Tower and Town, May 2024

  (view the full edition)

In the mists of time at Coniston

Intensive encounters with the landscape could occasionally induce transcending inner thoughts. Take for example the often-discussed case of "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog", by the German romantic landscape painter Casper Friedrich, (1774-1840).

https://i1.wp.com/freecascadia.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Wanderer_above_the_sea_of_fog.jpg?w=1920

I can also go further by attesting a relevant personal experience dating back to 1971, when I was following my star as a young man on a scientific odyssey that included education at different nuclear energy sites. Hence, on a beautiful April day, I set off south from Windscale to the Winfrith site in Dorset with my fellow student and dear friend Dieter Steinmann. By late afternoon we stopped for the night at Coniston in the southern part of the Lake District National Park, located between Coniston Water and the 802m high Coniston Old Man. It was twilight when we reached the summit of the Old Man, and I sat down gazing at the majestic scene below, now in dim blue. And it was here as light began fading away that my thoughts drifted between yesterday and the intriguing life-journey ahead. Soon, I found myself amid awe and sensation in what I could possibly describe today as the sublime.

The 1971 cover photograph of this magazine is of young me taken by Dieter. It captures those moments of being engrossed in my train of thoughts, oblivious of the passing of time - a treasured image that I have revisited recently upon receiving the sad news of Dieter's passing away. Consequently the mind's eye took over as I recalled the 1971 encounter atop the Old Man, then it was the beginning and now is the beginning for the end, trying to make sense of those solitary moments aided by resonant image and sound - "Day and Night" by the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972), and "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" by the English Folk singer Sandy Denny, (1947-1978).

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving
But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I shall still be dreaming I do not count the time
For who knows where the time goes? Who knows where the time goes?
One way or another, we are merely leaving birds in awe of time and the "Telling on the Mountain".

Raik Jarjis

<< First< Back  Next >Last >>    Return Archives Listing