Sue Vincent's Blog: Echoes of Life - Posts Tagged "challenge"
Out of Season
He probably didn’t need to laugh quite so much.
I have an excuse... I have flu… migraine...I’m not well…
My son had found me, head in hands… and knowing this had asked what was wrong.
I knew I shouldn’t have told him….
…to be fair, he has every reason to laugh.
I’d just turned the phone ringer volume up…
..in case Ani needed to call me.
I know she is a very clever dog, but…
Yep. I’m losing the plot.
To be fair, I’m not alone.
The roses are in full bloom, primulas sparkle in the pale sunlight, the fish are active, jumping at the clouds of midges above the pond. Geum’s dot the garden with flame. Perfume from the choisya blossom… the clear blue of campanulas and the deep purple of hebe…and the bright yellow of winter mahonia….
It is November. It is cold. Even the garden is confused.
It seems many things are bending normality to suit themselves.
And really, why ever not?
Who says we have to conform to a normality predefined by who knows who? And who does define it anyway? When you really think about it… we do.
There is no law that says you have to get old when you reach a certain age, retire to the armchair and wait for a decorous finale… And no rule that says a child cannot be as gifted as a Mozart… Or the fallacy that old dogs can’t learn new tricks…
Lots of platitudes, accepted norms… yet really, there is nothing set in stone. Fear, perhaps, is the definer of normality. We fear to step outside the narrow boundaries that we see as acceptable…And while we do so we narrow the boundaries of acceptable behaviour more and more, setting our own limits just a smidgen inside the safe zone. Being conventional, behaving as one ‘ought’, becomes an unconscious boundary we fear to cross.
We look out at a society whose concept of the ‘usual’ is defined by its own fears of standing out from the crowd... falling flat on its face… looking ‘silly’ in the eyes of others. Why should that matter? It is those who take risks…go out on a limb for an idea, an ideal, an innovation that get things done and move life forward for the rest of us.
As teenagers we push the envelope of acceptability with fashions and music, crusading ideas that challenge the normality of preceding generations. I think that is perhaps the only reason we, as a society, haven’t imploded, or followed the example of the mythical Oozlum bird. Each generation pushes the bounds out a little further… perhaps so it has a slightly bigger prison of normality to play in as it, in turn, ages and settles for convention. The revolutions of our youth become the bars of mediocrity in middle age.
There are also some who defy normality through fear of being swallowed whole by the gaping maw of age or mediocrity. Fear, on both sides of the equation, defines… and has a lot to answer for. Yet we are the ones who give it life.
Those who defy these unwritten rules are cast in one of two roles... they are either labelled with epithets such as Bohemian, hippy, weird… you know the type of thing… those half envious names that we secretly wish we could live up to, while endowing them with a tone of quasi-indulgent superiority. Or we hail them as examples of what we could be. The dividing line seems also to be defined by society... if you are successful, you may be hailed as the latter category... the rest serve as a measure of our own slavery to convention.
Yet we all have that spark within us that makes us unique. The rebellious teenager still lives within each one of us, ready to challenge the limits the mundane world seems to impose. We are all capable of the inner freedom to be great… even if that greatness is never seen beyond the confines of our own hearts and minds.
I have an excuse... I have flu… migraine...I’m not well…
My son had found me, head in hands… and knowing this had asked what was wrong.
I knew I shouldn’t have told him….
…to be fair, he has every reason to laugh.
I’d just turned the phone ringer volume up…
..in case Ani needed to call me.
I know she is a very clever dog, but…
Yep. I’m losing the plot.
To be fair, I’m not alone.
The roses are in full bloom, primulas sparkle in the pale sunlight, the fish are active, jumping at the clouds of midges above the pond. Geum’s dot the garden with flame. Perfume from the choisya blossom… the clear blue of campanulas and the deep purple of hebe…and the bright yellow of winter mahonia….
It is November. It is cold. Even the garden is confused.
It seems many things are bending normality to suit themselves.
And really, why ever not?
Who says we have to conform to a normality predefined by who knows who? And who does define it anyway? When you really think about it… we do.
There is no law that says you have to get old when you reach a certain age, retire to the armchair and wait for a decorous finale… And no rule that says a child cannot be as gifted as a Mozart… Or the fallacy that old dogs can’t learn new tricks…
Lots of platitudes, accepted norms… yet really, there is nothing set in stone. Fear, perhaps, is the definer of normality. We fear to step outside the narrow boundaries that we see as acceptable…And while we do so we narrow the boundaries of acceptable behaviour more and more, setting our own limits just a smidgen inside the safe zone. Being conventional, behaving as one ‘ought’, becomes an unconscious boundary we fear to cross.
We look out at a society whose concept of the ‘usual’ is defined by its own fears of standing out from the crowd... falling flat on its face… looking ‘silly’ in the eyes of others. Why should that matter? It is those who take risks…go out on a limb for an idea, an ideal, an innovation that get things done and move life forward for the rest of us.
As teenagers we push the envelope of acceptability with fashions and music, crusading ideas that challenge the normality of preceding generations. I think that is perhaps the only reason we, as a society, haven’t imploded, or followed the example of the mythical Oozlum bird. Each generation pushes the bounds out a little further… perhaps so it has a slightly bigger prison of normality to play in as it, in turn, ages and settles for convention. The revolutions of our youth become the bars of mediocrity in middle age.
There are also some who defy normality through fear of being swallowed whole by the gaping maw of age or mediocrity. Fear, on both sides of the equation, defines… and has a lot to answer for. Yet we are the ones who give it life.
Those who defy these unwritten rules are cast in one of two roles... they are either labelled with epithets such as Bohemian, hippy, weird… you know the type of thing… those half envious names that we secretly wish we could live up to, while endowing them with a tone of quasi-indulgent superiority. Or we hail them as examples of what we could be. The dividing line seems also to be defined by society... if you are successful, you may be hailed as the latter category... the rest serve as a measure of our own slavery to convention.
Yet we all have that spark within us that makes us unique. The rebellious teenager still lives within each one of us, ready to challenge the limits the mundane world seems to impose. We are all capable of the inner freedom to be great… even if that greatness is never seen beyond the confines of our own hearts and minds.
Eastern promise
I was up and out very early yesterday . I didn’t get very far… the lane at the end of my street to be exact… before I stopped the car and got out. The sun was cresting the horizon and the view over the fields was too beautiful to miss. Pushing my way through the gap in the hedge I stood among the last of the nettles to watch.
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
Omar Khayyam
It only lasted a few moments, as the sun lit the clouds, turning them to molten gold, but that burst of glory made the day begin in beauty. I was, not for the first time and certainly not the last, grateful to live away from the town, where dawn is seldom truly seen. The sun makes its appearance there much later, obscured by rooftops. In the town the horizon becomes our habitations and places of work… here I see the Sun-god caress the curved body of Earth with a lover’s tenderness, bathing her in the delicate grace of his light.
The bigger the city the less likely we are to see the world waken to a true dawn with our skyscrapers and edifices. We see the light flood the sky, perhaps, as it is doing here now. As I look out of my window the sky is suffused with the pale grey of a pigeon’s breast as the sun rises beyond my horizon… soon the eye of heaven will open above the distant hills. The sky is cloudy, I may not see that moment today… perhaps there will be but a blush against the clouds…or maybe just the silent creeping light suffusing the sky.
For now there is quiet… no birds sing welcome to the dawn. In a few more minutes they will lift their voices in joy and busily begin their day. I sit here frozen with the door to the garden standing wide for Ani and listen for the first song to begin. I cannot know what is to come… I can only wait in stillness and wonder.
Ah, fill the Cup: -- what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!
Omar Khayyam
It doesn’t really matter if I, one small being with one pair of eyes, see the dawn in splendour. This morning the cloud is heavy and only the faintest flush of rose touches the world through their blanket. But as I write the birds begin to greet the morning, silhouettes turn from black to grey, less stark, less imposing, melding into the background of the day. Colour begins to warm the monochrome landscape and the whirring of busy wings becomes a subliminal thrum as the feathered denizens of the garden begin their busy quest for food.
Dawn crept upon a misty world almost unawares, stealing in behind the clouds. Yet I only have to listen to hear the world wake and know a new day has begun. Beneath this sky a world wakes or sleeps, holding all that I love in a single embrace.The sky may stay cloudy, or the mists may part to reveal the blue of beyond. Like the dawn, it is there, even though it is veiled from sight. As winter shrouds the world in frozen, misted shadows there is comfort in that thought. Beyond the horizon is always a dawn waiting to unfurl, beyond the clouds the azure canvas waits for us to write our dreams upon it, beyond the curtains of darkest night a new morning waits silently in the wings and will not miss the cue. An eternal dance where the veils that are dropped reveal both dancer and watcher to be one and the same, sharing the rhythm of the heartbeat of creation.
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
Omar Khayyam
It only lasted a few moments, as the sun lit the clouds, turning them to molten gold, but that burst of glory made the day begin in beauty. I was, not for the first time and certainly not the last, grateful to live away from the town, where dawn is seldom truly seen. The sun makes its appearance there much later, obscured by rooftops. In the town the horizon becomes our habitations and places of work… here I see the Sun-god caress the curved body of Earth with a lover’s tenderness, bathing her in the delicate grace of his light.
The bigger the city the less likely we are to see the world waken to a true dawn with our skyscrapers and edifices. We see the light flood the sky, perhaps, as it is doing here now. As I look out of my window the sky is suffused with the pale grey of a pigeon’s breast as the sun rises beyond my horizon… soon the eye of heaven will open above the distant hills. The sky is cloudy, I may not see that moment today… perhaps there will be but a blush against the clouds…or maybe just the silent creeping light suffusing the sky.
For now there is quiet… no birds sing welcome to the dawn. In a few more minutes they will lift their voices in joy and busily begin their day. I sit here frozen with the door to the garden standing wide for Ani and listen for the first song to begin. I cannot know what is to come… I can only wait in stillness and wonder.
Ah, fill the Cup: -- what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!
Omar Khayyam
It doesn’t really matter if I, one small being with one pair of eyes, see the dawn in splendour. This morning the cloud is heavy and only the faintest flush of rose touches the world through their blanket. But as I write the birds begin to greet the morning, silhouettes turn from black to grey, less stark, less imposing, melding into the background of the day. Colour begins to warm the monochrome landscape and the whirring of busy wings becomes a subliminal thrum as the feathered denizens of the garden begin their busy quest for food.
Dawn crept upon a misty world almost unawares, stealing in behind the clouds. Yet I only have to listen to hear the world wake and know a new day has begun. Beneath this sky a world wakes or sleeps, holding all that I love in a single embrace.The sky may stay cloudy, or the mists may part to reveal the blue of beyond. Like the dawn, it is there, even though it is veiled from sight. As winter shrouds the world in frozen, misted shadows there is comfort in that thought. Beyond the horizon is always a dawn waiting to unfurl, beyond the clouds the azure canvas waits for us to write our dreams upon it, beyond the curtains of darkest night a new morning waits silently in the wings and will not miss the cue. An eternal dance where the veils that are dropped reveal both dancer and watcher to be one and the same, sharing the rhythm of the heartbeat of creation.
The long night
The sky is beautiful this morning after the winds of the night, a clear, deep blue graced with the lights of heaven. The world is still and silent, even the birds are hushed as dawn creeps over the horizon of a rain-washed world.
It was dark when the doglet and I went out, dark still when we returned, for it is Solstice tomorrow, the longest night. But the moon lit the village and touched the rooftops with silver. Branches are down in the lane and few are the leaves that still cling tenaciously to the trees, most stripped away by the vicious fingers of a winter gale.
There is such strength in the grasp of leaf to twig, both so fragile they can be plucked and broken by a child, yet the bond of life so strong it can withstand the most inclement weather. Until it is time for them to fall.
Even when the leaves fall it is part of a greater renewal, the confetti of the marriage of the seasons, nourishing the earth and the tree from whence they fell. The tree sleeps through the winter, seemingly lifeless, husbanding its resources against the coming of spring. Beneath the skeletal surface of this dying time the life within shapes new leaves and blossoms, waiting in pregnant patience for the warm kiss of the sun.
Leaves fall, branches break… the old and sere stripped away by the turning wheel of the year, clearing the way for a green birth.
There is so much laid out before us, even in the avenues of our city streets. The life of nature is so strong and so beautifully balanced. So easy to damage when, with careless hands her children grasp at her skirts, taking anything that claims their attention and desire… yet strong enough to recover when we are no more.
In the little wood where we walk, the small dog and I, man has left his traces. From the earliest times track and road have passed this way, from the air the circled mark of ancient homes can be seen in the fields, the line of a roman road, lost now to plough and furrow. Still we carve this little patch of green to serve our needs. Yet as soon as we turn our back the wild things cover our tracks, reclaiming the earth for themselves, our little lives more fragile than their delicate blooms.
In towns and cities sites that were once hives of industry fall silent as technology moves on and we are proud of our advances, not noticing the quiet crown of plant and sapling our forgotten edifices wear, the gentle but inexorable hand of nature taking back her own as soon as we depart.
The seasons of the earth are echoed too within our own lives… we are part of the cycle, our bodies dance to the same natal song of the seasons. Life springs from death, death from life in an endless round.
The cadence is echoed within us as we laugh for joy beneath the sun of summer and weep in grief when winter touches our hearts. In the dark days we too may feel as if leaf and branch are being stripped from us, battered by the winds of change and the storms of emotion. Yet like the trees only the damaged and broken falls from us… the green heart is strong and holds the pattern of renewal within itself.
As the wheel turns it is easy to become lost in the dark days, feeling a verdant spring to be too far to reach, fearing in the shadows that it will not come. Perhaps, like the trees, we too are then husbanding our strength, withdrawing within where growth and renewal can work their magic unseen, ready to blossom at the first touch of the sun.
Tomorrow is Solstice and the world, still with the worst of winter yet to come, turns, almost unseen, towards summer. We know this, yet the winter is still to be endured. The days will lengthen, the light will be bright on days covered in snow, ice is yet to break open the cracked stones this year, and we will huddle by our hearths as if there is no warmth in the world, forgetting that we have passed the nadir and the eternal dance of the seasons carries us onwards towards a brighter dawn.
When we are lost in grief, gripped by the cold of fear, it is hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel, hard to believe that we have passed the worst point when we see a dark road still looming ahead. Yet this is the rhythm of life itself, as if the earth holds us in the reassuring and loving embrace of a mother and shows us that not all is lost in winter, it merely endures the frost while within, nourished by the fallen leaves that were stripped away by the storms and the turning year, the green life springs anew.
It was dark when the doglet and I went out, dark still when we returned, for it is Solstice tomorrow, the longest night. But the moon lit the village and touched the rooftops with silver. Branches are down in the lane and few are the leaves that still cling tenaciously to the trees, most stripped away by the vicious fingers of a winter gale.
There is such strength in the grasp of leaf to twig, both so fragile they can be plucked and broken by a child, yet the bond of life so strong it can withstand the most inclement weather. Until it is time for them to fall.
Even when the leaves fall it is part of a greater renewal, the confetti of the marriage of the seasons, nourishing the earth and the tree from whence they fell. The tree sleeps through the winter, seemingly lifeless, husbanding its resources against the coming of spring. Beneath the skeletal surface of this dying time the life within shapes new leaves and blossoms, waiting in pregnant patience for the warm kiss of the sun.
Leaves fall, branches break… the old and sere stripped away by the turning wheel of the year, clearing the way for a green birth.
There is so much laid out before us, even in the avenues of our city streets. The life of nature is so strong and so beautifully balanced. So easy to damage when, with careless hands her children grasp at her skirts, taking anything that claims their attention and desire… yet strong enough to recover when we are no more.
In the little wood where we walk, the small dog and I, man has left his traces. From the earliest times track and road have passed this way, from the air the circled mark of ancient homes can be seen in the fields, the line of a roman road, lost now to plough and furrow. Still we carve this little patch of green to serve our needs. Yet as soon as we turn our back the wild things cover our tracks, reclaiming the earth for themselves, our little lives more fragile than their delicate blooms.
In towns and cities sites that were once hives of industry fall silent as technology moves on and we are proud of our advances, not noticing the quiet crown of plant and sapling our forgotten edifices wear, the gentle but inexorable hand of nature taking back her own as soon as we depart.
The seasons of the earth are echoed too within our own lives… we are part of the cycle, our bodies dance to the same natal song of the seasons. Life springs from death, death from life in an endless round.
The cadence is echoed within us as we laugh for joy beneath the sun of summer and weep in grief when winter touches our hearts. In the dark days we too may feel as if leaf and branch are being stripped from us, battered by the winds of change and the storms of emotion. Yet like the trees only the damaged and broken falls from us… the green heart is strong and holds the pattern of renewal within itself.
As the wheel turns it is easy to become lost in the dark days, feeling a verdant spring to be too far to reach, fearing in the shadows that it will not come. Perhaps, like the trees, we too are then husbanding our strength, withdrawing within where growth and renewal can work their magic unseen, ready to blossom at the first touch of the sun.
Tomorrow is Solstice and the world, still with the worst of winter yet to come, turns, almost unseen, towards summer. We know this, yet the winter is still to be endured. The days will lengthen, the light will be bright on days covered in snow, ice is yet to break open the cracked stones this year, and we will huddle by our hearths as if there is no warmth in the world, forgetting that we have passed the nadir and the eternal dance of the seasons carries us onwards towards a brighter dawn.
When we are lost in grief, gripped by the cold of fear, it is hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel, hard to believe that we have passed the worst point when we see a dark road still looming ahead. Yet this is the rhythm of life itself, as if the earth holds us in the reassuring and loving embrace of a mother and shows us that not all is lost in winter, it merely endures the frost while within, nourished by the fallen leaves that were stripped away by the storms and the turning year, the green life springs anew.
Inside story
It is Christmas morning. For those of the Christian faith it is the moment that celebrates the birth of Jesus, a fragile babe who grew to change the world. Whether or not we accept that story as literal truth, it is symbolic of one that has wound itself through our human lives, casting its light into our hearts.
Many cultures have told of the birth of a Child: Horus, Krishna, Mithras, Mabon, Zoroaster…. There are these and many other threads to this tapestry. Their stories differ in detail, but a common strand runs through them and it is golden. These are the Divine Sons, the Children of Light who illuminate a path we might tread.
Many are now consigned to mythology by the modern mind that dismisses the miraculous or magical. Few now would accept the story of a Child who sprang fully formed from the rock on this day, whose worshippers came together in a communion of bread and wine. Yet Mithraism was widespread in the world of Rome, and the symbol of the unconquered Sun still persists.
Zoroaster was born laughing, a glow about him… Horus was the Hawk of the Sun… the theme of Light pervades the faith of the races of Man. Religions have risen and faded over millennia, but faith remains ever fresh and constant in the heart of those who seek the Light, regardless of the Name it bears in our tongue, the symbols we use or the stories we have woven.
We have, throughout our history, followed with love and faith the path of the Lightbringers of our age and our belief has changed our lives. Religions, those organised bodies of doctrine, have not always changed the world for the better, but the quiet, personal faith that carries us through the days and nights of our lives, upholding us and comforting us through the dark times, giving joy in the brighter days.. this is a different thing… a personal, intimate thing, a relationship between the heart of man and the Divine. Religious institutions, like any other, may be rife with politics and intolerance, in spite of their message of love. But the flame that burns in each individual heart owes allegiance only to the Source of that Light.
Whatever path we choose to tread, whichever way our hearts are called, it is belief… faith… that shapes us. Even those who profess no faith in the One, by any Name, are shaped by whatever belief their heart holds in Its place. For myself it is simple; all life, all creation is part of the great and multifaceted jewel that is the One. And I believe that we can find the Light of the One within the world, within ourselves and in each other.
The familiar Christmas story is a beautiful one, of a carpenter and his wife far from home, a babe born in a stable and cradled in a manger while a Star lights the way. There are many ways we can understand the tale, from simple acceptance to the deeply symbolic. Imagine that stable… animals and the warm smell of hay, a very earthy, humble place, very much of this world. Yet from this simple beginning a story unfolded… a Light was born… that guides millions of lives still today.
Within our ordinary lives we too many feel far from Home, the humble things of earth occupy our hands and minds while the heart seeks a star to guide it. Yet within the frames of our lives we are carrying that star… that spark of Divine Light… and this is what shines for us in those silent moments of turning within. Seeing it we find our own bright birth in the earthy place we live. We do not have to seek far and wide, like the Magi, nor wait for angelic hosts to point the way.
“….And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Luke 17:20-21 (King James Version)
Many cultures have told of the birth of a Child: Horus, Krishna, Mithras, Mabon, Zoroaster…. There are these and many other threads to this tapestry. Their stories differ in detail, but a common strand runs through them and it is golden. These are the Divine Sons, the Children of Light who illuminate a path we might tread.
Many are now consigned to mythology by the modern mind that dismisses the miraculous or magical. Few now would accept the story of a Child who sprang fully formed from the rock on this day, whose worshippers came together in a communion of bread and wine. Yet Mithraism was widespread in the world of Rome, and the symbol of the unconquered Sun still persists.
Zoroaster was born laughing, a glow about him… Horus was the Hawk of the Sun… the theme of Light pervades the faith of the races of Man. Religions have risen and faded over millennia, but faith remains ever fresh and constant in the heart of those who seek the Light, regardless of the Name it bears in our tongue, the symbols we use or the stories we have woven.
We have, throughout our history, followed with love and faith the path of the Lightbringers of our age and our belief has changed our lives. Religions, those organised bodies of doctrine, have not always changed the world for the better, but the quiet, personal faith that carries us through the days and nights of our lives, upholding us and comforting us through the dark times, giving joy in the brighter days.. this is a different thing… a personal, intimate thing, a relationship between the heart of man and the Divine. Religious institutions, like any other, may be rife with politics and intolerance, in spite of their message of love. But the flame that burns in each individual heart owes allegiance only to the Source of that Light.
Whatever path we choose to tread, whichever way our hearts are called, it is belief… faith… that shapes us. Even those who profess no faith in the One, by any Name, are shaped by whatever belief their heart holds in Its place. For myself it is simple; all life, all creation is part of the great and multifaceted jewel that is the One. And I believe that we can find the Light of the One within the world, within ourselves and in each other.
The familiar Christmas story is a beautiful one, of a carpenter and his wife far from home, a babe born in a stable and cradled in a manger while a Star lights the way. There are many ways we can understand the tale, from simple acceptance to the deeply symbolic. Imagine that stable… animals and the warm smell of hay, a very earthy, humble place, very much of this world. Yet from this simple beginning a story unfolded… a Light was born… that guides millions of lives still today.
Within our ordinary lives we too many feel far from Home, the humble things of earth occupy our hands and minds while the heart seeks a star to guide it. Yet within the frames of our lives we are carrying that star… that spark of Divine Light… and this is what shines for us in those silent moments of turning within. Seeing it we find our own bright birth in the earthy place we live. We do not have to seek far and wide, like the Magi, nor wait for angelic hosts to point the way.
“….And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Luke 17:20-21 (King James Version)
A simple gift
“…But what would you like for Christmas?”
It is always a difficult thing to decide what to give sons who are grown with lives they have filled with things you no longer know, especially on a tight budget. As children you are aware of their needs as well as their changing tastes, as men they have huge chunks of life you are no longer intimately acquainted with. You may know the ‘bigger’ needs and dreams, but that doesn’t mean you can still provide them in the way you did when they were small. Or can you?
“A home-cooked Christmas dinner. It’s all I want.” Well… that one was easy to provide… and a joy, as it meant I got Christmas with my eldest son. It was one of those invisible gifts for me too… I love cooking, love feeding people…and it was good to set a pretty table with glass and candles and a shared meal. There is something magical in that.
His gift to me was also magical… a moment of adventure earlier in the month, his awe at the landscape I was able to share with him in the northern hills that I love. Then Christmas morning out together taking photographs in a sunny world.
My younger son has been adopted into his partner’s delightful family … he was made for the big, close family we do not have and he has blossomed in that warmth. He was made for the kind of celebration that spans the generations in laughter and it is a joy for me to see that. Yet he and his Laura are always on my doorstep on Christmas Day and that is a gift in itself.
They came, as always, bearing gifts… the cosiest slippers and something special they had made themselves… a miniature bottle of their ‘Christmas pudding vodka’ and handmade chocolates, beautifully done with ribbons and a gift tag Laura had embroidered herself.
I remember vividly the years of making hand dipped chocolates, decorating boxes and painting cards as a young wife. I often wondered back then if people were just being polite in their thanks. To have someone do that for me now tells me they were not… for what you are being given here is time, love and care and that is priceless.
The other gifts I was given show the same loving thought… and it is that intangible gift that truly matters. The warm fleece that shows a very practical care that arrives with the little luxuries a friend knows you would not buy for yourself… a sparkling bit of beauty… the gifted words of books specially chosen… messages that are gifts of time and thought; the knowledge that you are held in the heart and mind of those far away.
These are symbols of a deeper gift. Warmth and friendship, care and kindness cannot be wrapped and tagged. They are the true gifts behind the presents, and all are faces of a simple gift that cannot be bought, cannot be held and which can wear many faces … and one. What is truly given is a priceless gift we can all afford … the gift of Love.
And today I am a rich woman.
It is always a difficult thing to decide what to give sons who are grown with lives they have filled with things you no longer know, especially on a tight budget. As children you are aware of their needs as well as their changing tastes, as men they have huge chunks of life you are no longer intimately acquainted with. You may know the ‘bigger’ needs and dreams, but that doesn’t mean you can still provide them in the way you did when they were small. Or can you?
“A home-cooked Christmas dinner. It’s all I want.” Well… that one was easy to provide… and a joy, as it meant I got Christmas with my eldest son. It was one of those invisible gifts for me too… I love cooking, love feeding people…and it was good to set a pretty table with glass and candles and a shared meal. There is something magical in that.
His gift to me was also magical… a moment of adventure earlier in the month, his awe at the landscape I was able to share with him in the northern hills that I love. Then Christmas morning out together taking photographs in a sunny world.
My younger son has been adopted into his partner’s delightful family … he was made for the big, close family we do not have and he has blossomed in that warmth. He was made for the kind of celebration that spans the generations in laughter and it is a joy for me to see that. Yet he and his Laura are always on my doorstep on Christmas Day and that is a gift in itself.
They came, as always, bearing gifts… the cosiest slippers and something special they had made themselves… a miniature bottle of their ‘Christmas pudding vodka’ and handmade chocolates, beautifully done with ribbons and a gift tag Laura had embroidered herself.
I remember vividly the years of making hand dipped chocolates, decorating boxes and painting cards as a young wife. I often wondered back then if people were just being polite in their thanks. To have someone do that for me now tells me they were not… for what you are being given here is time, love and care and that is priceless.
The other gifts I was given show the same loving thought… and it is that intangible gift that truly matters. The warm fleece that shows a very practical care that arrives with the little luxuries a friend knows you would not buy for yourself… a sparkling bit of beauty… the gifted words of books specially chosen… messages that are gifts of time and thought; the knowledge that you are held in the heart and mind of those far away.
These are symbols of a deeper gift. Warmth and friendship, care and kindness cannot be wrapped and tagged. They are the true gifts behind the presents, and all are faces of a simple gift that cannot be bought, cannot be held and which can wear many faces … and one. What is truly given is a priceless gift we can all afford … the gift of Love.
And today I am a rich woman.
To greet the dawn
After a couple of hours snoozing while I work on the guided journeys for the School, a soggy tennis ball begins to appear on my lap with alarming regularity. This inevitably signals the approach of dawn and time for a walk. Ani has her methods and this one is particularly effective. She eats while I dress and as the first hint of light creeps into the cold, starlit sky we leave the house.
Breathing like dragons, twin plumes of steam in the frosty air we hit the grass running… she is always eager to be out and those first few minutes she has the horsepower of a Jaguar. The grass seems to snap and crunch beneath my feet, though Ani runs light as the wind across the icy green.
As we reach the entrance to the first field it is apparent there will be no mud today…everything is frozen solid. The ground, for so long a morass, feels unfamiliar underfoot and the air is crisp and white. I unleash the whirlwind and any hopes I might have of a decent photograph of Ani in her element are dashed as she disappears into the edge of vision, black against the shadows.
She keeps an eye on me, just to make sure I am there… but she will roam as far as sight allows, chasing mistwraiths and rousing sleepy pheasants. I try to keep moving, it is bitterly cold this morning, yet incredibly beautiful. The clarity of the star-filled night has given way to a lucent morning. Beauty stops me in my tracks, frozen fingers forgotten in the silent, silvery world.
I have the camera today, as it isn’t raining. It is impossible to capture the shifting luminescence, the sky, vivid as the black opals I love, cycling through every conceivable shade, changing moment by moment. It is times like this when I wish I was a photographer, understanding more of the technical side… yet would I want to waste this moment fiddling with settings? No…probably not… it is a moment to live in, not look at.
We walk on, through the woods and farm, climbing the hill I forget is a hill… tamed fields and hedgerows seem to chain its wild heart, domesticated earth, in bondage to need, something of its essence buried deep beneath the imposed furrows of its surface. I feel a kinship with this place as the sun kisses the horizon… Our surface chained to the needs of the world, yet the veneer is thin and the true heart is alive, beating with the cadence of a passionate freedom bound by necessity to a form not its own.
The clouds glide across the silken sky, taking the form of a boat… the Sun Boat of Ra, called Millions of Years. Some fragment of me sits there and sails the dawn with the gods. A flash of dark speed dives into the undergrowth and startles a hawk from its place in the trees. The heavy beat of its wings sounds loud in the stillness, then it is in flight, its keening call filling the silence, marrying heaven and earth somehow, as the flame of morning is reflected in the heart of the ice. It is entirely appropriate this morning.
There is a nameless yearning within me, poised on the cusp of grief and joy in the perfection of the morning. A gladness that I am alive, now, able to live this moment, savour it, feel it in every fibre of my being. Sadness that this, as all moments, must pass into memory. I do not want to go back to the cold, empty house and the daily struggle for survival… the gypsy in my soul craves a couch beneath the stars, yet life and responsibility do not permit all dreams to come into being in the way we choose and the passing of every moment is part of living. The yearning will remain, twin poles of emotion that hold me poised at their heart. There will be another dawn.
Breathing like dragons, twin plumes of steam in the frosty air we hit the grass running… she is always eager to be out and those first few minutes she has the horsepower of a Jaguar. The grass seems to snap and crunch beneath my feet, though Ani runs light as the wind across the icy green.
As we reach the entrance to the first field it is apparent there will be no mud today…everything is frozen solid. The ground, for so long a morass, feels unfamiliar underfoot and the air is crisp and white. I unleash the whirlwind and any hopes I might have of a decent photograph of Ani in her element are dashed as she disappears into the edge of vision, black against the shadows.
She keeps an eye on me, just to make sure I am there… but she will roam as far as sight allows, chasing mistwraiths and rousing sleepy pheasants. I try to keep moving, it is bitterly cold this morning, yet incredibly beautiful. The clarity of the star-filled night has given way to a lucent morning. Beauty stops me in my tracks, frozen fingers forgotten in the silent, silvery world.
I have the camera today, as it isn’t raining. It is impossible to capture the shifting luminescence, the sky, vivid as the black opals I love, cycling through every conceivable shade, changing moment by moment. It is times like this when I wish I was a photographer, understanding more of the technical side… yet would I want to waste this moment fiddling with settings? No…probably not… it is a moment to live in, not look at.
We walk on, through the woods and farm, climbing the hill I forget is a hill… tamed fields and hedgerows seem to chain its wild heart, domesticated earth, in bondage to need, something of its essence buried deep beneath the imposed furrows of its surface. I feel a kinship with this place as the sun kisses the horizon… Our surface chained to the needs of the world, yet the veneer is thin and the true heart is alive, beating with the cadence of a passionate freedom bound by necessity to a form not its own.
The clouds glide across the silken sky, taking the form of a boat… the Sun Boat of Ra, called Millions of Years. Some fragment of me sits there and sails the dawn with the gods. A flash of dark speed dives into the undergrowth and startles a hawk from its place in the trees. The heavy beat of its wings sounds loud in the stillness, then it is in flight, its keening call filling the silence, marrying heaven and earth somehow, as the flame of morning is reflected in the heart of the ice. It is entirely appropriate this morning.
There is a nameless yearning within me, poised on the cusp of grief and joy in the perfection of the morning. A gladness that I am alive, now, able to live this moment, savour it, feel it in every fibre of my being. Sadness that this, as all moments, must pass into memory. I do not want to go back to the cold, empty house and the daily struggle for survival… the gypsy in my soul craves a couch beneath the stars, yet life and responsibility do not permit all dreams to come into being in the way we choose and the passing of every moment is part of living. The yearning will remain, twin poles of emotion that hold me poised at their heart. There will be another dawn.
Spreading wings
The hill was a verdant emerald rising into a sapphire sky that sparkled with motes of light… so high and clear. My companion walked behind, following at a far more sedate pace as I ran headlong to the summit, an uncompromising, absolute joy within that seemed to inundate every fibre of being. The white path led me higher and higher until I could see the curvature or the earth and felt I could reach out my arms and embrace the whole world and gather it to my breast…
My dreams have been vivid of late. They always are… but even more so than usual, with the clarity and reality I knew as a child. I recall the flying dreams with the rollercoaster feeling in the stomach… I cannot have been more than eight years old and every night I would soar. Far too young to have any knowledge or interest in aerodynamics, lift or thrust, I can yet remember the minute adjustments needed to stay in the air and direct my flight. I seem to remember them in my flesh… even though it was just a dream. I can feel even now the memory of physical sensation as my body swooped and banked through the air, learning to ride the wind, seeking the air-currents and updraughts, like a small fish playing in water, darting and diving through sunbeams. It was sheer joy. Every night as I closed my eyes I would wait for that first moment of flight with happy anticipation.
It felt utterly real… the sensation of rise and fall in the gut, the air on my face, the wind in my hair. So real that my waking self would stand on my bed beneath the window, certain I would not fall but would fly if I launched myself from there… yet knowing also that it was supposed to be impossible. Wasn’t it? There was always that doubt in the mind, even though the body felt it knew just what to do.
So real was the experience for that young mind that it was, in those moments by the window, impossible to distinguish dream from reality. It was as if I was perfectly poised between two realities, each equally valid by their own rules and in their own world… which I believe they are. Yet I was in neither… I was apart from both, a third reality, if you will, where I was subject to neither of the others but could see and judge with yet another part of me what fragment of experience should fit where.
I had always been aware of the existence of that higher part of being that we call the soul, the essence… and many other names. It was simply something I grew up with, that awareness, especially in my family! Yet this was the first time I remember feeling conscious of its reality. Not because I could see or feel it specifically, but the observation of the two realities by the third… and the fact that on yet another level I was somehow ‘seeing’ that observer… So what was seeing it? And was anything watching that? And where did ‘I’ end and Something Else begin? This seemed to ‘click’ and I understood somehow in a way for which I am still not sure I have words.
To the eight year old mind that was something of a revelation. To us now, as adults, it is an illustration of infinite regress, a concept we spoke of at the first of the Silent Eye’s Glastonbury talks. Yet it wasn’t until I woke from dreaming this morning that I made that connection. One of the inner ‘observers’ finds that highly amusing, that the conscious mind should take the best part of half a century to really realise a gift given so young.
However that is often the way of things and we are adept at accepting what we know and believe, filing them in the cabinet of facts by which we live and not revisiting them with the added experience and understanding of years. As we grow and learn our store of facts expands, but we seldom take out the old ones and update them. We can, indeed, get very protective of them and refuse to even consider we may have misunderstood or been plainly wrong through lack of a salient piece of information.
Over the past few years as I have examined more and more the entrenched beliefs I have clung to, I have found myself being obliged to discard and update many of them. I have also revisited many ideas I discarded as facile when I was much younger, realising that with the knowledge and experience I can now bring to them, they are richer by far that I imagined when I first dismissed them. The past 11 months’ adventures with Stuart and the books have made me re-evaluate many things, while the School has seen me set aside the framework of over forty years and begin to look at the essence of those beliefs from a different angle.
Yet when two years ago, a friend who had walked a similar path told me he had spent half a life building the inner Tree and the rest steadily dismantling it, I was surprised and recoiled from the very idea… now I know what he meant.
The ideas we cling to limit us. We do not seek beyond their bounds… why would we if they satisfy us? They are our beliefs and they ‘work’ for us. Yet once we step across those self-imposed boundaries, prepared to risk seeing what might lie beyond, a whole world of possibility seems to open before us. It is worth a thought. Who knows… some part of us may even learn to fly.
My dreams have been vivid of late. They always are… but even more so than usual, with the clarity and reality I knew as a child. I recall the flying dreams with the rollercoaster feeling in the stomach… I cannot have been more than eight years old and every night I would soar. Far too young to have any knowledge or interest in aerodynamics, lift or thrust, I can yet remember the minute adjustments needed to stay in the air and direct my flight. I seem to remember them in my flesh… even though it was just a dream. I can feel even now the memory of physical sensation as my body swooped and banked through the air, learning to ride the wind, seeking the air-currents and updraughts, like a small fish playing in water, darting and diving through sunbeams. It was sheer joy. Every night as I closed my eyes I would wait for that first moment of flight with happy anticipation.
It felt utterly real… the sensation of rise and fall in the gut, the air on my face, the wind in my hair. So real that my waking self would stand on my bed beneath the window, certain I would not fall but would fly if I launched myself from there… yet knowing also that it was supposed to be impossible. Wasn’t it? There was always that doubt in the mind, even though the body felt it knew just what to do.
So real was the experience for that young mind that it was, in those moments by the window, impossible to distinguish dream from reality. It was as if I was perfectly poised between two realities, each equally valid by their own rules and in their own world… which I believe they are. Yet I was in neither… I was apart from both, a third reality, if you will, where I was subject to neither of the others but could see and judge with yet another part of me what fragment of experience should fit where.
I had always been aware of the existence of that higher part of being that we call the soul, the essence… and many other names. It was simply something I grew up with, that awareness, especially in my family! Yet this was the first time I remember feeling conscious of its reality. Not because I could see or feel it specifically, but the observation of the two realities by the third… and the fact that on yet another level I was somehow ‘seeing’ that observer… So what was seeing it? And was anything watching that? And where did ‘I’ end and Something Else begin? This seemed to ‘click’ and I understood somehow in a way for which I am still not sure I have words.
To the eight year old mind that was something of a revelation. To us now, as adults, it is an illustration of infinite regress, a concept we spoke of at the first of the Silent Eye’s Glastonbury talks. Yet it wasn’t until I woke from dreaming this morning that I made that connection. One of the inner ‘observers’ finds that highly amusing, that the conscious mind should take the best part of half a century to really realise a gift given so young.
However that is often the way of things and we are adept at accepting what we know and believe, filing them in the cabinet of facts by which we live and not revisiting them with the added experience and understanding of years. As we grow and learn our store of facts expands, but we seldom take out the old ones and update them. We can, indeed, get very protective of them and refuse to even consider we may have misunderstood or been plainly wrong through lack of a salient piece of information.
Over the past few years as I have examined more and more the entrenched beliefs I have clung to, I have found myself being obliged to discard and update many of them. I have also revisited many ideas I discarded as facile when I was much younger, realising that with the knowledge and experience I can now bring to them, they are richer by far that I imagined when I first dismissed them. The past 11 months’ adventures with Stuart and the books have made me re-evaluate many things, while the School has seen me set aside the framework of over forty years and begin to look at the essence of those beliefs from a different angle.
Yet when two years ago, a friend who had walked a similar path told me he had spent half a life building the inner Tree and the rest steadily dismantling it, I was surprised and recoiled from the very idea… now I know what he meant.
The ideas we cling to limit us. We do not seek beyond their bounds… why would we if they satisfy us? They are our beliefs and they ‘work’ for us. Yet once we step across those self-imposed boundaries, prepared to risk seeing what might lie beyond, a whole world of possibility seems to open before us. It is worth a thought. Who knows… some part of us may even learn to fly.
