Have you ever lived through a period of time when everything was going perfectly for you and around you? You are in love and loved; you have a set of great friends whose company you enjoy; you are in perfect health; you have no money worries; work is great, where you are appreciated and motivated; and the outlook is even better. I hope you have because it feels wonderful to be in this rare and transient time zone.
Now, I am not sure how the kingfisher bird had its name mutate over the centuries from the original Greek ‘Alkuon’ or ‘Halkuon’ into English where the word split into kingfisher meaning the bird and, the derivative of the original of ‘Halcyon’, meaning a period of time of idyllic and perfect state as in ‘Halcyon Days’.
From the limited research I conducted, it transpires that in Greek mythology, the kingfisher, supposedly the offspring of two gods (Alcyone and Ceyx), began to nest on the sea surface and caused the violent winter storms to calm down for seven days around Winter Solstice. Something like that, anyway!
Back to the present times where halcyon days is a period in our lives when things are going perfectly for us. We are happy, content and at peace with the world. The trouble with this halcyonic state is that we typically recognise it after it has been and gone. So, we tend to look back on those days with nostalgia and yearn for their return but, deep down, we know these days are gone for good. With a bit of luck, further halcyon days can happen again.
I consider myself lucky to be able to think of more than one halcyonic period in my life, before and after my wife and I had our three children. Although we were not rich, that did not matter. What mattered to us was within our grasp. Even at a professional level, we were doing well and the prospects were promising. It is difficult to recall when exactly a period like this began and when it ended. As a guess, I would say they both lasted more than a couple of years each time, rather than the seven days of our Greek mythological friend the kingfisher.
In my view, there are much shorter halcyon periods that last for a few minutes; a ‘halcyonic Snapchat’, if you like. Let me elaborate.
On two separate occasions, I experienced a sudden momentary feeling of elation that lifted my spirits so high, it left an indelible impression on me. I am not sure if there is a term for it but my ‘smarter than me daughter’ calls it: ‘Spontaneous Euphoria’. These ‘halcyon moments’ came and went within a few minutes but the afterglow lasted for a few days after. Let me describe the two events, which I assure you, were alcohol and drug-free!
First time was very early in the morning of 4th of June (it was my birthday), I cannot recall the exact year but it was late Eighties. I worked for a major UK retailer and I was driving from Edinburgh to Newcastle visiting our stores in Scotland and North of England. It was a wonderful clear morning and the sun rose from my left as I was heading south. The countryside was rugged and beautiful, the rental car was new and still had that distinctive heady new-car smell about it. The car radio was pre-set to BBC Radio 3 which only played classical music. As I crossed a small bridge over the River Tweed, the announcer introduced a piece of music I had not heard before. It was ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Vaughan Williams, which is largely a violin recital of some 15 wonderous minutes.
About a minute or so into the piece of music, I suddenly became vividly aware of 4 things: It was a magnificently beautiful summer’s day with brilliant sunshine; the scenes around me were magical, including the crystal clear water below me; the piece of music playing was sublime and in complete synchronicity with the world around me; and it was my birthday where I was physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually in a very good state. All these elements combined to make me really feel euphoric and genuinely delighted to be living in that magnificent halcyonic moment.
Needless to say, once I arrived in Newcastle, life reverted to its usual norm of stores, warehouses, systems, business issues, and the rest of it. But, I was in a great, great mood.
The second time happened many years later. In the spring of 2016, I was driving from Nicosia to Limassol, Cyprus. It was early afternoon after a full morning of business meetings in Nicosia, I was returning to the office and apart from that, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the meetings I attended or what lay ahead for the rest of the afternoon. My music collection was set on ‘shuffle’ so I was getting quite a mix of genre on this 45 minute drive. Then a familiar slow piano notes signaled the start of ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’.
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon 1973 album has a famous track (number 5) called “The Great Gig in the Sky” which is largely without lyrics, except for a couple of lines about not being afraid of death. However, a female human voice dominates the whole track with visceral cry of agony mixed with ecstasy vocalized by a little-known session singer from the Seventies called Clare Torry. Legend has it that Clare was hired by Alan Parsons, the producer of Dark Side of the Moon, to help with that particular track at the famous Abbey Road studios. After many attempts by the band to explain to her what they had in mind, she was getting agitated and with a combination of frustration and exhaustion, she recorded something one time and one time only and the combination of her voice with Pink Floyd’s haunting music produced something unworldly that defies description. If you have never come across this particular track, do yourself a favour and check it out on YouTube.
As Clare’s voice soared inside the car cabin, once again, I experienced that halcyonic moment of feeling that everything, absolutely everything within me, about me, and around me was perfectly balanced and that I felt at peace with life, past, present and even future. That feeling lasted for 4 minutes and 48 seconds; the duration of The Great Gig in the Sky.
There are some 30 years between these two incidences; a long time to pass for this overflow of dopamine, maybe it takes that long for the brain to replenish this organic drug. Although I have had many, many situations where I felt at peace with life, work and everything else around me, these two moments were extraordinary because they happened unexpectedly and disappeared as quickly as they emerged, leaving a vivid afterglow.
Who needs drugs and alcohol when you have kingfisher moments like this?
