A Spring Tale
This weeks blog by Associate Chaplain Urzula Glieneke:
Allow me to share one of my favourite tales from my childhood by Imants Ziedonis – the Gray Tale. It is profoundly spiritual to me.
“I am the grey one…”
But let me write the first sentences in Latvian – it’s so beautiful to me: Es esmu Pelēkais. Es esmu pelēks kā pelēns. Es esmu pelēks kā putns, kā puteklis, kā pelni. Es esmu Pelēkais.
I am the grey one. Grey as a tiny mouse. Grey as a bird, as a speck of dust, as ashes. Only because I am can other colours come forth.
Where am I?
Where can you see me?
Everywhere.
But let us begin with the spring. In the grey spring all is grey, the snow has melted, the earth is grey and the buds are grey. But a grey bud bursts (and it’s my grey bud) and forth comes the white fluff of the pussywillow!
Would it be so beautiful and white if I, the grey one, wouldn’t be so grey in spring?
In the grey spring in grey earth a green tulip comes out, in grey soil red rhubarb creeps out like the horns of a devil.
Or let us start with the morning. In grey twilight white swaths of mist drift in the meadow.
Would the mist seem so white if the morning wouldn’t be so grey?
In the grey sky the red Sun of the morning rises and all see how beautiful she is.
In the grey sky swims the golden Moon and all now realise – oh he is so beautiful [in case you are wondering about she and he – that’s what they are in Latvian. But J. R. R. Tolkien would also agree 😊 ]
Recent comments