INTO THE HEAVENS
"The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost." - G.K. Chesterton
If you live in a place long enough, eventually it becomes a part of you. Then, as we inevitably get older, it may just begin to slowly dawn on us that it is indeed our own selves and not the places themselves which will most likely become the more temporary and it's only as the ticking clock of our own mortality becomes increasingly more pronounced, long after those sunny days of seemingly endless childhood, that we realise this fact and surrender to the idea, not as some cult belief in naturalism or ecocentrism but because of a more pragmatic logic.
We're just not here on this earth for very long.
Landscapes are not here forever either, regardless of the illusion of their seemingly immovable permanence before our eyes. We, of course, tend to measure our human lives in a century where a landscape is measured in its millions to ten of millions of years. And though it may take the emergence of various geological processes and events to alter a landscape significantly over time, including the shifting of tectonic plates, incremental erosion from wind, rain and glaciers and volcanic activity, make no mistake it does change, no matter how imperceptibly it may seem to us while we're alive.
However, it would be naive to ignore the fact that landscapes can also be profoundly altered by human design or interference during our life span and there may be few things sadder than seeing a beloved piece of land that we have walked across, or lived close by to, irrevocably changed - not comparable to losing a loved one but not so very far from that same deep connection to the heart.
A recent threatened sale of a landscape close to where I live has forced me to think about just how emotionally invested I have become over time to this place, appropriately named the Heavens Valley in Stroud, Gloucestershire. It is strange to think of something that I always believed to be invulnerable to change suddenly made so by arising circumstances, but perhaps like Bilbo Baggins, who would have never have contemplated any threat to his beloved Bag End in the Shire before Gandalf came to warn him of one, accelerated and unexpected turn of events can swiftly make us realise just how precarious our home and its surrounding countryside can be.
"I'd like to know that those who come after me can sit on the hill overlooking the valley and know exactly where the sun and moon will rise, and from behind which tree, while the year goes through its changing phases as it has done down all the centuries." - Laurie Lee
I recently re-read Laurie Lee's essay, 'The Fight to Save Slad' (1994), in which Lee, synonymous with that idyllic pocket of the Cotswolds, expresses grave concerns about his local village being partially bulldozed to make way for a new housing estate. The writer powerfully evokes both memories of key romantic chapters of his rural past with more bleak prophesies of increasing concrete developments (what he terms 'ravagement') and future generations of children desensitised by television deprived of the freedom of the land afforded to him. It touched a chord with me and my present worries for the place I look out upon every day, especially as there is exactly thirty years since his campaign efforts and only three miles that separates his cherished Slad Valley with my beloved Heavens Valley.
The poignancy of re-reading 'The Fight to Save Slad,' combined with my own reflections and memories of the Heavens Valley over time, now has me seeing ghostly visions of my past. I recall dogs, no longer with me, accompanying me like furry shadows among the verdant meadows of the Heavens. They would run in and out of sparkling streams, where water flowed like silver down through the surrounding grassy banks. And once again I can hear the sound of my daughter's happy, chuckling laughter as she swung high in the air on a rope swing beneath the dappled shade of a giant oak tree. It seemed the greatest, most natural fairground ride in the entire world. Then I remember the paper-cup picnics while reading 'The Faraway Tree' to my little girl, as she fell asleep on a blue-and-white gingham blanket. She imagined she could see Moon-face, Silky, and the Saucepan Man running about in the branches high above, where she gazed through star-shaped toy sunglasses. These moments proved that the Heavens was a place where reality and fiction perfectly harmonised with a developing imagination.
Though it may not seem the most spectacular of settings for some, the Heavens Valley has always had the unique ability to conjure all sorts of literary illusions to my mind with its solitary waterfall and trickling streams as well as its honour guard of high ridge tree tops. On summer days I could easily believe that we were roaming about the pages of 'The Wind In The Willows' or 'Swallows And Amazons' and on less tranquil days, where storm clouds would ominously swirl, Weathertop from Tolkien's 'The Lord Of The Rings' or the Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts from J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter', where we would often take shelter from the driving rain under layered canopies of leaves and smell the wild garlic that intoxicated our senses with its pungent aroma.
The most magical time in the Heavens was always tied between late autumn and mid-winter, especially back when seasons seemed more clearly defined by crispy, frosted leaves and deep, crunching, white snow. Sledging down the steepish slopes of the Heavens after midnight with companions, as we marked the first tracks in the virgin snow, were timeless moments where it felt as if we were characters in our very own magical story. Early dawn walks after staying up all night talking with school friends in mid-summer, where I half expected to see the Piper at the Gates of Dawn greet us with his morning song, felt like an ancient retreading of our past lives where we had been many times before. Perhaps we had.
One time I remember magical figures emerging from the cool shadows of a summer night where they assembled around a camp fire I had built with my girlfriend; they brought their instruments and played for us under a starry sky and were as real as the ground beneath our feet but how easily they could have been imagined.
Lately, all these precious memories flicker in front of my mind's eye like scenes from old movies and seem fantastical in ways that they didn't back when I took this magical scenery for granted. Now, with parts of the landscape under threat from potential new development, I realise just how special a place I have been privileged to live close to all these years and feel a debt of gratitude needs to be expressed.
With continued dedication and commitment from the Heavens Valley Action Group, which aims to retain the land for public use, it is my great hope that this cherished place will remain unspoiled for new generations to create fresh memories; they will need the solace of nature more than ever in an increasingly digital world where imaginations are all too easily atrophied.
For nature, much like the human mind, also needs space to flourish where its own imagination can run riot with its trees, plants and tributaries to remind us all, who may have taken it for granted, that the best things in life need to be nurtured and protected.