never mind. And then I wondered what they might look like if I used them as a base for mossy monoprints instead of starting with a blank page, re-adding colour.

Heading out the colours of wood and heath are intense after rain, before rain. Grey clouds mass, partially erasing the line of the hills, carrying the promise of precipitation. Four sketches later it arrives; I continue walking, happy with my timing.

The next day I lift the blinds to brightness. The colours may be muted, pastel blue and pink, but they still come as a surprise, an unexpected but welcome guest. Just as I had become accustomed to grey, to let it bleed like the graphite into the paper, I now feel uncertain about how to renew our conversation. Perhaps a walk will help.

It’s a morning of contradictions: ice on the puddles and pools yet the ground is surprisingly soft underfoot; snow on the hills yet the drops that decorate birch branches are liquid. Bird song mingles with the gamekeeper’s chainsaw, cold air perfumed with petrol. And yet—I may be generating my own bio-fuel by burning muesli, but I’m already starting to sense I have one layer too many.

Hesitation, a change in direction… If I was coherent last week, I may be less so today.

On the hill, an old ‘town’, a roofless farmhouse, its interior full of the grey matter of dereliction. I seem to remember roof timbers, but when I look back through my photos there was simply more stonework under a rainbow: a chimney on the gable end, a first floor window lintel.

The crowds of nettles have thinned; I pass between their bare stems for a closer look. Walk twice around the walls, anticlockwise: an honouring or incantation of sorts. Rough hewn stone, massive quoins—a grand edifice for this elevated isolated position. Windowless to the south and west, the direction of the prevailing wind. Small fancy decorative iron grilles under large windows that let in the light from the east; on the first floor the openings are U’s without their lintels. A wooden front door and canted fanlight. A chaos of timbers fills the inside, barring entry. One window to the north. It must have been a dark place, cold. Clay liners run from fireplaces and snake upwards searching for the missing chimneys. Back to the south, a second door tucked into the corner of an offshot. Smooth worn wood, old corrugated iron. An explosion of texture and colour amid the decay.

To the north, slightly lower are the walls of outbuildings, conjoined triplets. I can find nothing online to tell me more of this place.

Instead of the fenced track and the possibility of having to climb a stiff deer gate at the bottom, I walk down through the field. It’s empty of the sheep that are brought up to graze in summer, but not entirely… Wool and bone scattered, the remains of one poor unfortunate that did not live to be gathered in. The juxtaposition of sheep’s skull and skeleton house is a powerful one.

The field is even bigger from within and like the old farmhouse has a fine outlook of the valley. A place to sit perhaps on a sunny day, watch the world below, and mull over matters. I make a mental note to return before the flock.

If you can, take a moment to step outside and find a scene or object that surprises you with its sight or sound. Nature has a way of reminding us that beauty persists despite everything else.

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Eighteen months ago I came here to try to develop a regular writing habit and maybe grow my audience. Writing about photography, nature and place nourishes me, offers a place of ease, and I’m delighted that you enjoy the small beauty and tranquility that I share each week. Every subscription is a gift. I appreciate every comment, like and share, and each recommendation for FLOW from my fellow writers.

Until next week,

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Encore:

A sudden burst of colour from nature's palette can remind us of the life that surrounds us. Checking that I had imported all the files on a memory card gave me just such a surprise. At the time—late last September—it didn’t seem remarkable: everything is relative. Despite what last week’s letter might suggest, I don’t often work in black and white and the one thing I have learned is that the moss, far from being barren or bleak, is full of colour. I can only guess at the small lives of its inhabitants for which it may be as exotic as a tropical rainforest would be to us.

All words and images are copyright © Michela Griffith except where otherwise noted