thin places


Random quote of the day:

“Time, as we know it, is the original shape-shifter. Now the line of it runs straight as an old railway track; now it is a circle—many circles, in fact. Now it dances without moving—to and fro across millennia—around the whole turning world, filling the night sky with bounding green lights. Past, future, present: the unbidden, ineffable gift of it all. Memory is like a white moth in flight. Sometimes she comes so close that we can see the light falling into the hidden parts of ancient markings. On other days we cannot see her but we feel the delicate wing-beat down deep, in beside our bones.

—Kerri ní Dochartaigh, Thin Places

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“There are places…which are so thin that you meet yourself in the still point. Like the lifting of the silky veil on Samhain, you’re held in the space in between. No matter the past, the present or what is yet to come. There’s nothing you can do but listen for the gap in the silence, the change in the wind. The right moment, when it comes, calls you up, up; calls you into a wind that lifts you. A wind that carries you with it, on its sails.

—Kerri ní Dochartaigh, Thin Places

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Some folks say there are places and moments where eternity breaks into time, and that is where we find the places that are sacred to us and the myths we can’t abide by. Mythology, and its sacred primordial dreamtime, can be a vehicle of religious experience, some folks say. Some folks say that the mythic past and the mystic present are equally timeless.”

—Chuck Kinder, Last Mountain Dancer

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Temple Church, Cornwall, Spring 2004

You don’t have to be Christian to feel the presence of this ancient church, built by the Knights Templar. The ancient holiness of it seeps up from the ground. The quiet is profound, the centeredness embraces you if you let it. It doesn’t need your adoration and reverence, but if you give it, this places returns it threefold.

 

Merlin’s Cave, Tintagel, Cornwall, Spring 2004

The village of Tintagel from Tintagel Castle, Spring 2004

 

9th c. monk cells, Tintagel Castle, Spring 2004

Tintagel: The thing is, if you go to the village it’s full of King Arthur tat and rather crass about it. But if you climb up to the island itself (and in 2004 you had no alternative but to climb an enormous staircase to get there) it’s a pretty magical place. Maybe it was endorphins from the climb, but I found it exhilarating. And after all, thin places are always a personal thing. You can’t find them for anyone else and no one else can find them for you. They exist solely between you and the landscape.