Tonight I had one of those Luke Skywalker moments.
Remember that scene, so early in the Star Wars story? When we first meet Luke, he seems only a dogsbody and drudge in his uncle’s house: a trusted worker who can tell a decent droid from a dud.
Many of us a workaday existence like his. One filled with the mundane: you wake up, you work, you eat with your folks, you go to bed.
He gazes up at the sky, so full of promise, so full of possibility. And in those early days, when this was not a modern-day fairy tale told over and over, but a brand new fresh myth, there was a sharp intake of breath across the auditorium as we observed not one sun in the sky, but two.
There is such sweet, sharp irony in this moment. The character is gazing at a scene with which he has grown up.
He is having a Wordsworth moment: he sees what is commonplace and recognises all over again the magnificence of nature. And he places it in his story: this is the sky of a droid mechanic wo would like to do more.
To us onlookers, this skyscape is utterly alien, and we gaze on it with new eyes. Two suns. The very thought makes out hearts quicken. And a droid mechanic! Imagine being a droid mechanic in an empire with two suns.
This evening, I hitched the dog to a lead and headed out into a damp forest, auburn with leaves. The light was fading fast: the forest was impossibly beautiful, with not another soul for miles and a limpid translucence to every living thing.
It had nothing to do with that world on which I had momentarily turned my back. Behind me were Christmas preparations, tea for ten and preparation for a forthcoming week of work.
But here they became suddenly distant and muffled, secondplace to the deer who ran across our path and the soft footfalls on a bed of leaves.
Up on the tabletop of the iron-age fort, a gossamer quilt of clouds lay low, painted rose by the sunset. And when the dog and the would-be writer turned to it, we were painted rose too.
A Luke Skywalker moment. Sometimes, one sun is enough.
It is a device as old as the hills, bringing the landscape to bear on a character’s plight. Because as vast as it all is, somehow we cannot help but feel that this scene- the one we are standing in – is personal to us.
Taking a landscape personally: it’s what some of the best writers did. Like Thomas Hardy.
Hardy even created his own kingdom of Wessex to encapsulate what place can mean to man. His novels all take place there, each pseudonym identifiable as a real place. Casterbridge is Dorchester, Sandbourne, Bournemouth.
And while his books are plaintive and melancholy, his description of place is arresting.
Take this: our first sighting of the beautiful Vale of Marlott, some four hours journey from London in those days.
“Here, in the valley,” he writes, “the world seems to be constructed upon a much smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass.
“The atmosphere beneath is languorous,” he continues, “and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine….the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmoor.”
So: it seems Luke was having a Thomas Hardy moment.
There was a very silly phrase used, when I was younger, to describe the difference between history and geography.
History, it was said, is about chaps, while geography is about maps.
How wrong could one be? Every one of nature’s spectacles is viewed through a lens. The landscape makes us who we are, whether we are New Yorkers or inhabitants of Wiltshire.
Edward Young – the eighteenth century poet- has a knack of summing these things up.
In his Night Thoughts, he talks about how our senses interpret what we see around us.
He says they “take in, at once, the landscape of the world
At a small inlet, which a grain might close
And half-create the wondrous world they see.”
Luke, Macaulay and I, and Thomas: we take it all in through our eye, a tiny portal on a brain full of the most complex perceptions.
We have these stunning moments with nature.
And we view them through the lens of our lives.
Picture source here – with apologies for including it late in the day!
Kate Shrewsday 
What perception! I believe the old Celts named “thin places” those locations where time, circumstance and place caused the veil that separated the ordinary from the transcendent to become so transparent you could step from one place into the other. Perhaps they are still around.
Now, you’ve just made my day, Wonderingpilgrim 🙂 You’ve shown me a path untrodden. Must go and find out more about these thin places. How enchanting.
Some lovely images, Kate. I love this
“Up on the tabletop of the iron-age fort, a gossamer quilt of clouds lay low, painted rose by the sunset.” –
(He says they “take in, at once, the landscape of the world
At a small inlet, which a grain might close
And half-create the wondrous word they see.” – should that be world?)
Oh, blow, twice in a row! Thanks Pseu x
you could always edit the comments so no-one needs know!
Alas, I have a ruthless open-comment policy: take nothing down unless its defamatory…I always think commenters have a wonderful sculpting action on a rough-hewn piece of writing. Good for folks to see the process as well as the end result. Even if I made bloopers along the way…
Reading your description of the woods and its autumn colours…that would be a wondrous moment for someone like me who hasn’t yet had the opportunity to perceive it through her own lens.
It was quite a moment:-) It’s a strange old time of year here….
‘Sometimes, one sun is enough.’
Sublime.
🙂 Any sunset can convince us it’s true, Tilly…
I think it’s what I have always called ‘looking at … with new eyes’. Taking a look at something or someone, consciously, as if you have never seen it before.
Perfectly put, Denise. The awe comes back, doesn’t it, when we least expect it?
Lovely photo. It’s true that these are the moments that redefine a previous feeling of static. I love some of these beautiful descriptions of landscapes. Reading a book on speedreading, it once suggested skipping such passages when reading novels. *Gasp!* And a book on writing novels suggested keeping things simple rather than following the Victorian model of writing half a page, say, to describe a new character’s appearance (not a topographic landscape admittedly, but part of the landscape, nonetheless)! I find such suggestions bizarre since it is often into the descriptions that the reader is able to escape the most, injecting themselves into the narrative as if they were really the characters performing the play in the given landscape.
You’re so right, Heather. And it is in these passages that the author’s true mastery – control over the reader-emerges. I often think of the description in A Christmas Carol of the houses in Scrooge’s street: “They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again.”
It is wonderful to have an author so completely and mischievously in charge.
Every time I read A Christmas Carol . . . I delight in Dickens mastery of imagery. Of course, I feel the same reading the vast majority of your posts, Kate.
You have such a way with words.
Gosh, thanks, Nancy 🙂 What august company. Sometimes words can be such compulsive playthings.
Absolutely! Without the author’s bias, it would just be buildings in a street. But we are left in no doubt of what the writer thinks of the place he’s conjured up, plus we’ve been given a wonderful opportunity to conjure up the image of it in our own imaginations.
Very nice once again, Kate. I was with you when the deer ran across your path… that seems magical in itself to me! 😀
It is: deer have such a quality of silent wisdom about them, don’t they, Tom?
What a perfectly marvelous post. Reality my art with relevance. I wil definitely have to keep the Luke Skywalker moment in my writing memory banks.
Hello, Eric! Lovely to see you here! Luke: he has a lot to teach us 😀
Dear Kate,
Your posting today brought to mind of Blake’s auguries of innocence: “To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower, to hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.”
I so like what “wonderingpilgrim” said: “I believe the old Celts named “thin places” those locations where time, circumstance and place caused the veil that separated the ordinary from the transcendent to become so transparent you could step from one place into the other. Perhaps they are still around.”
I’ve been reading a series of novels by Elly Griffiths. Her first in the series is “The Crossing Places.” In it, I first learned about those “thin places.” The main character–Ruth Galloway–is an archeologist. I wonder if “wonderingpilgrim” has read her first two books and what his thoughts are on them.
Peace.
I must look for those books, dee, they sound wonderful. Wonderingpilgrim is well worth a visit. An australian pastor with the most perfectly pragmatic take on matters both spiritual and everyday. I’ too. loved that observation of his. Fantastic.
Beautiful photo and beautiful word visions — “damp forest, auburn with leaves” and “a gossamer quilt of clouds” — artistry at work, Kate. 🙂
Since I see no separate credit for the photo, I assume it is yours, and if that is your view from home, I marvel that you ever get anything accomplished besides gazing out the window!
Karen, you have caught me on the hop:I forgot to include the link this morning when I posted! Horrors! this is a photo taken on behalf of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Link now at the bottom of the piece but also here
Young Goodman Brown you ain’t…
Nope: no serpent-staffed individuals round ours, Brett 😀 Rose-tinted specs a must.
What a gorgeous photo and the post is just mesmerizing. I really do need to go back to doing daily vocabulary exercises, my poor feeble brain is just getting overwhelmed by the wonderful prose.
I’d hate to make extra work for you, Lou, you sound quite busy enough already! The photo is one by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, which works to preserve the landscape here. It’s an uphill battle: development is an ever-present spectre. Link is at bottom of page now (apologies – forgot to include this in my haste this morning)
There is something so special about a deer crossing ones path, especially at sunset. Beautifully written. The best I could come up with today was……
soup.
Soup has a beauty all its own, Nuvofelt: most days I find something wonderful over at yours…
A heart-stopping sky coupled with sightings of timid animals that won’t eat me sounds like a flawless evening, Kate. This writing is some of your best yet. One of the best things about writing every day is the excuse to dive into these moments and wallow a while.
You’re right, Andra. For a little while, the world goes away.
Did you write from that lovely photo or find a photo to match your lovely words? Either way, it’ll do. Thanks so much Kate.
The words always come first, Tammy 🙂 Trawling around for a photo os a last minute thing… thank you.
So lovely, Kate. When the world is too crowded for me and I don’t have a place to look out and find beauty, I can always look up! And whether it’s finding the mountains or the sky, each day I find something beautiful in nature or I wither just a bit. Thank you for sharing that with me. Debra
A pleasure, Debra. These are universal moments, aren’t they?
This is a very evocative post, Kate, and a reminder to enjoy these special moments. I’m up before dawn, one of the nights we sometimes have, and reading this while catching up has given me good cheer. I’ll be sure to catch the sunrise this morning with the lone sun we have.
Magical post, Kate! The spirit seems to me a sort of twin of the wild landscape, and when the two are in proximity, the spirit recognizes itself as miraculous. The mind grows quiet at the spirit’s awe, and all three hum together in perfect accord. You have captured it perfectly…
“gossamer quilt of clouds” – what a picture you paint here, Kate! I think the English landscape and weather has produced some of the most inspired writing in history, and country England would be my place of choice to spend my days writing the kinds of novels I’d love to write. An inspiring post 🙂