"Let there be light"

I have never really thought all that much about light until the last few years.   Maybe since I moved back into the Countryside after living for almost thirty years in towns or cities suddenly I have become more aware of it.

This morning when I got up it was just getting light.  When I unlock I always open the front door to see what kind of day is dawning.   Bits of the sky were a light navy blue, other bits were black with heavy cloud.   The rooks were just flying over  from their rookery to their feeding grounds - only visible when they passed over the bits of navy blue sky - when they were flying where there was black cloud they still let me know they were there with their constant cacophony of morning chat.

Because my chair faces a large South-facing window my life on most days is completely governed by light.   This morning, as the still quite warm sun broke through the cloud,  it lit up the waste ground (often inspiration for my blog posts I know) opposite my window - the silver birch whose leaves have turned a beautiful golden (just to defy its name), the ash - a youngish tree - which has lost half its leaves leaving the other half to hang despondently awaiting their fate and another young tree I can't identify and keep meaning to look up whose leaves seem to have gone from green to dark brown almost overnight.

We see more stars here than I ever saw living in urban environments in The Midlands (I 'm sure the Lincolnshire countryside of my childhood had wonderful large skies - and I do remember my father pointing out the planets) and this mornimg, in one of the patches unclouded Jupiter shone incredibly brightly - shouting out to be noticed.

Several nights this week the Aurora Borealis has given a display right down the South of the country.   Some of our fireworks watchers on Saturday night - those who had gone to the top of Penn Hill- photographed the firework display with a background of the Aurora. 

And before  I leave the subject - don't we all feel better on a sunny day.   In desert lands where the sun shines almost all the time  I suppose  they don't notice it - it rises every morning - keeps its face over them all all day and then goes down at night.  Here - certainly during the last month of wet weather - any glimpse of the sun, however rare, has been met with at least mental applause. 

So join me in a round of applause for our dear, dear friend the sun .

I don't want to go on about the Israel/Gaza war  - I try not to 'do' politics - but when I think of the thousands of innocent people - men, women and children - dying or being horribly maimed and damned to a lifetime of suffering if they do survive - and I see on the  News all the hundreds of trucks held up at the border - trucks containing food, water, medical supplies, tents - things to help appease their suffering - I am a coward.  I switch off.   What can I do apart from sending money  and all that does is for a while ease my conscience.

So many in the world - those on the News and many many more hungry, living in alien environments, suffering because of religious hatred, warring tribes - the list is endless.  Appropriately today in a Times Obit to  M S Swaminathan a 'celebrated plant scientist who developed miracle grains enabling India to become self sufficient in food production' who spoke at a conference in 1982 and said in a sentence more than I can say in a hundred posts:

"As we depart for dinner this evening what could be a more satisfying and joyful feeling than knowing that every member of the human family will also go to bed after a nourishing meal?  Until such a wholly attainable world becomes a reality  our task remains unfinished."

Then there really would be LIGHT.