Yr Wyddfa
There is such sweetness in letting go as is called for by this methodology of Writing Practice - writing without thought, without planning, without control and without correction. For one such as I who has led a life of intensive control it is refreshment – like drinking from an ice-cold mountain stream on a hot day.
There was such a day.We had climbed Yr Wyddfa- Mount Snowden. I must have been about 14 or 15years old. We had ascended to the top of the mountain where in those days there was no refreshment and no café. There was a railway – it was built in 1894 - but we had eschewed it, preferring to walk. The climb was not so hard on that early summer morning, the sun in those pre-globally warmed days, not so hot. But we had not planned our trip very carefully and had taken no refreshment with us. Our enthusiasm for reaching our goal was undiminished by our thirst. We resolved that we would simply have to make our way down, and seek out a café or similar to buy cold drinks. But we descended by a different route from the one we had taken on the way up and happened upon a Corrie, a large mountain lake of pure, clear water. As soon as we saw it we ran to the pebble shoreline, dropped to our knees and drank and drank and drank. Never had I tasted such water. Pure, clear and oh, so cold.Refreshment cold enough to slake the thirst of the body and of the soul. No doubt we would have happened upon it if we had ascended by that route. But coming to the summit by a different path, then discovering refreshment as we descended, was joy unparalleled. The sun shone gently down on us, the breeze wafted, rippling the surface of the lake, breaking gentle waves onto the pebbles where we knelt. We bowed to the lake and the sun, oblivious to the spiritual gesture we were making, unaware of the countless numbers who had done the same before us, slaking thirst by day, revering the moon by night. And by our ignorant receiving of the universal gift, we honoured the provider and we honoured our part in the universe. Without realisation, we acknowledged our dependence on the universe about us, receiving its gift, revering its power.
It could have gone so differently. A descent by a different path, a better planned trip with flasks and cups, a mistaken turn: by any of these alternatives we would have missed it all. It was my first lesson in symbiosis, in gratitude, in the bounty out there when we honour spirit, when we accept every turn in the road for what it is.Joy when there is joy, disappointment when there is disappointment. And all released when it is time for the moment to pass. No clinging, no resentment, no attachment.
I have not thought of that day in over 50 years. And today it returns to me because I heed the advice for Writing Practice: do not control; do not think; do not correct. Simply be and let what is about you be. Herein lies the path to the light.