Posts on Contemplative themes
"To be a contemplative is to learn to trust deep time and to learn how to rest there and not be wrapped up in chronological time. Because what you’ve learned, especially by my age, is that all of it passes away. The things that you’re so impassioned about when you’re 22 or 42 don’t even mean anything anymore, and yet, you got so angry about it or so invested in it. So, this word “contemplation,” it’s a different form of consciousness. It’s a different form of time."
Richard Rohr
Be your own sanctuary
“To be a contemplative is to learn to trust deep time and to learn how to rest there and not be wrapped up in chronological time. Because what you’ve learned, especially by my age, is that all of it passes away. The things that you’re so impassioned about when you’re 22 or 42 […]
Your true home
“Each one of us is alone in the world. It takes great courage to meet the full force of your aloneness. Most of the activity in society is subconsciously designed to quell the voice crying in the wilderness within you. The mystic Thomas a Kempis said that when you go out into the world, […]
Witching
Darkness, damp nature, gnarled old trees. I’m no witch, but looking into this leafy pool, I fall under its spell. Then down onto the woody undergrowth with me. And the power of the place, the magic! The more I travel with no agenda, the more the lens captures what I’m feeling and living through. Freedom, unfailing […]
The watery womb of chaos
“I wish I could close my eyes and be blown into dust and nothingness, feel all my thoughts disperse like dandelion fluff drifting off on the wind.” ― Lauren Oliver, Delirium Nothingness There was a whole lot of nothingness going on down at the River Anne, in the Anne Valley. Morning mist rising, […]
Finding a word for 2017
In his recent Christmas message, Brendan Cox the widower of murdered MP Jo Cox, cried out for tolerance and more caring between people. “We have more in common than what divides us, it’s a time to reach out to those who hold different views” he said. Is this the only option left to us all […]
Friendship
There was a smudge of navy blue painted onto a peachy sky. Nothing had changed but the eery manifestation of fading light, on a winter’s evening. The drama of moments passing. And WE were there. My lens captured the scene. But the sound of the moorhens cooing, and of our footsteps through the darkening meadow […]
Faltering
Maybe because of my connections with Sweden and my love of Patti Smith, I was thrilled to hear she would be singing in Stockholm at the Nobel Prize Ceremony. I decided to watch it live on my tiny phone after seeing a tweet that it was to be live streamed. I was also hoping […]
Mystery
Today some portraits, illuminating the mystery of endings. Leaves, lives, moments. Mysteries, Yes Truly, we live with mysteries too marvellous to be understood. How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs. How rivers and stone are forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising. How two […]
Summer walk with a Cherokee
An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life… “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. “One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, […]
