Sue Vincent's Blog: Echoes of Life, page 1054
September 27, 2013
Cabbage
When I was small and faced with a plate piled with the over-boiled cabbage I detested, my grandmother told me to eat it first… get rid of it… so I could enjoy the rest of the meal… and to save my favourite bits till last. Like many of the things she told me, I never forgot that advice. She was right too, that means there is always something to look forward to… even when life gives you cabbage.
Which works out quite nicely, as I saved the best bits of my last trip northwards until today… and it does my heart good just to look at the images this morning.
It was a strange night, last night. I, who generally burn the proverbial midnight oil, was forced to bed at an unreasonably early hour frozen and rather unwell. I spent the night drifting in and out of strange dreams. Of course there were the inevitable reflections of my current preoccupation and I was editing and formatting in my sleep… sad, isn’t it? The rest of the night I was being taught.
It is quite odd, I had a conversation yesterday about the relevance of dreams. Most of the time they are, I think, simply the mind processing events and playing out emotions and worries symbolically, yet every so often there is one that has a deeper meaning. I lay there between the worlds last night, not quite able to surface enough to reach for the pen yet awake enough to know I wasn’t quite asleep. I watched and listened and learned. I remember being asked if I would remember the dream… and assuring my interlocutor that I would… and, of course, once fully awake I can recall only fragments of it on the surface, though I have no doubt that at some level it is all sinking in..
I don’t think it matters where this kind of dream comes from… and there are many theories, of course from the purely psychological to the rather more fanciful and even the deeply spiritual. What matters is the relevance and accuracy of the content and whether it makes a difference. Reading back over the page of scrawled notes from waking, I am pretty certain that they will.. and if that is merely the subconscious ordering and presenting its thoughts, then I’m fine with that. We have a tendency to seek outside explanations for many things, and sometimes the wisdom is already there within, just waiting for us to draw it to the surface.
I have a feeling that we generally know the answers to the things that truly matter to us, even though we may attempt to fool ourselves into ignorance… because we don’t want to see, or cannot face the truth. We may feel we go along with things in a selfless spirit, or feel we are victims of circumstance… yet even this may not be entirely true. Even when events themselves are outside our control, we still have a choice in how we act and the motives behind our actions are often left unexamined through fear of what we may find. Yet after all, most of the things that preoccupy us seem very small when placed against the backdrop of the wider world.
Looking at the pictures of the fabulous landscape I walked in just a few days ago, this is borne home in a profound way. We are the centre of our own universes, seeing everything in terms of how it touches or affects us. Individually we are very small and of little seeming importance. Most of us will never make a visible impression on the wider stage of the world. Yet we are each of us unique and part of a greater world in a very intimate way. Beautiful, magnificent though it is, we cannot even guarantee it exists except through our observation of it. In that respect we are of ultimate importance and we owe it to ourselves and the world to look out with clear eyes and heart. Even when life serves you cabbage.
Which works out quite nicely, as I saved the best bits of my last trip northwards until today… and it does my heart good just to look at the images this morning.
It was a strange night, last night. I, who generally burn the proverbial midnight oil, was forced to bed at an unreasonably early hour frozen and rather unwell. I spent the night drifting in and out of strange dreams. Of course there were the inevitable reflections of my current preoccupation and I was editing and formatting in my sleep… sad, isn’t it? The rest of the night I was being taught.
It is quite odd, I had a conversation yesterday about the relevance of dreams. Most of the time they are, I think, simply the mind processing events and playing out emotions and worries symbolically, yet every so often there is one that has a deeper meaning. I lay there between the worlds last night, not quite able to surface enough to reach for the pen yet awake enough to know I wasn’t quite asleep. I watched and listened and learned. I remember being asked if I would remember the dream… and assuring my interlocutor that I would… and, of course, once fully awake I can recall only fragments of it on the surface, though I have no doubt that at some level it is all sinking in..
I don’t think it matters where this kind of dream comes from… and there are many theories, of course from the purely psychological to the rather more fanciful and even the deeply spiritual. What matters is the relevance and accuracy of the content and whether it makes a difference. Reading back over the page of scrawled notes from waking, I am pretty certain that they will.. and if that is merely the subconscious ordering and presenting its thoughts, then I’m fine with that. We have a tendency to seek outside explanations for many things, and sometimes the wisdom is already there within, just waiting for us to draw it to the surface.
I have a feeling that we generally know the answers to the things that truly matter to us, even though we may attempt to fool ourselves into ignorance… because we don’t want to see, or cannot face the truth. We may feel we go along with things in a selfless spirit, or feel we are victims of circumstance… yet even this may not be entirely true. Even when events themselves are outside our control, we still have a choice in how we act and the motives behind our actions are often left unexamined through fear of what we may find. Yet after all, most of the things that preoccupy us seem very small when placed against the backdrop of the wider world.
Looking at the pictures of the fabulous landscape I walked in just a few days ago, this is borne home in a profound way. We are the centre of our own universes, seeing everything in terms of how it touches or affects us. Individually we are very small and of little seeming importance. Most of us will never make a visible impression on the wider stage of the world. Yet we are each of us unique and part of a greater world in a very intimate way. Beautiful, magnificent though it is, we cannot even guarantee it exists except through our observation of it. In that respect we are of ultimate importance and we owe it to ourselves and the world to look out with clear eyes and heart. Even when life serves you cabbage.
September 24, 2013
Killing time
I drove back from the north cross-country yesterday as usual, avoiding the motorway rush hour and revelling in the landscape. About half past eight the roads were pretty awful as I approached the end of the hills. I had taken a wrong turn and thought, ‘Oh well’… it was as good a road as any other. I’m not really sure there is more than one road… just many tributaries like a river, all flowing into one. So I carried on.
As the traffic built I had a choice… sit in a queue of metal boxes… or investigate that little brown rad sign that said ‘Roman Site’…. No contest really. I’m a sucker for little brown heritage signs….
So I turn the car right and find myself on a section of Watling Street… one of the old Roman Roads that still criss-cross the country. I live on the course of another of them… where Akeman Street once ran.
A small crossroads and a section of unmistakable Roman masonry in a farm wall….salvaged from the ruins in the far distant past. I had no idea what to expect… no idea what was supposed to be there… no idea, even, if at that time of morning the site would be manned, open, accessible... or worth visiting at all.
I drove through the tiny village named, appropriately enough, Wall, and found a little carpark next to the village library. I approve of this library… it is spectacular. And tiny. The old red telephone box has been shelved and left open for anyone to borrow books from its confines. Opening the door felt quite surreal… as if Terry Pratchett’s L-space ought to be in full manifestation within its miniature halls.
Walking through the silent, mist shrouded village I found the remains of the Roman baths of Letocetum in a sheltered field of impossibly green grass. The early morning mist lent a strange, unearthly feel to the place and it was easy to slip beyond time and see the walls high and colourful, crowded with people, children running and laughing in the sunshine…
The first Roman camp here dates back around two thousand years, though the town… one of the most important in the land, it seems, grew up much later… and the land had been settled before. These quiet moments stretch the tapestry of human history at our feet and invite us to walk through its rich colour and imagery, seeing ourselves reflected both backward and forward in time as if time no longer holds sway.
Above the baths stands a tiny church on a site where it is thought a temple to Minerva may once have stood. It was a perfect vantage point to see the whole site and the landscape around, so of course I wandered up there, scattering partridges with my intrusion. The church was open, early though it was, and revealed some beautiful stained glass windows… only a couple of hundred years old… mere babes in that greater tapestry... yet telling stories that reach back even further, beyond recorded history.
I had stopped to ‘kill time’ as the saying goes, and it felt rather like that was true… as if our concept of time were some imaginary monster that could be slain with the point of attention… yet nebulous and fragile…moulding itself to our need to measure our journey through it, yet ceasing to exist the moment we look at it directly…a ghostly shadow vanishing under scrutiny.
These moments outside of time are a beautiful antidote to the incessant ticking of the clock and the mirror that dances with our wrinkles to its rhythm.
As the traffic built I had a choice… sit in a queue of metal boxes… or investigate that little brown rad sign that said ‘Roman Site’…. No contest really. I’m a sucker for little brown heritage signs….
So I turn the car right and find myself on a section of Watling Street… one of the old Roman Roads that still criss-cross the country. I live on the course of another of them… where Akeman Street once ran.
A small crossroads and a section of unmistakable Roman masonry in a farm wall….salvaged from the ruins in the far distant past. I had no idea what to expect… no idea what was supposed to be there… no idea, even, if at that time of morning the site would be manned, open, accessible... or worth visiting at all.
I drove through the tiny village named, appropriately enough, Wall, and found a little carpark next to the village library. I approve of this library… it is spectacular. And tiny. The old red telephone box has been shelved and left open for anyone to borrow books from its confines. Opening the door felt quite surreal… as if Terry Pratchett’s L-space ought to be in full manifestation within its miniature halls.
Walking through the silent, mist shrouded village I found the remains of the Roman baths of Letocetum in a sheltered field of impossibly green grass. The early morning mist lent a strange, unearthly feel to the place and it was easy to slip beyond time and see the walls high and colourful, crowded with people, children running and laughing in the sunshine…
The first Roman camp here dates back around two thousand years, though the town… one of the most important in the land, it seems, grew up much later… and the land had been settled before. These quiet moments stretch the tapestry of human history at our feet and invite us to walk through its rich colour and imagery, seeing ourselves reflected both backward and forward in time as if time no longer holds sway.
Above the baths stands a tiny church on a site where it is thought a temple to Minerva may once have stood. It was a perfect vantage point to see the whole site and the landscape around, so of course I wandered up there, scattering partridges with my intrusion. The church was open, early though it was, and revealed some beautiful stained glass windows… only a couple of hundred years old… mere babes in that greater tapestry... yet telling stories that reach back even further, beyond recorded history.
I had stopped to ‘kill time’ as the saying goes, and it felt rather like that was true… as if our concept of time were some imaginary monster that could be slain with the point of attention… yet nebulous and fragile…moulding itself to our need to measure our journey through it, yet ceasing to exist the moment we look at it directly…a ghostly shadow vanishing under scrutiny.
These moments outside of time are a beautiful antidote to the incessant ticking of the clock and the mirror that dances with our wrinkles to its rhythm.
September 23, 2013
Sleepy bees and a joyous goat
The weekend started early… Wednesday afternoon to be precise. I had headed northwards, allowing extra time for the inevitable motorway delays that never happened, so I found myself within 15 minutes of my city destination with an hour or two to spare.
And there was a crossroads….
I knew what lay behind me and what lay ahead…. Left looked like a good option…I couldn’t see very much but that was because the road ran uphill. In that region, I need no further encouragement. Pulling over into a field gate, hoping to get a shot of a little bridge, I found instead a sleepy bee nestled in a terrestrial sun, and a sky that took my breath away.
And still the road headed upwards…and I inevitably followed. I was surprised to find a car-park in the middle of nowhere, it seemed. There had to be a reason for it, so I swung the car in, grabbed the camera and set out to explore. Up a few steps, along a wooded path by a field… then the way opened onto glory and sunlight on stone and heather.
Camera flare? Did I care? Laughing into the wind, a “joyous little goat, leaping on the crags”, as one dear friend put it… She’s right too. About the joyousness… the Pennines get me every time.
I don’t know what it is, whether it is the geology, limestone and millstone grit, the shape of the valleys and crags, the great boulder-strewn hillsides… Maybe it is the colours of the vegetation or the way the clouds come down to play… or something in the air…the quality of the light…
Maybe we are simply attuned to the landscape of home…
It lifts my heart and makes my soul sing, no matter how hard things are, no matter how much I hurt, no matter, even, how happy I am… all other emotion is brushed aside by that surging joy when I stand beneath that sky on those hills.
Over the weekend we were to be blessed with glorious weather and I was to play amongst the stones and the heather, discovering otherworldly landscapes… but I didn’t know that then… all I knew was that moment and that joy.
When the time comes to leave again, as it did early this morning, and I turn southwards for home there is a physical pang of separation as I leave the hills behind. This morning was no exception and the wrench brings tears, every time.
Yet I was treated to the beauty of a dawn over the magical landscape of Albion, before plunging below the mists into a grey and ghostly world. As I drove through the lower lands and cars joined mine on the roads it struck me that they, waking from sleep and setting out on their day’s journey, had not yet seen the sun. They did not know how beautiful it was above the clouds they saw as fog. But I had seen... I had been gifted a privileged glimpse of its delicate beauty.
The sun was already there, is always there, but sometimes, as now, invisible, hidden. Within that colourless landscape another dawn waited, distant and luminous. Just waiting for the right moment, the right conditions… the right landscape in which to reveal itself. I marvelled at the way that nature mirrors our own lives, all unnoticed most of the time, yet of course it would… we are not separate from nature but part of it… part of the fauna of this beautiful planet and the world around us has so much to teach us if we but look.
Like the bees, chilled by the cooler autumnal air and asleep, seemingly unaware, in the middle of beautiful flowers, we sink into slumber, forgetting the sun’s light simply because it is unseen. In the same way we seem to forget the simple, unfettered joys when the cold mists of worry and the pressures of the mundane world cloud our vision. Joy, too, is always there… a possibility, unseen perhaps… but not unknowable. Sometimes we just have to find the right road….
And there was a crossroads….
I knew what lay behind me and what lay ahead…. Left looked like a good option…I couldn’t see very much but that was because the road ran uphill. In that region, I need no further encouragement. Pulling over into a field gate, hoping to get a shot of a little bridge, I found instead a sleepy bee nestled in a terrestrial sun, and a sky that took my breath away.
And still the road headed upwards…and I inevitably followed. I was surprised to find a car-park in the middle of nowhere, it seemed. There had to be a reason for it, so I swung the car in, grabbed the camera and set out to explore. Up a few steps, along a wooded path by a field… then the way opened onto glory and sunlight on stone and heather.
Camera flare? Did I care? Laughing into the wind, a “joyous little goat, leaping on the crags”, as one dear friend put it… She’s right too. About the joyousness… the Pennines get me every time.
I don’t know what it is, whether it is the geology, limestone and millstone grit, the shape of the valleys and crags, the great boulder-strewn hillsides… Maybe it is the colours of the vegetation or the way the clouds come down to play… or something in the air…the quality of the light…
Maybe we are simply attuned to the landscape of home…
It lifts my heart and makes my soul sing, no matter how hard things are, no matter how much I hurt, no matter, even, how happy I am… all other emotion is brushed aside by that surging joy when I stand beneath that sky on those hills.
Over the weekend we were to be blessed with glorious weather and I was to play amongst the stones and the heather, discovering otherworldly landscapes… but I didn’t know that then… all I knew was that moment and that joy.
When the time comes to leave again, as it did early this morning, and I turn southwards for home there is a physical pang of separation as I leave the hills behind. This morning was no exception and the wrench brings tears, every time.
Yet I was treated to the beauty of a dawn over the magical landscape of Albion, before plunging below the mists into a grey and ghostly world. As I drove through the lower lands and cars joined mine on the roads it struck me that they, waking from sleep and setting out on their day’s journey, had not yet seen the sun. They did not know how beautiful it was above the clouds they saw as fog. But I had seen... I had been gifted a privileged glimpse of its delicate beauty.
The sun was already there, is always there, but sometimes, as now, invisible, hidden. Within that colourless landscape another dawn waited, distant and luminous. Just waiting for the right moment, the right conditions… the right landscape in which to reveal itself. I marvelled at the way that nature mirrors our own lives, all unnoticed most of the time, yet of course it would… we are not separate from nature but part of it… part of the fauna of this beautiful planet and the world around us has so much to teach us if we but look.
Like the bees, chilled by the cooler autumnal air and asleep, seemingly unaware, in the middle of beautiful flowers, we sink into slumber, forgetting the sun’s light simply because it is unseen. In the same way we seem to forget the simple, unfettered joys when the cold mists of worry and the pressures of the mundane world cloud our vision. Joy, too, is always there… a possibility, unseen perhaps… but not unknowable. Sometimes we just have to find the right road….
September 10, 2013
Sword of Destiny - New release
When I was a child I tramped the moors of Yorkshire with my mother, my grandfather and my great-grandfather. I listened to them weave the tales that brought the landscape to life. Tales of boggarts and barguests,sleeping giants and the Old Ones who walk between the worlds.
They spoke, especially my great-grandparents, with the rich dialect that is being lost, as are many of the old tales. I started writing a story, weaving the legends and the landscape I love into an adventure, preserving them for other eyes to discover in imagination. I called it Sword of Destiny.
I had only the vaguest idea of the plot when I began, but the characters took on a life of their own and it seemed all I had to do was listen as the story unfolded…..
” “Where’s that dratted brother of mine when you need him? We could use a nudge from Heilyn right now!” The old man stomped off and sat down on a large stone, muttering under his breath.
Alec turned away from the lake to scan the horizon, searching for clues. The tarn nestled between the Raydale hills. There were a few ruined buildings, small clumps of trees, but nothing stood out as a landmark. A flash of white caught his eye, the only movement in the silent landscape. He watched in a desultory manner as a pretty white mare pawed the ground and shook her mane, while his mind searched for answers. Timidly the young mare came closer. Slowly, but surely she approached the party. Sabrina was at his elbow, watching entranced.
“She’s the symbol of Epona, isn’t she? The Horse Goddess in the Celtic myths.”
“Of course. I never thought of that, I was miles away.” Alec glanced at the blade in his hand. Sabrina laughed quietly.
“See, I told you I’d come in handy!” The young woman motioned to Jamie who came to stand beside her. The white mare was very close now. “Alec look… she’s not all there!” Jamie uncharacteristically bit back the retort that sprang to his lips, it seemed not the time for teasing. He followed her gaze and saw what she meant. “Look, you can see the hills through her flanks.”
“Good Lord!” The exclamation drew all eyes to watch the final approach of the translucent, transcendent creature. Solid she seemed, white as carved ice reflecting rainbows of light. Gently she nuzzled Jamie and bent her foreleg before him, inviting the young man to mount. Jamie met the peat brown eyes of his mentor.
“Go on, lad. She’s waiting for you.”
Jamie took one deep breath and mounted, burying his hands in the snowy mane. The mare threw back her head, meeting the gaze of the companions, and then walked towards the lake. Stepping into the shallows her hooves seemed to melt away as the water lapped around them. Jamie took one last look behind him then set his face towards the centre of the lake as the deep water took them and he disappeared from sight.
Many things touched the calm acceptance that had suffused Jamie as he rode towards his destiny, but none broke through the barrier of conscious thought. He existed only in the moment, pure emotion incarnate. He felt detached, outside of reality and at peace with the rightness of his fate. As the waters closed over his head he did not fight.
On the bank, Alec held his sister as she watched, shocked to the heart, as Jamie sank into the depths. Merlin looked out across the water, searching with inner sight to see what was to come, but he could not pass the barrier of the shifting waters. All he could see was blood. From the deep, cold centre of the lake, a great bell tolled.”
Rhea Marchant heads north to the wild and beautiful landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales where she is plunged into an adventure that will span the worlds. The earth beneath her feet reveals its hidden life as she and her companions are guided by the ancient Keeper of Light in search of artefacts of arcane power. With the aid of the Old Ones and the merry immortal Heilyn, the company seek the elemental weapons that will help restore hope to an unbalanced world at the dawn of a new era.
Set in the ancient beauty of the Yorkshire Dales, Sword of Destiny weaves the tale of a small band of friends brought together as a new age of Man unfolds. Through their personal quests, through friendship, love and laughter, they learn to see the world with a clearer vision as they battle creatures of ancient myth and legend, under the aegis of the Keeper.
Sword of Destiny by Sue Vincent
They spoke, especially my great-grandparents, with the rich dialect that is being lost, as are many of the old tales. I started writing a story, weaving the legends and the landscape I love into an adventure, preserving them for other eyes to discover in imagination. I called it Sword of Destiny.
I had only the vaguest idea of the plot when I began, but the characters took on a life of their own and it seemed all I had to do was listen as the story unfolded…..
” “Where’s that dratted brother of mine when you need him? We could use a nudge from Heilyn right now!” The old man stomped off and sat down on a large stone, muttering under his breath.
Alec turned away from the lake to scan the horizon, searching for clues. The tarn nestled between the Raydale hills. There were a few ruined buildings, small clumps of trees, but nothing stood out as a landmark. A flash of white caught his eye, the only movement in the silent landscape. He watched in a desultory manner as a pretty white mare pawed the ground and shook her mane, while his mind searched for answers. Timidly the young mare came closer. Slowly, but surely she approached the party. Sabrina was at his elbow, watching entranced.
“She’s the symbol of Epona, isn’t she? The Horse Goddess in the Celtic myths.”
“Of course. I never thought of that, I was miles away.” Alec glanced at the blade in his hand. Sabrina laughed quietly.
“See, I told you I’d come in handy!” The young woman motioned to Jamie who came to stand beside her. The white mare was very close now. “Alec look… she’s not all there!” Jamie uncharacteristically bit back the retort that sprang to his lips, it seemed not the time for teasing. He followed her gaze and saw what she meant. “Look, you can see the hills through her flanks.”
“Good Lord!” The exclamation drew all eyes to watch the final approach of the translucent, transcendent creature. Solid she seemed, white as carved ice reflecting rainbows of light. Gently she nuzzled Jamie and bent her foreleg before him, inviting the young man to mount. Jamie met the peat brown eyes of his mentor.
“Go on, lad. She’s waiting for you.”
Jamie took one deep breath and mounted, burying his hands in the snowy mane. The mare threw back her head, meeting the gaze of the companions, and then walked towards the lake. Stepping into the shallows her hooves seemed to melt away as the water lapped around them. Jamie took one last look behind him then set his face towards the centre of the lake as the deep water took them and he disappeared from sight.
Many things touched the calm acceptance that had suffused Jamie as he rode towards his destiny, but none broke through the barrier of conscious thought. He existed only in the moment, pure emotion incarnate. He felt detached, outside of reality and at peace with the rightness of his fate. As the waters closed over his head he did not fight.
On the bank, Alec held his sister as she watched, shocked to the heart, as Jamie sank into the depths. Merlin looked out across the water, searching with inner sight to see what was to come, but he could not pass the barrier of the shifting waters. All he could see was blood. From the deep, cold centre of the lake, a great bell tolled.”
Rhea Marchant heads north to the wild and beautiful landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales where she is plunged into an adventure that will span the worlds. The earth beneath her feet reveals its hidden life as she and her companions are guided by the ancient Keeper of Light in search of artefacts of arcane power. With the aid of the Old Ones and the merry immortal Heilyn, the company seek the elemental weapons that will help restore hope to an unbalanced world at the dawn of a new era.
Set in the ancient beauty of the Yorkshire Dales, Sword of Destiny weaves the tale of a small band of friends brought together as a new age of Man unfolds. Through their personal quests, through friendship, love and laughter, they learn to see the world with a clearer vision as they battle creatures of ancient myth and legend, under the aegis of the Keeper.
Sword of Destiny by Sue Vincent
August 31, 2013
Fragments of Light
“…as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star.” Revelation 2:27-29
I was talking with my son about the way life works out. The daily round of events and occurrences great and small that seem to be scattered, like pieces of broken glass, across the table of time. Some events hit your life with all the destructive power of a truck at full speed. Caught in the emotions of the moment it is hard to see beyond the pain, the fear, or the grief. Some are joyous rays of light casting bright pools of colour in the shadows. Most are the simple small-doings of everyday.
Taken individually, like pieces of a puzzle, they can be difficult to interpret… a patch of featureless blue or indistinct green may be hard to place within the image… especially if you don’t know what the picture is to begin with. Yet with a little patience the pieces can begin to fit together. A detail here, a match there, and you begin to see the sense in the colours, to get an inkling of what the picture may be.
I am reminded of this when I am wandering round the old churches with their beautiful stained glass. Look too closely and they are just fragments of colour, odd shapes and sizes with little meaning. Stand back a little and the picture becomes clear. You can see how the seemingly random shards have been pieced together by a master hand to produce a glowing jewel of an image.
Some windows are simple; easy to read, as the images are those we readily recognise from life. A face, a form, a creature or landscape. Others are abstract and require closer attention and more thought before the design becomes clear.
In some places I see where fragments of glass have been salvaged from the destruction of history. There is no knowing what the original image may have been, yet the shards have been lovingly collected and fashioned into something new… different from the original design, but having a beauty all of its own when the light shines through.
All the fragments have their place. We may not always see the bigger picture to know where they are supposed to fit, especially when we are concentrating too closely on the details. They may seem as though they will never make sense, or even as if they do not fit our design at all. Sometimes it seems things need to be broken apart so, as a friend put it, the light can shine through. Even the most glorious window, after all, is colourless in the dark. It is only with the light that the beauty becomes visible. The fragments of glass may make the picture, but only the light behind it gives it life.
Our own lives are so much like these fragmentary shards, a jumble of bright and dark as we immerse ourselves in them, dwelling on the details and getting so close we have no hope of seeing what the picture holds. If we stand back a little we may get a better idea, seeing the traced design running through our days.
When you are lost in the events it is hard to make sense of them, but looking back you can sometimes see how all the pieces, light and dark, have their place and time, taking on a rhythm and a purpose, building up the picture that is our own becoming.
I was talking with my son about the way life works out. The daily round of events and occurrences great and small that seem to be scattered, like pieces of broken glass, across the table of time. Some events hit your life with all the destructive power of a truck at full speed. Caught in the emotions of the moment it is hard to see beyond the pain, the fear, or the grief. Some are joyous rays of light casting bright pools of colour in the shadows. Most are the simple small-doings of everyday.
Taken individually, like pieces of a puzzle, they can be difficult to interpret… a patch of featureless blue or indistinct green may be hard to place within the image… especially if you don’t know what the picture is to begin with. Yet with a little patience the pieces can begin to fit together. A detail here, a match there, and you begin to see the sense in the colours, to get an inkling of what the picture may be.
I am reminded of this when I am wandering round the old churches with their beautiful stained glass. Look too closely and they are just fragments of colour, odd shapes and sizes with little meaning. Stand back a little and the picture becomes clear. You can see how the seemingly random shards have been pieced together by a master hand to produce a glowing jewel of an image.
Some windows are simple; easy to read, as the images are those we readily recognise from life. A face, a form, a creature or landscape. Others are abstract and require closer attention and more thought before the design becomes clear.
In some places I see where fragments of glass have been salvaged from the destruction of history. There is no knowing what the original image may have been, yet the shards have been lovingly collected and fashioned into something new… different from the original design, but having a beauty all of its own when the light shines through.
All the fragments have their place. We may not always see the bigger picture to know where they are supposed to fit, especially when we are concentrating too closely on the details. They may seem as though they will never make sense, or even as if they do not fit our design at all. Sometimes it seems things need to be broken apart so, as a friend put it, the light can shine through. Even the most glorious window, after all, is colourless in the dark. It is only with the light that the beauty becomes visible. The fragments of glass may make the picture, but only the light behind it gives it life.
Our own lives are so much like these fragmentary shards, a jumble of bright and dark as we immerse ourselves in them, dwelling on the details and getting so close we have no hope of seeing what the picture holds. If we stand back a little we may get a better idea, seeing the traced design running through our days.
When you are lost in the events it is hard to make sense of them, but looking back you can sometimes see how all the pieces, light and dark, have their place and time, taking on a rhythm and a purpose, building up the picture that is our own becoming.
August 30, 2013
The sheep from the goats
So far I have spent most of the week playing catch-up after my long weekend while Ani has been playing catch with anything she can thrust in my hand to throw... and there have been some odd moves on that score! She loves being with her friends while I am away, but generally penalises me for my absence, as if she is keeping a secret tally. I scored points for picking her up with pig’s ears in the car and for my clothes smelling of strange creatures and landscapes, but inevitably lost them for not having taken her with me. But in all honesty, the idea of Ani loose in a county full of unpenned sheep, chickens and occasional llamas is just not feasible…
I came downstairs to mayhem this morning … the sofa denuded of all cushions, her bed dismembered and her toys across the room… I assume there was a fly or a spider or something… she just grinned, pleased with herself. She sees it as simply doing her chosen duty, regardless of the element of fun involved.
Me, I’m rather jealous of her apparent freedom to act without constraint. Of course we ‘had words’ about the sofa… there are rules and she knows she has to acknowledge them, even if she chooses to break them. She knows, too, which ones she can break with impunity, which invite mild censure and which she really, really cannot break without consequences. Not always the obvious ones either. She learned early on, for instance, that any attempt on books and shoes would get the true shock/horror tone that makes her slink off into a corner with her ears down… whereas the kidnapping of, say, my lunch would invite something that sounded similar but actually didn’t go anywhere near as deep and was generally shadowed by laughter.
Some would see her as badly trained and disobedient. To me she is a laughing free-spirit, who knows what must not be done in order to live peaceably in her environment and knows, too, where the boundaries lie between necessity and choice.
…Which I suppose is pretty much the same for all of us.
To live within a society means following its rules. Yet we can be like the proverbial sheep and follow them slavishly, conforming to expected ideas and behaviours, or we can use a little common sense and learn which ones are necessities and which are open to choice or interpretation. Don’t misunderstand me, I like sheep….yet if you have ever watched a collie at work you will know how easy it is to engage the herd mind and manoeuvre them, using, of all things, a dog that is trained absolutely to care for their wellbeing… and the sheep respond as if through fear, yet seemingly without it, conditioned simply to react.
The basic rules of any society are designed to protect the wellbeing of the populace… and these we follow for very good reason. Yet we have so many superficial ‘rules’ that regulate not only our behaviour but our self- confidence and our perceptions of each other and ourselves. Most of the time they are so deeply ingrained we don’t even notice them, but we feel their effects and sleepwalk through their consequences, blind to what we are allowing ourselves to do to ourselves.
Does it really matter if we don’t know which fork to use at a dinner table? A simple example, perhaps, yet the fear and sense of inferiority that brings to some people are very real. The minute we set foot outside our own safe pasture the unfamiliar territory can make our confidence drop and our perception of self suffers at the raised eyebrow of a society lost in its own constraints. Were we simply observing from a distance, we would see how little importance these apparent ‘rules’ have, yet caught within their mesh we can suffer. To choose politeness and dance to the local tune is one thing, to allow it to rob you of your own song is a different matter.
Yet we do it all the time with thoughts and actions, not because we choose or even because we can see a reason, but simply because we have not taken a moment to look… and judge ourselves often as lacking in comparison to the mirrored perception of others, wanting to see ourselves ‘as good as’ others.
It isn’t whether or not we fit the accepted mould that matters… but why. Whenever we bow down unthinking we are submitting to the herd mind and both abrogating the responsibility of our individuality and failing to celebrate our own uniqueness.
To rebel just for the sake of it is equally a conforming... an acceptance of the importance of the ‘rules’, even while admitting their fallibility. To dare to be different because we are, that is a different story. Why should we even have to ‘dare’? We are ourselves... each of us…utterly and absolutely unique… and that should be enough.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a talk with my dog….
I came downstairs to mayhem this morning … the sofa denuded of all cushions, her bed dismembered and her toys across the room… I assume there was a fly or a spider or something… she just grinned, pleased with herself. She sees it as simply doing her chosen duty, regardless of the element of fun involved.
Me, I’m rather jealous of her apparent freedom to act without constraint. Of course we ‘had words’ about the sofa… there are rules and she knows she has to acknowledge them, even if she chooses to break them. She knows, too, which ones she can break with impunity, which invite mild censure and which she really, really cannot break without consequences. Not always the obvious ones either. She learned early on, for instance, that any attempt on books and shoes would get the true shock/horror tone that makes her slink off into a corner with her ears down… whereas the kidnapping of, say, my lunch would invite something that sounded similar but actually didn’t go anywhere near as deep and was generally shadowed by laughter.
Some would see her as badly trained and disobedient. To me she is a laughing free-spirit, who knows what must not be done in order to live peaceably in her environment and knows, too, where the boundaries lie between necessity and choice.
…Which I suppose is pretty much the same for all of us.
To live within a society means following its rules. Yet we can be like the proverbial sheep and follow them slavishly, conforming to expected ideas and behaviours, or we can use a little common sense and learn which ones are necessities and which are open to choice or interpretation. Don’t misunderstand me, I like sheep….yet if you have ever watched a collie at work you will know how easy it is to engage the herd mind and manoeuvre them, using, of all things, a dog that is trained absolutely to care for their wellbeing… and the sheep respond as if through fear, yet seemingly without it, conditioned simply to react.
The basic rules of any society are designed to protect the wellbeing of the populace… and these we follow for very good reason. Yet we have so many superficial ‘rules’ that regulate not only our behaviour but our self- confidence and our perceptions of each other and ourselves. Most of the time they are so deeply ingrained we don’t even notice them, but we feel their effects and sleepwalk through their consequences, blind to what we are allowing ourselves to do to ourselves.
Does it really matter if we don’t know which fork to use at a dinner table? A simple example, perhaps, yet the fear and sense of inferiority that brings to some people are very real. The minute we set foot outside our own safe pasture the unfamiliar territory can make our confidence drop and our perception of self suffers at the raised eyebrow of a society lost in its own constraints. Were we simply observing from a distance, we would see how little importance these apparent ‘rules’ have, yet caught within their mesh we can suffer. To choose politeness and dance to the local tune is one thing, to allow it to rob you of your own song is a different matter.
Yet we do it all the time with thoughts and actions, not because we choose or even because we can see a reason, but simply because we have not taken a moment to look… and judge ourselves often as lacking in comparison to the mirrored perception of others, wanting to see ourselves ‘as good as’ others.
It isn’t whether or not we fit the accepted mould that matters… but why. Whenever we bow down unthinking we are submitting to the herd mind and both abrogating the responsibility of our individuality and failing to celebrate our own uniqueness.
To rebel just for the sake of it is equally a conforming... an acceptance of the importance of the ‘rules’, even while admitting their fallibility. To dare to be different because we are, that is a different story. Why should we even have to ‘dare’? We are ourselves... each of us…utterly and absolutely unique… and that should be enough.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a talk with my dog….
July 9, 2013
No time at all
What colour is the sky?
I watched the sun go down tonight from the roadside. For once, the camera had not come with me… I was just driving to the shop and didn’t pick it up, so all I had was the cell phone. Even so.
I cursed myself for leaving the camera as I saw the huge, golden orb shot with crimson reflected in the rear view mirror. Too late to turn and go back, the sun would have gone by then… but maybe, just maybe, I would be home in time…
No. Halfway home it was evident I wouldn’t make it, so, camera or not, I pulled over to watch the setting glory of a perfect summer’s day.
It took only a couple of minutes for the last of the blue to fade through a rainbow of colour to a molten sky, aflame against the silhouetted trees. Almost as if the sky was clothed in the colours of the School…I couldn’t help but smile.
It was the speed of those final moments, though, that struck me. In the space of just a few heartbeats dusk became sunset and night swallowed the earth. The change came with incredible swiftness and was complete.
It made me think how fast our little planet is spinning, unnoticed by we who live and breathe her air. Hurtling through space around the sun at around 70,000 miles an hour, rotating on its own axis at around a thousand miles an hour at the equator… and we are so habituated to that movement we never notice. Yet, we get motion sickness in a vehicle….
Our eyes and brains process light that hits a speed of 670 million mph…and we don’t bat an eyelid at that constant miracle. Our field of vision seems infinite… even I, short-sighted as I am, think nothing of glancing up to say hello to Orion, capturing in my gaze light which left the nebula nearly 1350 years and nine trillion miles ago to meet my eyes tonight. Some of the stars I see no longer even exist!
Yet I have trouble getting to grips with the fact that my son is calling me from ‘the future’ when he phones me from Singapore….
Odd, isn’t it?
We live our lives against the backdrop of an enormity of time, yet it often seems that all we know can change in a heartbeat. A single moment, a scintilla of time, and life can be transformed, becoming unrecognisable, both for better or for worse. It can be a small thing that changes a mood, moving a day from sadness to joy, or it can be the bigger events that upheave a lifetime.
Just like the movement of the earth, we often don’t even notice how these changes begin. Or even at all. Sometimes we think we can trace them back to a particular and pivotal event, if we look… but it is hard, if not impossible, to untangle the skein of a lifetime, and the further you try and trace an event’s beginning back to its roots, the more apparent it becomes that you cannot do so, for each event is dependent in some way upon the ones that preceded it and brought you to that point in time.
We cannot alter past events and the future is unscripted… which leaves us with now, this moment, this scintilla of time, in which to change our worlds. And we do so. All the time. And don’t even notice.
I deliberately took time to pull over and watch the sunset tonight. It is something that happens every day, something that has happened over my head 20,023 times since I was born and which I seldom consciously take time to watch. I have to ask myself how many of those days of my life I have missed, simply by taking them for granted and not drinking in each moment in full awareness of the possibilities they hold, not living with a passion.
Tonight the sky was a rainbow veil that turned to a sea of molten gold. I never want to take that for granted again.
I watched the sun go down tonight from the roadside. For once, the camera had not come with me… I was just driving to the shop and didn’t pick it up, so all I had was the cell phone. Even so.
I cursed myself for leaving the camera as I saw the huge, golden orb shot with crimson reflected in the rear view mirror. Too late to turn and go back, the sun would have gone by then… but maybe, just maybe, I would be home in time…
No. Halfway home it was evident I wouldn’t make it, so, camera or not, I pulled over to watch the setting glory of a perfect summer’s day.
It took only a couple of minutes for the last of the blue to fade through a rainbow of colour to a molten sky, aflame against the silhouetted trees. Almost as if the sky was clothed in the colours of the School…I couldn’t help but smile.
It was the speed of those final moments, though, that struck me. In the space of just a few heartbeats dusk became sunset and night swallowed the earth. The change came with incredible swiftness and was complete.
It made me think how fast our little planet is spinning, unnoticed by we who live and breathe her air. Hurtling through space around the sun at around 70,000 miles an hour, rotating on its own axis at around a thousand miles an hour at the equator… and we are so habituated to that movement we never notice. Yet, we get motion sickness in a vehicle….
Our eyes and brains process light that hits a speed of 670 million mph…and we don’t bat an eyelid at that constant miracle. Our field of vision seems infinite… even I, short-sighted as I am, think nothing of glancing up to say hello to Orion, capturing in my gaze light which left the nebula nearly 1350 years and nine trillion miles ago to meet my eyes tonight. Some of the stars I see no longer even exist!
Yet I have trouble getting to grips with the fact that my son is calling me from ‘the future’ when he phones me from Singapore….
Odd, isn’t it?
We live our lives against the backdrop of an enormity of time, yet it often seems that all we know can change in a heartbeat. A single moment, a scintilla of time, and life can be transformed, becoming unrecognisable, both for better or for worse. It can be a small thing that changes a mood, moving a day from sadness to joy, or it can be the bigger events that upheave a lifetime.
Just like the movement of the earth, we often don’t even notice how these changes begin. Or even at all. Sometimes we think we can trace them back to a particular and pivotal event, if we look… but it is hard, if not impossible, to untangle the skein of a lifetime, and the further you try and trace an event’s beginning back to its roots, the more apparent it becomes that you cannot do so, for each event is dependent in some way upon the ones that preceded it and brought you to that point in time.
We cannot alter past events and the future is unscripted… which leaves us with now, this moment, this scintilla of time, in which to change our worlds. And we do so. All the time. And don’t even notice.
I deliberately took time to pull over and watch the sunset tonight. It is something that happens every day, something that has happened over my head 20,023 times since I was born and which I seldom consciously take time to watch. I have to ask myself how many of those days of my life I have missed, simply by taking them for granted and not drinking in each moment in full awareness of the possibilities they hold, not living with a passion.
Tonight the sky was a rainbow veil that turned to a sea of molten gold. I never want to take that for granted again.
July 1, 2013
The artichoke heart
When I was growing up in Yorkshire, all those years ago, there were many things one read about in cookbooks but did not find in the local greengrocer’s shop. I was 25, living in France and pregnant when I met my first globe artichoke. I had seen the tinned ones, of course, artificially preserved and nothing like these fresh ones. My husband brought them home from market, and I recall wondering at the time how on earth one cooked them and, looking at the huge and scaly thistle buds, why anyone would choose to do so.
My husband, an excellent cook himself, took pity on my ignorance, explaining that young buds could be eaten whole, but the bigger, older ones took a bit more work. He prepared them in his favourite fashion… boiled till tender and served with a whipped vinaigrette. He demonstrated how to eat them, pulling off the individual leaves and drawing them through the teeth to get the flesh. Eventually I found the hairy ‘choke’ and wondered what to do next, it looked so unpalatable. But one only has to remove that too in order to get to the heart. The treasures of the artichoke are well hidden.
It was a fiddly, messy business, really, for a vegetable, leaving in its wake a pile of half emptied leaves, a mass of spiny fibres and fingers and napkins covered in oil. But oh it was worth it!
I am feeling a bit like an artichoke. A lot like one, really, as the stripping process that began a year or so ago keeps on pulling away my leaves, getting ever closer to exposing the inner heart of me.
It began with the ‘things’.. the material things I clung to but, actually, did not really need. Then the relationships that in spite of determined efforts went so far downhill they fell off the bottom. It continues, stripping back the veneer of illusion, the cherished masks I have hidden behind, largely from myself. And that is the thing, isn’t it? We wear the masks we want others to see.. but if we were truly happy with who we are there would be no need to project an ‘image’ .. we would simply be ourselves.
Many of us pride ourselves on being just that, but take it from me, there are masks even we ourselves cannot see until they are stripped from us…close as a second skin…. then, like a worrisome scab being peeled away, the relief is palpable.
It has not been a pleasant process, having my leaves pulled off and chewed. And there are layer upon layer of them, going deeper and deeper towards the heart. But then, with each leaf, there comes also the sweet aftertaste and the closer you get to the centre, the more tender they become.
There have been many lessons about attachment, and each time I have thought there was nothing left to lose, I realised there was more, and they were closer still. So close, sometimes, I had not even realised they could be pulled off. Yet, apparently they can, and the bittersweet aftertaste is both more poignant and all the sweeter when the leaf is placed to the side of the plate and the napkin lifted to remove the debris from the Gourmet’s lips.
But this is not a tale of woe! There have been so many positive things in this process, so much joyous change, as if the Diner flirted with the food, brandishing leaves in companionable conversation, or biting with perfect teeth, seductively in the candle-glow. Yet after each bite, another leaf is inevitably emptied, surrendering its treasure to the palate.
I have a feeling we are getting closer to the hairy bits that protect the innermost heart. I remember distinctly what a messy job it was pulling them away, making sure the last traces were removed. I can’t say I am looking forward to having my protective shell pulled apart to expose the inner core. But I suppose it is far better than being sliced in two, which is the other serving option!
Of course, the sole purpose of a lightly boiled artichoke, served with a delicate sauce, is to be a delight for the Diner, giving up its heart as a final treasure. It may not be the easiest of things to eat, the simplest of quests, but it would not be fulfilling its purpose if it fought the Diner tooth and nail, withholding its core at the last.
When the plate is taken back to the kitchen, I hope the Chef can glance at the debris from which all the goodness has been extracted and smile at a dish well-made and thoroughly enjoyed.
My husband, an excellent cook himself, took pity on my ignorance, explaining that young buds could be eaten whole, but the bigger, older ones took a bit more work. He prepared them in his favourite fashion… boiled till tender and served with a whipped vinaigrette. He demonstrated how to eat them, pulling off the individual leaves and drawing them through the teeth to get the flesh. Eventually I found the hairy ‘choke’ and wondered what to do next, it looked so unpalatable. But one only has to remove that too in order to get to the heart. The treasures of the artichoke are well hidden.
It was a fiddly, messy business, really, for a vegetable, leaving in its wake a pile of half emptied leaves, a mass of spiny fibres and fingers and napkins covered in oil. But oh it was worth it!
I am feeling a bit like an artichoke. A lot like one, really, as the stripping process that began a year or so ago keeps on pulling away my leaves, getting ever closer to exposing the inner heart of me.
It began with the ‘things’.. the material things I clung to but, actually, did not really need. Then the relationships that in spite of determined efforts went so far downhill they fell off the bottom. It continues, stripping back the veneer of illusion, the cherished masks I have hidden behind, largely from myself. And that is the thing, isn’t it? We wear the masks we want others to see.. but if we were truly happy with who we are there would be no need to project an ‘image’ .. we would simply be ourselves.
Many of us pride ourselves on being just that, but take it from me, there are masks even we ourselves cannot see until they are stripped from us…close as a second skin…. then, like a worrisome scab being peeled away, the relief is palpable.
It has not been a pleasant process, having my leaves pulled off and chewed. And there are layer upon layer of them, going deeper and deeper towards the heart. But then, with each leaf, there comes also the sweet aftertaste and the closer you get to the centre, the more tender they become.
There have been many lessons about attachment, and each time I have thought there was nothing left to lose, I realised there was more, and they were closer still. So close, sometimes, I had not even realised they could be pulled off. Yet, apparently they can, and the bittersweet aftertaste is both more poignant and all the sweeter when the leaf is placed to the side of the plate and the napkin lifted to remove the debris from the Gourmet’s lips.
But this is not a tale of woe! There have been so many positive things in this process, so much joyous change, as if the Diner flirted with the food, brandishing leaves in companionable conversation, or biting with perfect teeth, seductively in the candle-glow. Yet after each bite, another leaf is inevitably emptied, surrendering its treasure to the palate.
I have a feeling we are getting closer to the hairy bits that protect the innermost heart. I remember distinctly what a messy job it was pulling them away, making sure the last traces were removed. I can’t say I am looking forward to having my protective shell pulled apart to expose the inner core. But I suppose it is far better than being sliced in two, which is the other serving option!
Of course, the sole purpose of a lightly boiled artichoke, served with a delicate sauce, is to be a delight for the Diner, giving up its heart as a final treasure. It may not be the easiest of things to eat, the simplest of quests, but it would not be fulfilling its purpose if it fought the Diner tooth and nail, withholding its core at the last.
When the plate is taken back to the kitchen, I hope the Chef can glance at the debris from which all the goodness has been extracted and smile at a dish well-made and thoroughly enjoyed.
June 14, 2013
Morning Glory
It is 4am and I haven’t slept a wink. I’m not entirely happy about that. It is not as if I haven’t tried. My mind whirrs gently, emotions heightened by a frustrated fatigue. Ani is draped across the sofa snoring softly. For all I would, at this point, much rather be asleep, I love this time of day.
The sun has lit the touchpaper of the horizon and the east is edged in palest gold, the fire of dawn spreading silently over a sleeping land. The first bird just started to sing, Another has joined and the morning chorus has begun. There is a rainwashed freshness in the air and the colour, still absent from the ground, now gilds the sky, shifting the focus upwards.
It is as if the hand of God has opened a window allowing us a brief glimpse of glory, lifting the eyes away from the earth towards a realm higher and clearer than the one in which we move. That small shift in focus alters perception completely and the world becomes a wider place filled with a magical possibility as I watch the sun crest the horizon and see its pale eye with my own.
It seems as if the light steals in over the landscape, illuminating each leaf and branch, so softly it cannot be measured, yet bringing them to a life of living colour moment by moment. As it does so, the focus shifts again, back to earth and the glory of the morning sky is forgotten as attention is drawn to the detail of living, familiar green.
Yet it is still there. The sky is still full of light, the sun still rides the heavens all through the day, so bright it cannot be perceived directly but only by looking at the world it holds in light.
Of course, I see the analogy in this. A daily, unregarded reminder of the way in which our attention is glued to the details of everyday life, while the essence of the soul need only shift the focus to see whence it comes and in what it has its being.
Most mornings I miss the summer dawn, dreaming of other realms while my own awakens unseen around me as I sleep. Missing too this moment of the daily reminder of the beauty of light as it performs its revelation of reality while slumber holds my eyes closed and my mind absent.
It is a brief miracle every day. In the few minutes it has taken to write this the sun has risen, the world is flooded with light and had I just woken I would look at the earth and not the sky, mesmerised by the colours of leaf and flower. To share this moment with the dawn is a gift.
The sun has lit the touchpaper of the horizon and the east is edged in palest gold, the fire of dawn spreading silently over a sleeping land. The first bird just started to sing, Another has joined and the morning chorus has begun. There is a rainwashed freshness in the air and the colour, still absent from the ground, now gilds the sky, shifting the focus upwards.
It is as if the hand of God has opened a window allowing us a brief glimpse of glory, lifting the eyes away from the earth towards a realm higher and clearer than the one in which we move. That small shift in focus alters perception completely and the world becomes a wider place filled with a magical possibility as I watch the sun crest the horizon and see its pale eye with my own.
It seems as if the light steals in over the landscape, illuminating each leaf and branch, so softly it cannot be measured, yet bringing them to a life of living colour moment by moment. As it does so, the focus shifts again, back to earth and the glory of the morning sky is forgotten as attention is drawn to the detail of living, familiar green.
Yet it is still there. The sky is still full of light, the sun still rides the heavens all through the day, so bright it cannot be perceived directly but only by looking at the world it holds in light.
Of course, I see the analogy in this. A daily, unregarded reminder of the way in which our attention is glued to the details of everyday life, while the essence of the soul need only shift the focus to see whence it comes and in what it has its being.
Most mornings I miss the summer dawn, dreaming of other realms while my own awakens unseen around me as I sleep. Missing too this moment of the daily reminder of the beauty of light as it performs its revelation of reality while slumber holds my eyes closed and my mind absent.
It is a brief miracle every day. In the few minutes it has taken to write this the sun has risen, the world is flooded with light and had I just woken I would look at the earth and not the sky, mesmerised by the colours of leaf and flower. To share this moment with the dawn is a gift.
Eating dinosaurs
“Well it has your dinosaurs in.”
“What?” My son lounged on the bed looking perplexed. We were talking about yoghurts.
“Acidophilus.”
“Oh yeah. Well what’s yours then?”
“Bifidus.”
“Not the same beastie then.”
We had established some time ago that his particular strain of yoghurt based bacteria sounded like a dinosaur, whereas the stuff I have been eating thrice daily on my doctor’s recommendation has a less interesting name. Still, I was not about to refuse home-made, mango yoghurt. Even if he was bribing me with it in exchange for socks.
“Still, ‘eating dinosaurs’… not a bad title for a blog. I could illustrate it with a random duck.”
“Everything is a good title for a blog these days! Why a duck?”
“Why not? Birds are the closest thing to dinosaurs we have. I have to at least try and get a respectable post out here!”
“None of your posts are respectable!” The bare toe hovering somewhere in the region of my hand as I lounge across the foot of his bed is squeezed firmly in retaliation thus putting an end to his mirth. “ So, a duck in disguise then.”
“Cheek! I manage to get some serious stuff in my posts!”
“What? And I’ve been reading them and not noticed?” He withdraws the foot from my reach hastily.
“There is usually some spiritual aspect to them, even if it is only suggested.”
“What! You’ve been feeding me nerkism without me even knowing?”
“Sort of in disguise. Like the duck.”
“Closet nerkism! A 007 duck!”
“More of a 00-777.” He looks blank. “666… everyone seems to know it as the number of the Beast from Revelations. “
“I knew that.”
“777 in some systems stands for perfection, the Trinity or the Christ.”
“Hmm….”
It is, I have to say, a good thing that no-one overhears these random conversations between my son and I. Were they ever to go public we would undoubtedly be looked upon askance and our sanity questioned. As it is, we are perfectly safe in the knowledge that no-one will ever notice.
Which is just as well as director of an esoteric school who might, conceivably, be expected to behave sedately and write from a lofty viewpoint.
Personally, I don’t buy that.
Spiritual consciousness is not something different from ordinary life. It is ordinary life.. or it should be. One of my favourite quotes is from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “Nous ne sommes pas des êtres humains vivant une expérience spirituelle, nous sommes des êtres spirituels vivant une expérience humaine.“ This is generally rendered as we are not human beings living a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings living a human experience.
This phrase puts a lot of things in perspective for me, for if we can accept that we are spiritual beings then it renders all aspects of life sacred. Including the laughter and gentle, random lunacy shared with friends.
It means we do not have to strive towards some nebulous distant perfection, we have only to see what lies within each other and in ourselves, to recognise and embrace it and bring it out of the inner shadows and into the world.
We don’t have to duck being human. It is what we are meant to Be.
“What?” My son lounged on the bed looking perplexed. We were talking about yoghurts.
“Acidophilus.”
“Oh yeah. Well what’s yours then?”
“Bifidus.”
“Not the same beastie then.”
We had established some time ago that his particular strain of yoghurt based bacteria sounded like a dinosaur, whereas the stuff I have been eating thrice daily on my doctor’s recommendation has a less interesting name. Still, I was not about to refuse home-made, mango yoghurt. Even if he was bribing me with it in exchange for socks.
“Still, ‘eating dinosaurs’… not a bad title for a blog. I could illustrate it with a random duck.”
“Everything is a good title for a blog these days! Why a duck?”
“Why not? Birds are the closest thing to dinosaurs we have. I have to at least try and get a respectable post out here!”
“None of your posts are respectable!” The bare toe hovering somewhere in the region of my hand as I lounge across the foot of his bed is squeezed firmly in retaliation thus putting an end to his mirth. “ So, a duck in disguise then.”
“Cheek! I manage to get some serious stuff in my posts!”
“What? And I’ve been reading them and not noticed?” He withdraws the foot from my reach hastily.
“There is usually some spiritual aspect to them, even if it is only suggested.”
“What! You’ve been feeding me nerkism without me even knowing?”
“Sort of in disguise. Like the duck.”
“Closet nerkism! A 007 duck!”
“More of a 00-777.” He looks blank. “666… everyone seems to know it as the number of the Beast from Revelations. “
“I knew that.”
“777 in some systems stands for perfection, the Trinity or the Christ.”
“Hmm….”
It is, I have to say, a good thing that no-one overhears these random conversations between my son and I. Were they ever to go public we would undoubtedly be looked upon askance and our sanity questioned. As it is, we are perfectly safe in the knowledge that no-one will ever notice.
Which is just as well as director of an esoteric school who might, conceivably, be expected to behave sedately and write from a lofty viewpoint.
Personally, I don’t buy that.
Spiritual consciousness is not something different from ordinary life. It is ordinary life.. or it should be. One of my favourite quotes is from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “Nous ne sommes pas des êtres humains vivant une expérience spirituelle, nous sommes des êtres spirituels vivant une expérience humaine.“ This is generally rendered as we are not human beings living a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings living a human experience.
This phrase puts a lot of things in perspective for me, for if we can accept that we are spiritual beings then it renders all aspects of life sacred. Including the laughter and gentle, random lunacy shared with friends.
It means we do not have to strive towards some nebulous distant perfection, we have only to see what lies within each other and in ourselves, to recognise and embrace it and bring it out of the inner shadows and into the world.
We don’t have to duck being human. It is what we are meant to Be.
