Sublime Experiences

When I was a little boy there was a playing field near the house next to a little church. It was there that I first experienced the sublime. For some reason on a spring day we were standing by the railing and I looked out onto the field and the grass seemed greener, the butterflies fluttered more delicately and the light seemed longer. I now recognise this as an experience of the sublime.

Throughout my life I have experienced the sublime. Sometimes in prosaic locations such as my garden and sometimes in dramatic places such as a mountainside or Sycamore Gap. I experience a sense of separation from time and a greater association with place even when it is time that is the source of the experience. Once whilst fossil hunting in Lyme Regis a rock I was examining fell apart in my hands and revealed a Benemite that shone in the sun like a jewel. The sun was a red sullen orb westering in the sky and I had a profound sense of the aeons of time that had passed since that Benemite had seen the sun and how I was the first person ever to see it.

As a child and indeed even now I am profoundly affected by music. Once I watched a documentary about the beginning of the world and the sound track was Aquarium from the Carnival of the Animals which made a profound effect on me. I would regularly get lost in songs and music to the annoyance of my teachers who complained that I didn’t sing, I was enjoying the song too much.