Heart of Stone, Feet of Clay

October 5th, 2007 Fred McVittie Posted in Boundary, Centre, Imagination, Liquid, Substance |

You are standing on the shore of an ocean, possibly a beach in some Northern English seaside town: Whitley Bay maybe, or Tynemouth, and since we are in the North of England and it is Midsummer, there is a persistent drizzle and a pale grey mist hangs heavily over a slightly darker grey sea. The horizon is indistinct, and there is no clear division between water and air, and because of the thickness of the fog there is scarcely any line between sea and sand.

Beneath your feet you feel the firmness of the Earth. Solid as Earth can be, which is only less presently certain in its permanence that the feet which stand upon it. These feet are, in turn, assured of their place in the temporal order of objects by the feltness of the body for which they act as pedestal. Here is solidity, this body, this rock, this anchor for the world. A heart of living eternal stone and guarantor of all the verities. If we can simply say ‘here is my heart’ then all else follows.

From heart to body to feet firmly planted on the sands of Whitley Bay is a small journey, but we may feel in the making of it a small softening, a catching of the time of the world in which the body at its Southernmost extremity slips slightly away. The feet are less certain than the heart, and may stumble or slip where the heart remains still.

And under the toes, the sand, shifting with the wind and taking imprint from every foot that passes. The sea, oceanic beyond the sand, and above it, and below it, and washing over and through it, has little resistance, even the stupidest fish can pass between. A rock thrown against the water encounters no resolve. It is there and it is not there, moving and waving like disappearing dancers boarding a train.

Sky above, grey as remembered sleep. There is nothing to say about the sky. There is just nothing to say.