Life moves pretty fast

Thin is not necessarily the first word that people would associate with me. I do carry a little more weight than I should, and the irregular nature of my sabbatical has led to me being a little more casual about what and how much I eat. Premier Inn cooked breakfasts have been a regular theme for example! However, this post is not about that kind of thin.

Where I have felt a little thin in recent times, is in my overall resilience. This is following an annoying summer health wise, dealing with persistent summer colds, hayfever and sinus problems that have stolen my energy at times.  

It is also on occasions like this, that I inevitably feel increased anxiety and more susceptible to the effects of long-term grief. One of my coping mechanisms for such things is to seek different air and to try to engage my focus on new and different things, particularly in nature or that I know are safe bets for my enjoyment. For example, the football season restarting is very welcome!

I have recently been away on a very enjoyable trip to Wales, the primary goal of which, on top of helping me find that space, was to visit more of the Great Little Trains of Wales that I haven’t been to before. This was successfully achieved with visits to five of them. Nasal issues aside, I have an affinity for the smell of a steam engine. The coal smoke and hot oil steam just instantly bring a smile to my face.

However, even I, with my love of railways, felt that I wanted to break up with my week to visit somewhere else! Thus, on Wednesday, I travelled to the UKs smallest city of St David’s in beautiful Pembrokeshire. I hadn’t been there since a family holiday probably thirty years ago or so, hence I wanted to revisit and take it in as an adult.

The welshcake ice-cream I had notwithstanding, the high point of my visit to the city was to the shrine of St David himself within the cathedral. Next to the shrine, was a small note giving a short description, its decoration and components and a little history of St David himself. There then followed a line that has stuck in my mind, “This is a ‘thin’ place”.

In this context, I take ‘thin’ to refer to the softening of the edge between the material and the spiritual, earthly and heavenly or corporeal and immortal. A point where you can more clearly feel the energy of something larger than the here and now. A place out of time but in space.

The shrine itself has been beautifully restored in recent times and is, like many sites of pilgrimage or ancient focus, somewhere that instantly demands respect and reverence. There is a feeling in places like this that connects you to people who are long past but also familiar in some respects.

It makes me wonder if that thinness comes from millions of souls attentively focussing on a single point over the centuries and thus a spiritual erosion of the aforementioned edge that mirrors the endless footfalls on to the worn steps of the building itself.

I felt that same feeling in other places on my trip, as well as many other places I have been to before. Two that spring immediately to mind are, firstly, earlier that same day, the five-thousand-year-old enigmatic Pentre Ifan, with its Flight of the Navigator-esque tear drop stone almost floating above the ground.

Secondly was the day before at Dolgoch Falls as part of a stop on the beautiful Talyllyn Railway. I could have stood and taken in the view of those soft white waters in their fern edged gully for hours. The only thing that really drew me away was the knowledge that there was a steam train to rejoin!

It is of course in these locations, that inevitably my mind drifts to those souls that I am missing. Yesterday was a year since my dear dad passed. To mark the day, we had a little family day together. Pertinently this included a visit to the little steam railway at Van Hage Garden Centre in Ware, Hertfordshire. That sound of a steam engine inevitably leads me to think of dad, as it is from him that I have attained my love of trains and it was so appropriate for the day.

To return to the Dolgoch Falls and Talyllyn Railway, not only did that place include the train and thoughts of dad but as I walked between the falls and the small railway halt nearby, I was paid a little visit by a robin. I have described these interactions in my post Companions, but it is so curious how these little meetings on woodland trails occur so frequently since Jen passed. It was on a part of the path where it was just me and the robin. We had a little chat and then headed in our own directions.

To conclude, during this sabbatical time I have come to discover and appreciate many of these “thin” places far more than before. I can’t say if it is that I am more attuned to them as a result of dealing with fundamental thoughts about life or if, vice versa, they have helped me to think those thoughts more thoroughly and completely than before.

All I do know is that when you have a chance to breathe in more deeply and feel that thinness between the immediate and the infinite, there is a sense of stillness that can be found. I’ve enjoyed exploring these sites and sights and will continue to do so. There are far more of these places than I realised.