conversing with paradise

Albedo ... 2011

2011-08-30T14:00:00.000+01:00

Albedo ... 2011

Unfailing Love Endures

2011-08-29T21:53:00.000+01:00

unfailing love endures ... 2011

Startle

2011-08-07T21:44:00.000+01:00

Startle ... 2012

Boo!

2011-08-07T21:41:00.001+01:00

Boo! ... 2011

Inkscape 2

2011-07-12T21:05:00.000+01:00

Inkscape #2 ... 2011

Inkscape

2011-07-12T21:03:00.000+01:00

Inkscape ... 2011

Light

2011-07-02T16:28:00.001+01:00

Light ... 2011

Strawberry Peek-a Boo

2011-05-22T13:44:00.000+01:00

Strawberry Peek-a- Boo
(2011... Collage)

Guardians

2011-05-22T13:37:00.000+01:00

Guardians 2011 (mixed media)

Lucid #4

2011-05-03T17:50:00.000+01:00

Lucid #4

Lucid #3

2011-04-22T15:11:00.000+01:00

Lucid #3

Lucid #2

2011-04-22T15:09:00.001+01:00

Lucid #2

Lucid #1

2011-04-16T15:06:00.001+01:00

Lucid #1

My First Painting this Year

2011-01-03T11:46:00.002+01:00

Skyscape 2011

The White Snow

2010-12-19T15:24:00.003+01:00

Guillaume Apollinaire 1880 - 1919

The angels the angels in the sky

One’s dressed as an officer
One’s dressed as a chef today
And the others sing

Fine sky-coloured officer
Sweet Spring when Christmas is long gone
Will deck you with a lovely sun
A lovely sun

The chef plucks geese
Ah! Snowfalls hiss
Fall and how I miss
My beloved in my arms

La Blanche Neige from Alcools 1913

I shall not live in vain ...

2010-04-09T11:38:00.003+01:00

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain:

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

( Emily Dickinson 1830 -1866)

Dreaming Head

2010-02-16T14:08:00.002+01:00

Dream ... 2010

Presence

2010-01-20T15:26:00.007+01:00

I sing in hymns
to enter the gates
of the Field
of holy apples.
A new table
we prepare for Her,
a lovely candelabrum
sheds its light upon us.
Between right and left
the Bride approaches,
in holy jewels
and festive garments.
Her Husband embraces Her
in Her foundation,
giving Her pleasure,
squeezing out his strength.
Torment and trouble
are ended.
Now there are joyous faces
and spirits and souls.
He gives Her great joy
in twofold measure.
Light shines upon Her
and streams of blessing.
Bridesmen go forth
and prepare the Bride's adornments,
food of various kinds
all manner of fish.
To beget souls
and new spirits
on the thirty-two paths
and three branches.
She has seventy crowns
and the supernal King,
that all may be crowned
in the Holy of Holies.
All the worlds are engraved
and concealed within Her,
but all shine forth
from the "Ancient of Days."
May it be His will
that He dwell among His people,
who take joy for His sake
with sweets and honey.
In the south I set
the hidden candelabrum,
I make room in the north
for the table with the loaves.
With wine in beakers
and boughs of myrtle
to fortify the Betrothed,
to strengthen the weak.
We plait them wreaths
of precious words
for the crowning of the seventy
in fifty gates.
Let the Shekhinah be adorned
by six Sabbath loaves
connected on every side
with the Heavenly Sanctuary.
Weakened and cast out
the impure powers,
the menacing demons
are now in fetters.
(Rabbi Isaac Luria 1534 - 1572)

Mandala

2009-12-28T12:51:00.002+01:00

December Mandala ... 2009

Patrick's Breastplate

2009-12-17T16:48:00.003+01:00

Celtic Mandala #1

Christ be with me,
Christ within me,

Christ behind me,
Christ before me,

Christ beside me,
Christ to win me,

Christ to comfort
and restore me,

Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ in quiet,
Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of
all that love me,

Christ in mouth of
friend and stranger.

St. Patrick, C. 460

Pronoia

2009-11-05T13:04:00.010+01:00

The new revised and expanded version of Pronoia by Rob Breszny is now out.

I loved the first edition of Pronoia, though I must admit I was a bit reluctant to start it as it looked, frankly, New Age, the monstrous love child of Louise Hay (my absolute bete noir) and Pollyanna (who although she is always 'glad, glad, glad' has an endearing quality).

But intrigued, I did read it and found it so refreshing.It lifted my spirits, reminding me of how there is an energy flowing into/from/through the Universe which seeks to create, love, celebrate, empower and transform.

Pronoia, as I understand it, is not about turning away from the dark stuff of pain and injustice but actually facing it exactly as it is, in the full knowledge that I have the power to make a real difference, to be the change I want to see in the world.

It is definitely not to say that suffering is an illusion or unimportant. In fact the exact opposite. It is to engage with it in the full knowledge that the flow of life is on your side. It is engaging with this stuff while focusing upon what is good, joyful, and not valorising despair and cynicism as the truth.

I am minded of the words of George Fox (Founder of the Quakers),written in the seventeenth century describing an 'opening' (vision)he had....

I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness.

Sure there is an ocean of darkness but it is finite whereas the ocean of light and love is infinite and the former is ultimately extinguished by the latter.

In the Alternatives to Violence Project which trains people to engage with and transform violence, one of its principles is Expect the Best. Nothing naive or facile about this powerful tool which has been used in some desperately violent conflicts and their aftermath.

If we are to change the world then let us do it in a spirit of deep care, gratitude and appreciation, from a position of wild humour, ridiculously extravagant generosity and divinely foolish optimism.

Reading Pronoia for me was not just about absorbing ideas but an experience in itself, a fun ride. I look forward to reading this new edition.

Praising

2009-10-28T14:23:00.004+01:00

Praising is what matters! He was summoned for that,

and came to us like the ore from a stone's

silence. His mortal heart presses out
a deathless, inexhaustible wine.

Whenever he feels the god's paradigm grip
his throat, the voice does not die in his mouth.
All becomes vineyard, all becomes grape,
opened on the hills of his sensuous South.

Neither decay in the sepulchre of kings
nor any shadow that has falllen form the gods
can ever detract from his glorious praising.

For he is a herald who is with us always,
holding far into the doors of the dead,
a bowl with ripe fruit worthy of praise.

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Sonnets to Orpheus, I, 7

translated by Stephen Mitchell

Winchester Angel

2009-10-21T14:44:00.006+01:00

Angel in Winchester Cathedral ... October 2009

To someone who recently burned their journals

2009-10-11T12:19:00.007+01:00

'Better by far you should forget and smile
than that you should remember and be sad.'

(Christina Rossetti)

Only a fellow long term journaller (like me) knows what a lot of courage it took to do this. I too have often been tempted to destroy my journals of over over twenty years but just can't bring myself to do it. I don't often reread them...many of them are just too painful to do so....but when I do dip in they can call up the feel of a particular day, the actual memory as though it happened yesterday rather then twenty five years ago. A day in nineteen eighty six when I went to the shop and bought chocolate or a dream I had in ninety two...not only preserved but I suddenly am there again. It is like a kind of virtual reality time machine. This can be a bittersweet experience.

What the prompt of the journal does show is that it is all there still there, still stored in the mind but generally inaccessible, so presumed lost forever. So many of the details are right there just out of reach. And the patterns, the synchronicities and amazing coincidences, the apparently trivial (at the time) events or decisions which led to major changes in direction, changes in my whole life and sometimes the lives of other people.

Even now there is the difficulty of no one else reading them. My husband of four years is welcome to read anything 'before' he came along and the last few years I have moved to keeping it on my laptop and a memory stick (securely hidden away). It isn't that I want to keep things 'secret' as such but the moods of the moment have led to me writing stuff just to vent which would cause him pain and give him a false idea of what our connection really means to me.Though there is lots of joyful affirming stuff in there too.

My journals have been my best friend, counsellor and general life saver through some tough times, a record of triumphs and tragedies, loves lost and found, sublime insights and absurd follishness.

Each day it is as natural for me to write in the journal as clean my teeth.

I am filled with admiration at your action and inspired to rethink whether to keep them. I can see how cathartic and releasing it could be. When I declutter my house or have the yearly trimming of my book collection (again I have only limited space) I certainly feel so much lighter, spacious and free.

Why keep them? I have no idea but something stops me from returning their energy to wherever it came from. The time is not yet.

SONNET XXX (William Shakespeare)

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end.

In the Volume of the Book....

2009-10-01T13:56:00.018+01:00

The Red Book ... Carl Gustav Jung

I have wanted to see this book for the last thirty years. To finally see it published is a huge event for me.Books fascinate me.In Jungian terms maybe I could be said to be enamoured of the Archetype of the Book, the mysterious text which answers all questions.Of course there is no such literal object, for it can only exist in our heart, in fantasy and dream.Maybe the most literal forms for me are the I Ching and the Tarot, both 'books' of great imagination and depth. Not just their actual content as Books of Wisdom but in their physical presence, to be touched and held, stored in special boxes, taken out for meditation, reflection and ritual. I have many versions of both of them. I can never find the 'perfect' one because it does not exist in the physical realm but something in me keeps trying. This book will not 'answer' any of my questions but it is a very special manifestation of the Book Archetype.

All books are variations on the books of wisdom we find in traditional religions, or the books that record our deeds on earth, or the book of our days ... beneath and beyond the facts and information offered in a book lies its mystery, its echo of sacred books, and it is in the hidden resonance that the book finds its enchantment. The heavenly book held so reverently in the hands of angels can be seen in any book, provided you have the eyes for it. (Thomas Moore)

Print

2009-09-06T17:30:00.000+01:00

Print ... 2009

Inward Peace

2009-09-04T12:05:00.002+01:00

Acquire inward peace, and thousands round you will find their salvation.

Seraphim of Sarov ( 1759 - 1833)

Cana

2009-08-25T17:22:00.006+01:00

Cana ... 2009

To die...

2009-08-18T13:58:00.007+01:00

To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

(Walt Whitman)

A few years ago my little cat’s kidneys were failing and she was nearing death. Though she was very weak, hardly able to move, she would make her way outside and find a spot where the soil was bare, not on the grass, lying there very still and quiet, all alone.

A couple of times I brought her back inside thinking she would be more comfortable but she made her way outside. She did not want attention, to be petted or held by me or anyone, neither eating nor drinking, she had turned away from life. Just her and the bare earth, so calm and dignified. The vet said she would have to be euthanised as otherwise, as her kidneys shut down completely, she would come to have seizures and be in pain.

But maybe I could have left her there. She knew what was best. She may not have known in the human sense THAT she was about to die but she knew HOW to die.

That little cat was wise beyond my present wisdom.

In My Heart

2009-08-10T20:45:00.003+01:00

Radiance ... 2009

How is it I can love You
within me,
yet see You from afar?

How is it I embrace You
within myself,
yet see you spread across the heavens?

You know. You alone.
You, who made this mystery,
You who shine
like the sun in my breast,
You who shine
in my material heart,
immaterially.

Symeon the New Theologian (949 - 1032)

Medicine Buddha

2009-07-05T16:01:00.006+01:00

Medicine Buddha ... 2009

May the many sentient beings

who are sick,
quickly be freed from sickness.
And may all the sicknesses of beings
Never arise again.

Presence

2009-05-06T21:30:00.003+01:00

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Road to Daybreak)

The Ultimate Question

2009-05-03T13:24:00.005+01:00

'Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly,

 'I--I hardly know, sir, just at present--at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'

 What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'

 'I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see.'

 'I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.

  'I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very politely, 'for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'

  'It isn't,' said the Caterpillar.

 'Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; 'but when you have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you know--and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll feel it a little queer, won't you?'

  'Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.

  'Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice; 'all I know is, it would feel very queer to ME.'

 'You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously. 'Who are YOU?'

Landscape 2

2009-04-22T12:39:00.001+01:00

Landscape 2 ... 2009

Landscape

2009-04-21T23:07:00.004+01:00

Moon ... Wave ... Tower (2009)

Happy Moon Face

2009-04-15T16:00:00.002+01:00

Happy Moon Face ... 2009

Maundy Thursday

2009-04-11T10:07:00.003+01:00

Between the brown hands of a server-lad

The silver cross was offered to be kissed.

The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad,

And knelt reluctantly, half-prejudiced.

(And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.)

Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had,

(And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.)

Young children came, with eager lips and glad.

(These kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.)

Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte.

Above the crucifix I bent my head:

The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead:

And yet I bowed, yea, kissed - my lips did cling.

(I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.)

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Pamphill Barn

2009-03-31T14:54:00.002+01:00

Barn ... 2009

Vocation

2009-03-31T14:36:00.003+01:00

The vocation for you is one in which your deep gladness and the world's need meet--something that not only makes you happy but that the world needs to have done.

(Frederick Buechner)

Slow Work

2009-03-16T21:39:00.008+01:00

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way

to something unknown, something new.

Yet it is the law of all progress that is made

by passing through some stages of instability

and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually.

Let them grow.

Let them shape themselves without undue haste.

Do not try to force them on

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser.

Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955)

Glyph

2009-03-04T19:08:00.003+01:00

Glyph ... 2009

Celestial

2008-12-27T21:07:00.001+01:00

Celestial ... 2008

Greenrise

2008-12-03T16:26:00.003+01:00

Greenrise ... 2008

Animals

2008-11-30T19:05:00.001+01:00

Animals ... 2008

Dreaming Hand

2008-11-30T19:02:00.004+01:00

Dreaming Hand ... 2008

She Who Hears the Cries of the World

2008-11-21T21:19:00.004+01:00

Kwan Yin ... 2008

Light Now

2008-11-06T20:01:00.001+01:00

Light Now ... 2008

A Bride Married to Amazement

2008-10-11T14:20:00.004+01:00

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

(The beautiful photograph of Mary Oliver is the work of the wonderful photograper Don Shewey.)

The Pure Principle

2008-10-02T17:39:00.006+01:00

Star Rise ... 2008

Quakers have no creeds yet these words say it all for me.

There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath different names; it is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren.

John Woolman, 1762

Window

2008-03-23T03:31:00.002+01:00

Window ... 2008

Vessel

2008-03-22T16:26:00.002+01:00

Vessel ... 2008

Mandala #2

2008-02-28T14:49:00.003+01:00

Mandala #2 ... 2008

Mandala #1

2008-02-27T22:33:00.002+01:00

Mandala #1 ... 2008

Vivienne Goes Far

2008-02-27T19:16:00.004+01:00

Vivienne Goes Far ... 2008

Bird with Stars

2008-02-26T16:00:00.002+01:00

Bird with Stars ... 2008

Prickly Pair

2008-02-25T14:42:00.003+01:00

Prickly Pair ... 2008

Landscape 4

2008-02-25T14:42:00.002+01:00

Landscape 4 ... 2008

Cory

2008-02-09T00:53:00.000+01:00

Cory... 2007

We are two clouds, forenoons and afternoons, driving overhead;
We are seas mingling—we are two of those cheerful waves, rolling over each other, and interwetting each other;
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious:
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness—we are each product and influence of the globe;
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again—we two have;
We have voided all but freedom, and all but our own joy. Walt Whitman ... 1819-1892

Little Owl Face

2008-02-08T16:02:00.001+01:00

Little Owl Face ... 2008

Love Me

2008-02-08T16:02:00.000+01:00

Love Me ... 2008

Ambulatory Vehicle

2008-02-02T19:50:00.001+01:00

Ambulatory Vehicle ... 2008

Door

2008-01-28T12:56:00.001+01:00

Door ... 2008

Little Critter

2008-01-26T13:57:00.001+01:00

Little Critter with Clouds...2008

'Because it was him...'

2007-10-26T20:09:00.000+01:00

In the friendship which I am talking about, souls are mingled and confounded in so universal a blending that they efface the seam which joins them together, so that it cannot be found. If you press me to say why I loved him, I feel that it cannot be expressed except by replying: 'Because it was him: because it was me.' Mediating this union there was, beyond all my reasoning, beyond all that I can say specifically about it, some inexplicable force of destiny.

Essay 28 ... On Affectionate Relationship

Michel de Montaigne

The Shortness of LIfe

2007-10-09T09:35:00.000+01:00

Can anything be sillier than the point of view of certain people—I mean those who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves very busily engaged in order that they may be able to live better; they spend life in making ready to live! They form their purposes with a view to the distant future; yet postponement is the greatest waste of life; it deprives them of each day as it comes, it snatches from them the present by promising something hereafter. The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon the morrow and wastes to-day. You dispose of that which lies in the hands of Fortune, you let go that which lies in your own. Whither do you look? At what goal do you aim? All things that are still to come lie in uncertainty; live straightway!

Seneca the Younger (4BC to AD65)

Kything

2007-06-11T21:01:00.000+01:00

Proginoskes looked at her with two, ringed owl-like eyes.

"You're beginning to learn how to kythe."
"To what?"
"Kythe. It's how cherubim talk. It's talking without words, just the same way that I can be myself and not be enfleshed."
"But I have to be enfleshed and I need words."
"I know Meg," he replied gently, "and I will keep things worded for you. But it will help if you will remember that cherubim kythe without words among each other. For a human creature you show a distinct talent for kything."
Meg blushed slightly at the compliment...

A Wind in the Door (1973) ... Madeleine L'Engle

Hut-Spirit

2007-03-10T14:33:00.000+01:00

Everything seems to have its own spirit. Plants, insects, rocks even the firewood. This hut also has a spirit, a different kind, one that has been nourished by the thoughts of previous hermits. This hut-spirit tends the local mice and the chipmunks. It sets tasks for the human beings who spend their time here. I was moved to, fix a window, and mend other odds and ends. This spirit also has a splendid sense of humor. I like it very much.

David A. C Cooper (Entering the Sacred Mountain)

The Seas of God

2007-02-20T23:49:00.001+01:00

Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!

Walt Whitman ... 1819 - 1892

Threshold

2007-01-10T13:36:00.000+01:00

Threshold ... 2007

Hide and Seek

2006-11-30T16:54:00.000+01:00

Hide and Seek...2006

Abandoned Games, Forgotten Toys

2006-11-30T16:47:00.000+01:00

Abandoned Games, Forgotten Toys...2006

Song of the Seraphim

2006-11-30T16:43:00.000+01:00

Song of the Seraphim...2006

Voyage of the Rose

2006-11-30T16:11:00.000+01:00

Voyage of the Rose...2006

Universal Theatre

2006-11-30T16:07:00.000+01:00

Universal Theatre...2006

Celestial Guardians, Astral Navigation

2006-11-30T16:03:00.000+01:00

Celestial Guardians, Astral Navigation...2006

Betrothal

2006-11-30T15:58:00.000+01:00

The Betrothal of Artemis and Aphrodite...2006

Old Mother Time

2006-10-11T23:46:00.000+01:00

Old Mother Time...2006

Iris

2006-10-11T19:33:00.000+01:00

Iris...2006

The bird was singing brightly within his breast, and Anselm walked by the guard into the gap betwen the golden pillars, into the blue mystery of the interior. He was penetrating into Iris's heart, and it was the blue flag in his mother's garden into whose blue chalice he floated, and as he quickly approached the golden twilight, all memory and knowledge came to him at once. He felt his hand, and it was small and soft. Voices of love sounded nearby and familiar in his ears, and the glistening golden pillars sparkled as they had in the remote past, during the spring of his childhood.

And the dream that he had dreamed as a small boy was also there again, his dream about entering the chalice, and behind him the entire world of pictures came and glided with him and sank into the mystery that lies behind all images.

Anselm began to sing softly, and his path sloped gently down into home.

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)

Secret Toy

2006-10-07T15:12:00.000+01:00

You make unknown the child's sleeping face, his half-open eyes and mouth. Everything in the world is a secret, and the games are still the game of love, the game of hide-and-seek, and the chilly game of solitude. In a secret room in a secret house his secret toy sits listening to its own stillness. Crows fly over that city. the ghosts of his and our dreams come together at night like window dressers and their mannequins on a street of dark, abandoned buildings and white clouds.
Charles Simic...Dime-Store Alchemy.

Bebe Marie...Joseph Cornell

Simic's book is a little masterpiece. A series of short meditations, these little boxes of language evoke the spirit of Cornell's imaginal soul-theatres.

Our Sibling Kin

2006-09-30T20:54:00.000+01:00

Joseph Cornell in his Bedroom...Duane Michals

Every art is about the longing of One for the Other. Orphans that we are, we make our sibling kin out of anything we can find.

Charles Simic

(from Dime-Store Alchemy)

These words of Charles Simic from his book about Joseph Cornell and this poignant photo bring tears to my eyes.

Toward the Blue Peninsula

2006-09-30T15:26:00.000+01:00

Toward the Blue Peninsula....Joseph Cornell (1903-1972)

It might be lonelier
Without the Loneliness --
I'm so accustomed to my Fate --
Perhaps the Other -- Peace --

Would interrupt the Dark --
And crowd the little Room --
Too scant -- by Cubits -- to contain
The Sacrament -- of Him --

I am not used to Hope --
It might intrude upon --
Its sweet parade -- blaspheme the place --
Ordained to Suffering --

It might be easier
To fail -- with Land in Sight --
Than gain -- My Blue Peninsula --
To perish -- of Delight --

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Entrance to the Rose garden

2006-09-19T13:48:00.000+01:00

Entrance to the Rose Garden ... 2006

Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning

T S Eliot 1888-1965

Hermit

2006-09-13T22:31:00.000+01:00

Hermit 2006

The Great Happiness

2006-09-10T14:10:00.000+01:00

The Divine Land 1979 (Cecil C0llins)

The lowest level one could call the small happiness, and above that..a small unhappiness, where one is restricted to fear of losing the small happiness. Above is the great happiness, which means you have seen through the small happiness. I mean by that it doesn't satisfy you, and you are unhappy in a very deep way because you know there is a great happiness, and, if you can't experience that, you reject every other form of hapiness, because that is the happiness you know to be the greatest and the most real...Let me put it another way; you are unhappy because you can't reach it but you are very happy because you can see it. In a word, you're alive...

Cecil Collins (1908 - 1989)

In the Forest at Night

2006-08-14T19:23:00.000+01:00

In the Forest at Night ... 2006

We Two...

2006-08-08T22:22:00.000+01:00

We Two...2006

Soul-Shrine

2006-07-31T21:50:00.000+01:00

Thou angel of God who hast charge of me
From the fragrant Father of mercifulness,
The gentle encompassing of the Sacred Heart
To make round my soul-shrine this night,
Oh, round my soul-shrine this night.

Ward from me every distress and danger,
Encompass my course over the ocean of truth,
I pray thee, place thy pure light before me,
O bright beauteous angel on this very night
Bright beauteous angel on this very night.

Be Thyself the guiding star above me,
Illume Thou to me every reef and shoal,
Pilot my barque on the crest of the wave,
To the restful haven of the waveless sea,
Oh, the restful haven of the waveless sea.

from Carmina Gadelica

Something Helpless that Wants our Love

2006-07-25T11:17:00.000+01:00

We must accept our reality as vastly as we possibly can; everything, even the unprecedented, must be possible within it. This is in the end the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to face the strangest, most unusual, most inexplicable experiences that can meet us. The fact that people have in this sense been cowardly has done infinite harm to life; the experiences that are called "apparitions," the whole so-called "spirit world," death, all these Things that are so closely related to us, have through our daily defensiveness been so entirely pushed out of life that the senses with which we might have been able to grasp them have atrophied. To say nothing of God. But the fear of the inexplicable has not only impoverished the reality of the individual; it has also narrowed the relationship between one human being and another, which has as it were been lifted out of the riverbed of infinite possibilities and set down in a fallow place on the bank, where nothing happens. For it is not only indolence that causes human relationships to be repeated from case to case with such unspeakable monotony and boredom; it is timidity before any new, inconceivable experience, which we don't think we can deal with. But only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being. for if we imagine this being of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it is obvious that most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth. In this way they have a certain security. And yet how much more human is the dangerous insecurity that drives those prisoners in Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their cells. We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with, and we have, moreover, through thousands of years of adaptation, come to resemble this life so greatly that when we hold still, through a fortunate mimicry we can hardly be differentiated from everything around us. We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

Rainer Maria Rilke (from Letters to a young Poet)

Nothing Else but Miracles

2006-07-10T17:28:00.000+01:00

Walt Whitman is one of my most significant teachers. For someone like me who can easily become muddled and ungrounded, his passionate evocations of life in all its manifestations, his affirmation of everything human, pull me back to the earth. I am soothed, comforted and inspired in equal measure.

Miracles

WHY! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to the opera,
Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring—yet each distinct, and in its place.

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles. Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Becoming Water

2006-06-25T15:09:00.000+01:00

Madonna del Parto (Piero della Francesca)

The faith community I have been part of during the last few years has been the Religious Society of Friends. I have imaged the Quaker tradition as a trellis supporting the vine of my spirituality. But now the trellis seems to be dissolving…the hard edges, the forms of it are blurring…melting as a block of ice would...though it is not in brilliant sunshine but some darker, cooler place. (How can something both cool and melt at the same time? Yet that is the way it appears).

I am meditating more, finding the space behind, beneath and around things….Content is not so significant..or what there is is loose, allusive, obliquely visioned. I am reading fiction and poetry…Rilke, Thomas Moore and soon to return to Proust…looking at art books.

I use Reiki…gently. In the next few weeks I will receive my Reiki 3 attunement. Actually the dissolution seemed to start with my first attunement. From there the softening and melting began.

In a recent dream I was in a white cathedral. I saw many art works depicting the Annunciation. This gospel story speaks to me of something hidden.…Mary pondering these things in her own heart…Impregnation…receiving…conceiving…all in the dark womb, which welcomes and receives….a powerful metaphor for contemplation…the virginal womb into which the Spirit pours in darkness…a place of watery containment.

Recent intermittent feelings of fatigue have forced me into whole days of inactivity…. I resisted and resisted these but the times I surrendered to them have became a contemplative space where I can be nourished by emptiness…no choice but to be still, to rest, to go down…allow something new to grow in the protective darkness of unknowing.

Of course it is all more fragmentary than this...by its nature it is obscure and lacking in any clarity. Rivers... streams.....rain....oceans....gutters...puddles...the still waters of the evening....harbour and open sea.

Life's Dark Beauty

2006-06-09T16:11:00.000+01:00

Religion, too, often avoids the dark by hiding behind platitudes and false assurances. Nothing is more irrelevant than feeble religious piousness in the face of stark, life-threatening darkness. Religion tends to sentimentalize the light and demonize the darkness. If you turn to spirituality to find only a positive and wholesome attitude, you are using spirituality to avoid life's dark beauty. Religion easily becomes a defence and avoidance. Of course this is not the real purpose of religion, full of beautifully stated wisdom, , and the religious traditions of the world are your best source of guidance in the dark. But there is real religion and there is the empty shell of religion. Know the difference. Your life is at stake.....

The spiritual life is both deep and transcendent. It shouldn't whisk you away from your daily challenges but should offer you an intelligent way of dealing with all the complexity involved. It should make you a person of character and discernment, emotionally tough and intellectualy demanding, as well as loving and compassionate. It should give you insight into the deepest of your questions and problems, and give you a vision which extends beyond the everyday issues. Religion often fails to explore the depths and only offers the vision, but then the transcendent possibilities lack depth and in the end hurt more than help.

(Thomas Moore)

Cloud Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown

2006-01-14T13:00:00.000+01:00

I asked the boy beneath the pines.
He said, "The master's gone alone herb picking,
somewhere on the mount,
cloud hidden,
whereabouts unknown."

(Chin Tao, 777-841)

And if ever you come to this cloud, and make a home there and take up the work of love as I urge you, there is something else you must do as this cloud is above you, and between you and your God, you must put a cloud of forgetting beneath you, between you and all the creatures that have ever been made.
The cloud of unknowing will perhaps leave you with a feeling that you are far from God. But I assure you, if it is authentic, only the absence of a cloud of forgetting between you and all creatures keeps you from God.

(The Cloud of Unknowing)

Two Serpents

2006-01-07T16:07:00.000+01:00

Two Serpents Drinking from the Same Cup 2006

A Luminous Cloud of Maternal Love

2006-01-01T16:15:00.000+01:00

I have been reflecting in this last couple of days on angels. During this reflection I came across the following extraordinary passages (from an extraordinary, even unique, book) concerning one's Guardian Angel...

"...and this is the tragic side of Angelic existence-this geniality only shows up when the human being has need of it, when he makes room for the flashing forth of its illumination. The Angel depends on man in his creative activity. If the human being does not ask for it, if he turns away from him, the Angel has no motive for creative activity. He can then fall into a state of consciousness where all his creative geniality remains in potential and does not manifest. It is a state of vegetation or 'twilight existence', comparable to sleep from the human point of view. An Angel who has nothing to exist for is a tragedy in the spiritual world.

Therefore, dear Unknown Friend, think of your guardian Angel, think of him when you have problems, questions to resolve, tasks to accomplish, plans to formulate, cares and fears to appease! Think of him as a luminous cloud of maternal love above you, moved by the sole desire to serve you and to be useful to you.

Meditations on the Tarot (The Unknown Author)

I know from experience that when I ask the Angels for help then extraordinary things happen. It would seem that they long for us to call upon them, that in their unmediated reflection of the Love of God they exist simply to love.

In the psychedelic sci fi film fantasy of the sixties 'Barbarella' ,the Angel says..."An Angel does not love. An Angel IS Love."

Golden Shadows

2005-12-28T15:38:00.000+01:00

He follows me
With golden shadows to my secret rooms.

Charles Tennyson Turner (1808 - 1879)

These last few months I have been experiencing and reflecting upon many personal traits which, at first sight I would much rather be without.

But I realise that what appear to be 'shadow' aspects also themselves have 'golden shadows', gifts they bring to me and to others.

My abiding laziness frees me from the cultural obsession with being busy, a life of appointments and schedules, the fear of being alone with nothing to do. I have time for myself, to think and pray and I have time for others. I rarely have to put people off because I have 'more important' things to do.

My procrastination reminds me that most things aren't that inportant and frees me from the need to be perfect.

My sometimes critical nature connects with witty conversation which makes people laugh, instils a sense of fun into life and punctures pomposity, including my own.

I am greedy but what a love of life that manifests! I encourage others to let go a little and enjoy themselves.

In my spendthrift nature I can 'take little thought for the morrow', be free from the obsession with security and living in the future.

I have struggled with anger but often it relates to a sense of justice and fairness.

In my personal vanity is a love of beauty, self respect, and even a healthy self love. I don't have to shrink from others...and neither do I feel I am more significant than them. Each person is beautiful with many gifts to offer to the world.

There is also a very real darkness in me...which in some ways seems unredeemable. But perhaps in some ultimate sense God can use what is darkest and most despicable as raw material for some new creation. That is my hope anyway.

Cruelty and Mercy

2005-12-23T20:18:00.001+01:00

Cruelty has a human heart
And Jealousy a human face
Terror the human form divine
And secrecy the human dress.

The human dress is forged iron,
The human face is a fiery forge,
The human face is a furnace sealed,
The human heart its hungry gorge.

William Blake (1757 - 1827)

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity a human face
And Love the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

William Blake (1757 - 1827)

Funeral

2005-12-21T12:38:00.000+01:00

I have been arranging a funeral this morning. Thankfully not for someone I know. Talking to the undertaker I felt relief that I wasn't there for someone I love...yet I was aware of how many people over the years must have sat there overwhelmed with the terrible pain of grief.

It is a privilige to support a family at this time. The practical arrangements, making sure the funeral takes place in an ordered way is as sacred as the prayers, the hymns, the readings. Isn't it the routines which partly carry us through painful times?

Life is short. How many times do we hear those words during our lives....to the point where it becomes a cliche', hardly noticed, easily ignored?

May I live richly and well. And you also, unknown friends!

Simplicity

2005-12-17T15:51:00.001+01:00

Here is a very simple drawing I made yesterday. Some of my drawings (like 'Soul Friends'..see below) are complicated in their design but I also love to make pictures which are simple, naive, primitive, innocent. I am in the process of making a new series of drawings which are simple....maybe contemplative.

Spirit of the Fountain

2005-12-16T13:20:00.000+01:00

'The Spirit of the Fountain dies not.
It is called the Mysterious Feminine.
The Doorway of the Mysterious Feminine
Is called the Root of Heaven-and Earth.

Lingering like gossamer, it has only a hint of existence;
And yet when you draw upon it , it is inexhaustible."

Tao Teh Ching (trans. John C. H. Wu)

'Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

from 'Ash Wednesday' by T.S. Eliot

True Godliness

2005-12-14T20:49:00.000+01:00

Cell of a Carthusian Monk

Having writen about the hidden, the obscure, the contemplative aspect of spirituality I also want to highlight the 'fruits of the spirit', the outward manifestation in the world of a deeply centered inner life.

'True godliness don't turn men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavours to mend it...Christians should keep the helm and guide the vessel to its port; not meanly steal out at the stern of the world and leave those who are in it without a pilot to be driven by the fury of evil times upon the rock or sand of ruin.'

Wiliam Penn, 1682

There is much to be said for William Penn's words though I don't share his view that the purely contemplative life is to 'meanly steal out at the stern of the world'. Without time to withdraw, to pray and simply 'be' the life of action becomes fretful, even despairing. Compassionate action flows naturally from a life of prayer. It may be that action and contemplation may not be located in one individual but divided between two persons, each complementing and completing the work of the other. And prayer itself IS action, having effects in the world which may not be immediately obvious but which nevertheless are powerfully transforming.

Even so, to be silent and hidden needs no justification. At its core it is 'useless'. It serves no purpose in the same way that the intimate gaze between lovers has no purpose beyond itself. For something to be of value it need not make the world a better place, nor bring any kind of advancement (including spiritual). It is what it is, no more.....It is useless and in its emptiness the whole world is illuminated.