Heroes Not Zombies

Last night the spectacular sunset compelled me out into the garden again, camera in hand. As I looked across the vineyards to Salles d’Angles I saw a mix of mist and woodsmoke lying in front of the village. It looked both beautiful and mysterious.

Twilight seems a magical time. It’s where the Sun has dropped below the horizon but it’s light still illuminates the sky. In that liminal time between day and night the world seems filled with half seen objects, semi-obscure plants and buildings, hints of things which draw us towards them stoking my curiosity and stirring my heart

Mists do something similar. They too create liminal spaces where the world fills with hints and suggestions. They too spark the imagination and stir a sense of wonder.

I enjoy the liminal spaces. They feel full of potential and possibility. They engage me. They fire up my imagination. They make me aware of “becoming not being”.

As I write this I’m struck by the fact that a very different take on all this would be to see obscurity and uncertainty. How often do we find ourselves lost or disoriented in liminal spaces just because we focus on uncertainty and demand it’s opposite, certainty, that slippery, impossible to achieve alternative.

We can’t bear too much uncertainty however, can we? We don’t want to feel lost all the time (although I’m reminded of Rebecca Solnit’s brilliant writing, “A Field Guide to Getting Lost” which I’ve written about before).

But can we bear too much certainty either? Too much predictability and sameness?

I don’t think we can.

Hey, once again, I find I need “and not or”. I need times of bright sunny certainty and twilight times of obscurity. I need knowledge and wonder.

To be fully human we have to embrace these opposites, polarities and paradoxes. How do we do that?

Well, I think it takes a blend of wonder, awareness, acceptance and gratitude.