There are many times in my life, when, sometimes for only a moment, and sometimes for longer, I have felt a bliss almost out of this world – those moments I feel I can never forget, as long as I live – but just in case, and because it gives me pleasure to put – as well as I can – my feelings into words, I have dedicated a page of this blog to describing such wonderful times. Some of them – most of them – are taken from other blog posts about the whole of the day, and I have taken the part describing the best bit, and copied  it into here. Others are from blog posts I am at present working on – and still more are parts of the books I am writing inspired by real times. 

Silver-Surfaced

Sea below – a great, wide mirror, surface glazed with shimmering silver – still – crisp – silent. Sky above – a great, wide veil – soft – dark – blank. Magic drifted over those silver-surfaced waters – savouring the atmosphere – filling our souls. I came to the edge of the pale sands and stood in the crystal water – shivers of icy coldness rushing through me. Then I shut my eyes and sunk effortlessly into the still silver coldness of the sea. There was another splash as my mother and brother joined me – the mirror broke – shining silver ripples spreading around us. The water was clearer an more colourless, save for the surface of moonlight, than I have ever seen it before – the many coloured pebbles shone through, glinting in the wet like precious stones. I grasped my mother’s hand and we swam together – the feeling of swimming through that mesh of moonlight and crystal was indescribably calming – and yet it was bracing too – and energising – and when I arose at last out of the chilling beauty of the water I felt fresh, and ready for something – I knew not what.

And I made sure that those special moments of magic should never leave my memory.

Surrounded by Springtime

As I lay upon the warm moss, I could hear the wind as it rustled in the branches of the great beech above me, and the songs of the birds about me. The sunlight flowed in through my half closed lids, giving the impression of a waterfall of shining light. It made me think of the lines from Margaret ‘What lit your eyes with tearful power, like moonlight on a falling shower?……. A tearful grace, as though you stood between the rainbow and the sun.’ And of another Tennyson line too,’The maiden spring upon the plain, came in a sunlit fall of rain’. The feeling of the sunlight rushing down onto my face, and the gentle wind sweeping past me, gave me such a feeling of unutterable delight, that I felt as if I might have been lying in the Elysian Fields. I could almost imagine the sweet singing of the birds turned to the playing of a harp – and I felt, at that moment, that this was the happiest moment of my life, for it was then, I felt, that I felt the touch of nature in all her loveliness.

Facing the Winds

We approached a precipice –  and jutting out over the drop were several natural platforms of stone, tiling upwards slightly, below which the view stretched far and fair. I climbed onto one, and stripped off my shoes and socks, for my feet were hot and sore from the walk up. Then I dangled my legs over the edge – and felt the wind as it went whistling cold and fresh through me, and streamed by above me head, making a roaring sound it me ears that drowned all else – and as it flooded past, it brought with it, along with icy cold, a feeling of such triumph, and courage, and joy into my bones as it is hard to express. There are many things we do, such as sitting in the wind, or lying flat upon the grass in the sunlight, that sound simple to tell, but that fill the soul with incredible emotions that are impossible to explain. I felt then so wonderfully, completely happy – I cannot put into words the feeling of it, any more than I can explain why I felt so. I have felt such wild joy before, as I stood in a light summer dress with rain pelting onto the ground like arrows around me – and when I have ran down a shady path into a blaze of sunshine below. There is something in the elements capable of pouring such almost imposing felicity into your heart.

Path Through The Snowy Trees

She turned the door handle slowly – glancing with eyes full of exited expectation at the smiling face of her mother, who stood beside her – and peeked in with a beating heart. She could see nothing from where she then stood – she tiptoed in, shuddering with excitement, seeming almost afraid of the happiness she was sure was coming. She then glanced toward the corner – her hands, clenched into fists, flew to her face – a motion that seemed to suggest the attempted containment of unbearable excitement – and she gasped joyously.

Smoothed onto the wall were static sheets depicting a snowy path, edged with the black trunks of trees, fading into the distance. She felt as she looked at it that she was really there, walking down that forest path. But placed in from of it was the wonder – a small, elegant little table she had seen often about the house – but it was loaded with a high pile of prettily wrapped presents, and draped with different sorts of strings of fairy lights, some decorated with dragonflies, others with roses and others with leaf skeletons. And as well as the lights, strings of fresh greenery trailed over the presents. Both lights and leaves were hanging down from another string of lights, fastened in some way from above – and the whole pile glowed in the dim room as her heart glowed with grateful joy. All together it formed a magical, otherworldly spectacle – and she felt as if, in the middle of that cold snow wood, she had suddenly stumbled upon it.