A kind of average early campervan morning this morning. The damp remains, a wee chill, but not much to speak of. The sky appears open and relatively cloudless, planes illuminated by their lights, and the sound of their engines pass overhead. A waning crescent moon hangs in the sky. The sound of the distant motorway hum in the background. It’s a Wednesday kind of morning, whatever one of those is. Birds are busy, lots of song on the air. Continuing my journey yesterday across the outback in the company of Bruce Chatwin and talk of horizons. The horizons that they are faced with everyday, a country of huge horizons governed by people who only understand small horizons, and the damage they have done. He talks with people who believe that to understand large horizons you need experience of them. A long time ago I wrote in one of these mornings about horizons. My experience of the huge horizons and wilderness’ of Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the large horizons of Scotland and the small horizons of suburbia, where the eye is only tested in feet rather than miles and the imagination possibly likewise. There was a sense when returning to these shores of being used to large horizons; a sort of restlessness set in with the horizons of suburbia. Perhaps that’s why the land of my ancestors called to me, a return to a place of big horizons. We appear to be governed by people used to only small horizons, or as we are at the moment scorched earth. They pull our horizons ever narrower, when what we need are big horizons. I feel the need for huge horizons calling. Lovely days people.
“ When we are high up, everything looks very small.
Our glories and our sadnesses cease to be important.
We have left whatever we won or lost down below.
From the top of a mountain you can see how large the world is and how wide the horizon.”
Paul Coelho.
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