Loss
Loss is nothing else but change,
and change is Nature’s delight.
Attributed to Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180)
Stake nets like these no longer dot the Solway coast. A way of life is lost along with the salmon which are now few. The setting sun places human loss in the wider natural order where change is a constant, for constancy is only found in the constructs and models of our minds. What minds prize passes as surely as the sun sets. Yet the beauty of the sunset seems bound up with that loss. Its hard to imagine what we could value if there was no loss, and every loss reveals the wonder of the new.
These nets were near Creetown, at the head of Wigtown Bay in southern Scotland. Marcus Aurelius was joint Roman Emperor from 161 to 180, he left a set of notes which have come to be known as ‘Meditations’. These 12 books contain many reflections on philosophical matters.
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