Beyond the Cottongrass – The Impermanence of Everything
Reflections on nature, heartbreak, and the beauty of impermanence - through the lens of cotton grass at sunrise in the Yorkshire Dales.
Unzipping my bivvy bag in the quiet of dawn, I saw Andy had done the same, and we quietly watched the sky change colour over Whernside. I got out, wandered up towards the slopes below Ingleborough, and stood quietly for a while, taking some shots and waiting for the sun to crest Simon’s Fell. Just in front of where we’d slept, a patch of cottongrass was catching the first of the sun's golden rays — soft white tufts moving gently in the wind. Lara took a few shots and then I set about finding a composition I liked. We weren't there long before we had to head back down to the car, but something about it stayed with me.
Looking beyond the cotton grass as the morning light bathes Ribblehead Viaduct in the Yorkshire Dales
Lately, I’ve been thinking about impermanence. I’ve had plenty of downtime on my latest work trip. Time spent reading, time spent thinking. It’s brought these reflections to the surface. About how even the softest things - love, light, stillness - shift and move and, eventually, go. A romantic relationship ended recently, a meaningful one, with a shared life gently forming around it. There was care, real history, and a quiet hope for the future. It mattered deeply. And then, slowly, it changed. Not with shouting, but with quiet sadness. No villains. Just the slow drift that happens when something beautiful has run its course.
In younger years, heartbreak felt like a black hole — a bottomless pit of despair from which escape seemed impossible. I felt everything with such intensity that the ending of love became a full-body collapse: rumination, self-blame, anxiety, fear, emptiness — all unwelcome but familiar companions in those long, slow passing hours. Sometimes months, sometimes years would pass before I realised I could feel again. Now, with a few more winters behind me, I recognise that grief and acceptance can exist side by side. I’m still learning how to sit with the ache, to let it be there without all the associated feelings undoing me. The rawness hasn't gone. But there’s a quiet knowing beginning to grow — that I will move forward, and that somehow, that’s enough. I don’t feel less. But I do feel... differently.
What Nature Teaches Us About Change
Thinking back to that Sunday morning, watching the cottongrass shift beneath the rising sun — I see something else in impermanence. Not just loss, but movement. The way the light fades, yes, but also the way it returns. Different each time. Sometimes soft and golden, sometimes harsh, sometimes barely there. But always something.
Love is like that too. It arrives, it deepens, it changes shape. Sometimes it grows. Sometimes it fades. Sometimes it teaches you something quietly before it leaves. I used to think that change meant failure. That if something ended, it must not have been real or strong or right. But now I think change is just truth showing itself — and resilience is how we choose to meet it.
Nature is full of that same wisdom. Flowers break through frozen earth. Barren fields bloom. Trees let go of their leaves and, as they fall, they colour the world on their way down. Even decay brings a richness to the soil. There's nothing romantic about it, it’s just real. Life folds into life. Loss can and does give way to growth, if we let it.
The cottongrass will have gone now, and I won’t see it again for a year. But in its brief appearance, it offers a quiet reminder to notice what is here, now. The way it catches the light, shifts with the wind, then fades. It's a lesson in being present, in appreciating the moment before it's gone. I’ll go back. I'll climb Ingleborough again. I'll wait for the light and see what that morning has to say. I might carry sadness with me. Or something new. But I’ll be there — and so will the light, in some form or another.
That’s why I photograph these places. Not to pin them down, but to meet those moments as they are, fleeting, shifting, alive. Each image is a brief pause, a way to hold the stillness briefly before it moves on again. Through all this change: light, love, loss, return, I remain the one constant I can walk with. So, I will keep investing in myself: with deep reflection, with care and with patience. Because even in the face of impermanence, there is strength in stillness. And beauty and growth in the act of showing up again.
Explore more of my quiet images - made to quiet minds - in a portfolio of still, mindful landscapes created to invite calm and presence. Just click the link below.