Mandala

December Mandala ... 2009

Patrick's Breastplate

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

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

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

Angel in Winchester Cathedral ... October 2009

To someone who recently burned their journals

'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....

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

Print ... 2009

Inward Peace

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

Seraphim of Sarov ( 1759 - 1833)

Cana

Cana ... 2009

To die...

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

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

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

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

'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

Landscape 2 ... 2009

Landscape

Moon ... Wave ... Tower  (2009)

Happy Moon Face

Happy Moon Face ... 2009

Maundy Thursday

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

Barn ... 2009

Vocation

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

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

Glyph ... 2009

Celestial

Celestial ... 2008

Greenrise

Greenrise ... 2008

Animals

Animals ... 2008

Dreaming Hand

Dreaming Hand ... 2008

Light Now

Light Now ... 2008

A Bride Married to Amazement

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

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