Ring the bells that still can ring,
forget your perfect offering,
there’s a crack in everything,
that’s how the light gets in.
Pictures taken today at Fountains Abbey. There is more information on the official web site too.
The Leonard Cohen poem came on a card from somebody who recently fell and broke her foot. …and while I wouldn’t have directly chosen this time of broken-ness, I am learning so much through it.
I love that phrase “The cracks are where the light shines through”. It reminded me of some lyrics from Bjork:
If you wake up
And the day feels
Ah broken
Just lean into the crack
(Just lean into the crack)
And it will tremble
Ever so nicely
Notice
How it sparkles
Down there
From “It’s not Up To You”
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Bjork/It-s-Not-Up-To-You.html
Dave
Goodness! The last picture of the dormitory ‘undercroft’ with the window in the distance is a very important one for me. My grandparents had exactly this same view on the wall of their living room. It was an old black and white framed photo from a plate taken about 1920 by my grandfather.
He was rather proud of it. I guess back then even working out the time for this kind of exposure would have been a work of art. And goodness knows how they ever travelled as far as Fountains Abbey on their ‘rest day’ – probably by bike over vast distances, maybe from Lealholm or even Stockton. You never know the merit of such actions.
As a small child that image fascinated me, this special place with hidden ‘meanings’ and that distant powerful point of light. I can see now that it was an early intimation about the path of training for someone who never got taken to church.
I still have that picture in the UK. I’ll show it to you sometime
…and the air of sanctity still remains…. despite the wear of centuries.
Goodness, how amazing Iain. I’d like to see the photo some time. Those were hard won pictures unlike the ones I took yesterday.
There is a certain quality about the place however I’d want to sit around for awhile next time I visit, just to take in what this place was and now is.
Sympathy and best wishes to the person who broke her foot!
Margaret