There is a method that used to be taught to draw the British Isles. It is one of drawing a Noble Lady with bonnet, being driven by a smaller chauffer. The bonnet and head is Scotland, the chauffer is Ireland, but her leg with her toes entering the Atlantic at Lands End has too a heel at the Lizard. Where the wilderness was tamed, but is becoming free once more. It was to be beneath the Noble Lady’s heel that I skived from my classes at Falmouth ‘Uni’, taking the few miles of high hedged twisted country lanes, on my old puttering bike. It is the bike that has been my best investment in exercise that I’ve ever bought. There is nothing like wheeling a broken down, near one-hundred-and-forty kilogram bike that has decided to not do it its job, to get the heart pumping. Especially the case, if I was who I wished I’d be having difficulty staying much above a third its weight rather than being over two thirds and shaped wrong.

Thankfully today it chose to let me ride, which was very considerate, as I needed to escape. Get free to my own personal addition to the St. Keverne’s looping walk trail. To the cliffs of freedom, aside the wild waves. Waves that are unsure if they are part of the wild Atlantic Ocean, or within the safe passage of the English Channel. Parking in the lot from which I can access the trail into civilized wilderness, I dismount the bike. Then I enter a piece of simulated nature, pretty, but tendered, gardened, tamed.

After crossing through the abandoned quarries that nature is valiantly trying to reclaim from the wounded scars they were. There is an old trail to the left wilder and warned not to be trod, as nature is taking it back. It leads up to the top of the overhanging cliffs. Each time I tread it, it has become a little shorter. It is mine, for I know of no other that treads its losing trod.

Amongst the gorse, briars, brambles and bracken the Cornish wild flowers bloom from spring through late summer. I am only interested in two. The Heather and Sea Thrift or Sea Pink as it is also known.They both blanket the sea cliffs in beds of pink-purple while blooming. Today the flower blossoms are in hiding, their beauty cloaked beneath rugged practical clothing. They are two wild flowers that live in similar areas but live their lives to the cadence of a differing song.

The Heather is hardy, long lived that clutches low to the ground and runs from the wild winds that from the wilder ocean blow. However, the Sea Thrift is wilder, headstrong and stubborn. It is unwilling to be tamed. Toward the edge, toward the strongest wind it chooses oft to grow, and to wend its own way against any that air or dare to gain say it so. From the edges of the cliffs it waves to the old piers that used to have barges filled with stone leaving, and fishing boats returning, brim full of fresh caught fish. But the piers are now ghostly reminders to the prior civilization that thrived once like Heather, beneath the Noble Lady’s heel.

There are no longer any barges or fishing boats tied to their quay. There is no one to up keep the piers that are decaying into the sea. Even the military has abandoned their old missile range. But in the death is rebirth. Freedom is gained, and escape can be earned. I love sitting at the edge of the Noble Lady’s heel, feet dangling over nothing, beside clumps of Sea Thrift, staring out to sea. The wind lashes and takes its owed rent from the land. It catches my hair to dance within its gusts always so tempting. ‘Come with me and dance’ it seems as if to say. ‘Fly free from that which binds you to the ground. Clasps you, and ties you to the mold life has set you found. With me you will no longer be beneath the Noble Lady’s heel. Crushed slowly each year when you try to do what the Noble Lady doesn’t want or need.’

At the very edge of the cliff there is a clump of Sea Thrift whose roots are near exposed. The soil around them has eroded by driven rain of prior day. As the covered flowers are gently tugged by the tearing wind, I sit and watch. As my shadow lengthens towards my left, the flowers dance more lively with each of the wind’s sub-sequential pass. Then it happens. The wind has found its partner for, the whirling throws of freedom’s thrall. And the waves clap upon the cliff rocks, cadence, for the reel that the wind and flower dip and dance to. Swirl to each other’s bosom, freed as they twist and twirl, as the flower is passed from one partner to its next, within the dance of its inevitable, ever downward, fall.

Then like the Heather, I leave the enticing wind and the thundering waves to crash upon the cliff alone, once more. I tread back upon my trail, wondering how long ‘till it is gone. My pain, hurt and woes released, dragged out, and by the wind reborn; recharged to live life. To stay the draw of Freedom’s Dance, a little while, a little more.