Inspirations & Connections | IV. Hills & Valleys
Taking inspiration from Middle-Earth and Narnia, in the footsteps of those who have gone before, I explore our lifetime's occupation of navigating the peaks and troughs of our own life journeys.
Community, and creating a sense of community, is so important to me, and to the world. In this series, taking a particular theme, I want to share with you some of the inspirations, connections and other communities which have enriched my life, in the hope that they may do the same for you too.
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I’ve lived long enough to know that life brings both hills and valleys, the ups and the downs. These ascents and descents, sometimes arduous, sometimes easy, mark the undulating progress of life’s journey. But if the ‘hills are alive with the sound of music’, what must we make of the valleys? Are these valleys, into which we all descend and traverse, simply silent? Do we merely accept the parts of life’s journey which take place in the valleys, whilst desperately craving those first steps of ascent towards the top of the next hill?
Those of us who enjoy spending our time outdoors realise that there is beauty to be found both on the tops of the hills, and in the deepest of valleys. Streams trickle effortlessly through the valley bottoms, the dappled shade offering us shelter on a hot day. But the vast hills on either side of those valleys are never far away. Do they cradle us in our valley seasons, or do they taunt us with the expectation of that which rises beyond? If the ‘hills of the north rejoice’, then do the valleys of the south lament?
Many of our earliest memories of these vast landscapes come from C.S. Lewis and his Chronicles of Narnia, and from the great books of Tolkien, their instantly recognisable hand-drawn maps plotting our course through the peaks and troughs of the characters we follow. As Bilbo Baggins is about the leave Middle-Earth, he sings:
Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I'll find the heavens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the star above my mast!
The poem (and/or song) never appeared in The Lord of the Rings books, and was published after Tolkien’s death, but’s all here: the sea, the fields, the mountains, and all that lies both before him, and before us. If Tolkien’s world was fantasy, it’s uncannily familiar.
It is said that C.S. Lewis took his inspiration for the land of Narnia from the view of the hills beyond the house where he was brought up in East Belfast. If though the wardrobe they found the frozen and ceaseless winter of Narnia, in the third book, The Horse and His Boy, Shasta was interested in everything that lay to the North because no one ever went there:
‘“Oh, my Father, what is there beyond that hill?”…Shasta though that beyond the hill there must be some delightful secret which his father wished to hide from him’
Navigating our own hills and valleys is a lifetime’s occupation. It’s not easy, and we can only hope to cultivate a slow and gentle approach to life which allows us to traverse both. Deep down, we know that if we didn’t inhabit the valleys, we would never know what lay beyond the hills in our own North. I think that too, we can take comfort in all these landscapes. Just as they mark our way now, those same landscapes set forth the mileposts of our ancestors. The hills and valleys we tried now have been trodden before. They are a reminder of something much greater than us, for we are here for but a short time.
In Psalm 23:4, we read:
‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me’
If we were honest, our whole lives are lived in the shadow of death, one of life’s only real certainties. But in the shadows, in the valleys of life, we are cradled, comforted, and sheltered. On our constant journey to embrace these peaks and troughs, we can stand firm in knowing that we journey where others have journeyed before. Perhaps we can leave with last word to our old friend, Bilbo Baggins, who, at the end of The Hobbit sings:
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
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Very well said and thought provoking 💕