The Mill Pond Under the Autumn Moon

As the nights draw colder for the oncoming winter months, frost gently touched the plants and cold earth before us. We walked the well trodden dark pathways and enjoyed the brief sight of our breath in the cool air. As the texture beneath our feet changed we stopped to take in our surroundings.

The wooden boards of the bridge were almost slippery in the frost underfoot and the cold of the rails stripped the warmth from fingers. In front of us the gentle mirror of the mill pond took on the deep blue hues of night and dark shadows of the trees at its banks. Only an occasional ripple disturbed the still clear reflection of the crescent moon, the winds took their leave, troubling other lands and most of the clouds had long since deserted this nights sky, leaving only a few to remain and hang in the light.

For a while we drank in the near perfect silence and stillness of the view. The only reminder of time and the passing of elements was the gentle tumbling of the mill weir some way behind us and the ghost like white swans on the water effortlessly gliding by borrowing the moonlight and bringing light to the shadow.

I opened my mind to the scene and felt the living energies and the distant celestial forms and forces. In that moment it felt like the quiet and near silence was roaring. The thoughts and disruptions of modern life ceased to be, there was only the feeling of the bridge sitting among the powerful elements in a segment of time.