In the recent BBC TV Series “Winterwatch” the Mountain Hare was featured as an animal which has evolved to evade predators by changing its colour from dappled brown to granite white during the snowy season in Scotland.

It struck me that similarly, many of us adapt our truth to avoid the predators of life, so we conform, in my case, lacking the maturity to understand my sexuality and then suppressing the truth, because I was fearful of being ridiculed, rejected or separated from my wife and children.

The Mountain Hare adapts its fur to the seasons, whereas those of us who suppress our truth continue to wear the granite white of our reality long after the snow has gone.

It has been liberating for me to be able to wear my coat of truth in every season so that I no longer conform in many areas of my life to what I think is expected of me by others and I can be myself.

This freedom comes with risks as I have discovered. My dappled brown against the snow stands out and makes me and my family feel uncomfortable at times.

I have had to endure the occasional embarrassing remark or rebuke, but I realise that I am not a Mountain Hare trying to evade the talons of the Golden Eagle on a Scottish mountainside.

I am the mountain itself rising from the earth in all my glory – no matter what the weather or the season!

My next blog will be : “I do forgive you”

William Defoe