Late morning walk
I woke up early today, feeling happy and relaxed. It has been quite a while since I’ve had both – woken up early, and felt relaxed enough to consider a walk and without any gout pain in my feet. Anyway, today was a really good day for a Mossytop sunrise walk.
It was well after sunrise, astronomically and civilly, but Mossytop was still in shadow from the mountains in the West. I didn’t walk far today, but found a rock big enough to put my backpack-cum-chair on and sit to watch the morning sun reach Mossytop; and the play of shadow and light on the mountains and in the sky. Through the sound of the wind it struck me how spectacularly quiet Dornie is. The sound of a car only highlighted the quietude. It was not as in a city – a car swooshing by, then another, then another. You could heard a faint humming far to the left for a while, and then forgot about it. A minute or two later, you noticed it again, as the sound grew more audible when the car came into view on the bridge below, and steadily decreased in strength until it vanished as it turned around the hill towards Auchtertire. Only the wind was left then. And although I stayed on the chair watching the landscape for at least half an hour longer, that was the only car I heard this morning.
The mountain grew sharper as the morning sun-rays illuminated it. I felt compelled to close my eyes and watch with my soul instead. Strange images appeared; what was a cloud with my eyes open flew into outer space, looking like the starship Enterprise leaving its state visit to the Scottish Land of Friendly Giants.
More disconcertingly, I felt a huge darkness under the mountain itself. A void of complete nothingness. The huge mountain being put in place as a shield by some benevolent power to protect humanity from what was suddenly looming close. The mountain that had looked grand and powerful seconds ago was now a weak and near-futile effort at keeping enormous powers at bay. A gossamer veil – just a few kilometres of solid granite – cannot possibly afford any protection against the unspeakable void of eternity hidden below us, can it? And indeed, as I opened my eyes, an ominous crack appeared – separating Sgùrr na Coinnich (Mossytop, the left peak) from Beinn na Caillich (Old Woman’s Mountain, the right peak) as if the mountain was breaking under immense pressure from below.
Fortunately, the powers that put the mountain there to protect us seemed capable, since the void made no further advances as I turned to go back home. In the other direction, the colours of the sunrise broke the dark spell and although I found a sheep skull that still had some hair left on it as a wig, the beauty of the landscape and the sky brought a spring to my step as I walked home to have my breakfast and start the day.
