Looking Out

There's a feeling, isn't there, when you're going for something that takes a bit of work, that it is important to settle in to a steady, long haul pace, head bowed and eyes to the path. Nose down, vision pure. Do not, at any cost, deviate from this path, rhythm or posture.

Surely this is like strapping blinkers on yourself though? A paradox, a grand vision sacrificed in order to realise a grand vision? So focussed and intent, so untrusting of the ankles to be strong against rocks and stones, that the next immediate few inches become everything and long sight comes to mean, or matter, very little in this short reach activity.

But is not the reason for the voyage first and foremost that very long sight? Is it not about the vista, the grand scale, the magnitude?

Are the immediate few inches not given their shape by the expansive miles around them?

If we catch ourselves looking at our feet, overly worried about the snags and potholes, we stand to miss the reason we are climbing in the first place.

'He will not let your foot slip against a stone.'

Trust in that promise; look up, and out, and remember why you began your voyage. Surely that will lift you, in a way, 'on wings, like eagles'.


*


My friend Harry and I were listening to Desert Island Discs this morning while we chatted idly about a few things, and this track came on. He - a cellist - described the intention of the piece, and its existing to fill a vast space. It seems very right for today. Listening to it this morning, it's giving me goose bumps.

{Today's Soundtrack: Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis}