The Sky as source of inspiration (and for me, the opposite…)
I spend considerable periods of time looking at the sky and I get much inspiration from it. I love to see birds in flight, their grace and and their seemingly effortless motion in all weather conditions is always something to behold. I’m also always amazed to see clouds form, shift and morph. I think their shape-shifting nature is fascinating and again how the weather conditions creates them always makes me realise how much mystery and unknown there is in the world. The light of sunsets and sunrises, ‘halos’ and other light phenomena (particularly red evening skies) are also things of beauty to me. I also love to see gliders from the nearby airfield, their silence and slow arcing flight is so graceful.
Conversely, I very much dislike to see (and hear!) the military ‘war-birds’ polluting and invading the air space where I live. These machines of destruction, ugly and one-dimensional in their thirst for speed and their infernal noise cause me to feel anxious (knowing the purpose behind their ‘training’ troubles me considerably), my hyper-sensitivity to noise (and sound in general) is affected greatly by the high decibel ‘events’ generated by these machines. Though they pride themselves on their power and speed, in contrast to the avian species, their stilted manouvres are primitive and angular. When I watch the birds ‘working’ with the air currents (even in storm conditions), I see the real ‘Lords of the air’ – perfectly at home in their natural environment.
At night, a different vista is present. I’m fortunate to live in a place reasonably far away from the urban light pollution that blights a lot of England, so I can see stars and galaxies (and other weird things too). I found this to be fascinating, as I had lived in cities for most of my life before.
So what’s the point of this blog / mini-rant ? Well, apart from me writing about a primary source of inspiration, it’s also to document my thoughts on something (the presence of this airborne weaponry in the sky) which affects me considerably and isn’t aired very often (or even debated) – that’s my point.
Beyond our land locked world and our obsession with ourselves, (for me) true inspiration comes from the sky.