Losing My Religion
Treading a well-worn coffin path as spring brings light and new life.
The sun’s warmth floated across my face, winning a squabble between the elements as the wind nipped at my skin, trying to remind me that this was only just March. March, the beginning of meteorological spring, the new season arriving with a grand announcement. Sunshine, mildness, a determined effort to show that it was in no way related to this winter’s constant deluge, a season of ground too saturated to absorb more, endless grey. Looking up, the blueness had depth, my path bordered by golden cat’s eyes as celandine had emerged, speedwell more delicate in hue than the sky. Once I left behind the background hum of the main road, even louder were the songs of skylarks, rejoicing in the new season. Florescent marker pens fluttered past; are brimstones yellow or green? Peacock butterflies basked, emerging early to soak up the rays. New life.
From the top of the hill, the pancake-flat plain was revealed in front of me, its patchwork of fields drying out, tentatively breathing again as they enjoyed the respite from the past months’ downpours. I traced the length of the distant ridge, hill carving and tiny settlements nestling in its curves. My well-marked path cast a dead-straight line towards a church, descending, with geometrical precision. My boots fitted neatly into the prints of others, although I have never seen anyone else here, despite over twenty years of treading this route. Occasional dog walkers, perhaps, braving the rat-run of the country road to get up here, or ignoring the signs commanding the public stick to the rights of way and never, no way, walk the field margins. A helpful QR code reveals the designated paths, which match the green dashes on my OS map. Not that I need cartography or the landowner’s guidance, such an obvious route is this and so well-known to me. Those prints, perhaps, of the unseen, making their way weekly along this track, from far-off homesteads to the Sunday service. A family worshipping across the generations from the lone farm beyond, invisible half a mile or so behind me, where now machinery is sold but once part of the close-knit community of holdings set back from the road, now no doubt all absorbed into the bigger estate or rented to independent businesses. The rituals of births, deaths and marriages marked out where I pace, feasts and saints’ days, their calendar revolving down the centuries.
A small valley, crossing the ghost of a stream which trickles silently, invisibly down from a clump of trees. When I regained height, they appeared more of a line than a clump, double file. They perhaps once escorted the stream down to the village, dividing what is now an enormous open field. What secret do they guard, when the rest of the treeline has long been turned over to the plough? It would not take much of a detour to investigate. I have often thought of spending a summer night here, watching what lives within, yet have never made the small diversion. It is not the bossiness of the signs which has prevented me, since I have imagined exploring for years before they were erected. Some thing always stops me though.
So, I don’t make the left turn and face the consequences of a trespass and the trees. The path carries along its perfect line as it makes a small climb from the valley, chimneys and church tower peeking above the brow. These are helpful landmarks, as this section of path has been farmed over for the past few years. Unless it is planted, I walk it, using compass and chimney stacks to keep rigourously to the permitted route. If there are crops, which I expect there will be over summer, I walk around them or follow tramlines. Today, I use my mapping app, ensuring the arrow clings legally to the green dotted line as I trudge over scrub. There seems a contradiction in the landowner bellowing orders to stick to the designated rights of way and then covering some to prevent that. Checking the map I downloaded from their QR code, I can clearly make this path out and remain armed and ready should I be challenged. The generations who walked here for prayer, gossip and ritual disrupted, their coffin path vanished; do they continue to walk the route they always have, passing effortlessly through the wheat, oblivious to the entitlement of modern agri-business? Or was this once common land anyway, either side of their thoroughfare? None of this will ever be visible to me as I turn away from the last hundred metres or so, picking up a more distinct route which crosses, taking me back up hill. From the top, no trace of the old path is visible, not even a change of shade in the soil to reveal where it is hiding. The footprints of the centuries have been ploughed beneath the earth.
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Thank you so much, Jane. I must admit, my imagination tends to take over on these footpaths sometimes!
Beautiful Andy. Thanks for the vicarious wander with the spirits of generations past. 🌱