Month: September 2017
Autumn garden days
I love autumn garden days. We’ve had a mixture of rain and sunshine today so everything has a fresh-washed look and a maturity-in-colour that speaks of the passing of time, of life’s changing seasons, and of richness in all of it. During the course of the day I’ve watched the tournesols doing just that, turning their smiling faces to the sunlight. (click photo to enlarge). One cannot help but smile. Cheered. Grateful. Autumn.
Changing hues
A return from Retreat is to encounter how both we and our environments have changed. Emails and phone calls have been shared about the efforts required to adjust to ‘normality’ after five days and nights on Iona with an inspirational group of writers and poets.
We’re changing all the time, of course, like the lakeland colours above Ullswater close to home this morning. But Retreat helps us to step back awhile, to stop and notice the view.
I enjoy my daily routines – journaling included. But just as I was about to fret a bit about having missed a few days I remembered what this most recent retreat, and every retreat reminds me of: that it’s important sometimes, often even, to simply be rather than just do!
Memories of chewing the cud
Pipe in hand
There was once an old man lived on Martyrs
Bay who, pipe in hand, told of a foot tall
soul whose hair was green, and – many a long
year since – skittering about the Old Nunnery
garden, he had seenquiet as a mouse and quite inoffensive, she
whispered in human ears: ‘I’m come from a
schlemaig just West of the highest mountain on
Mars by way of light years, aeons, suns and moons
and starsand I whisper a missive from Mother
who sent me: though legend and myth
may sometimes purport otherwise, nothing
in the Universe is ever wholly ruined – for
every atom retainspotential, giftedness and grace, ever cheered
anew by Wisdom’s breeze across its face: so on this
rock though your roof be blown off and you’ve
neither window pane nor door, allow the little
one from a Martian schlemaig a paean to more –for you came here to learn that not only is She
our family name, but Wisdom, dear taller siblings,
is eternally ours, and Her Source, the Same.’And I honour the old man on Martyrs Bay sand, who
content with tobacco and pipe in his hand, speaks
gently even now of a skittering he had seen, and of
whispers shared with a delightful pint-sized sprite
with hair of Iona greenSRM
Figurehead
September on Iona
There’s metaphor
somewhere in grey cloud
hung low over Mull on
the other sidenot entirely
unattractive –
illuminated even but
nonetheless greywhilst dappled sunlight
in and on the rippled Sound
issues invitation to a
pilgrim soulto this side –
entirely beautiful from there
shades of green and Michaelmas
blueyellow daisy at the door
bench I’ve dreamed upon before
I would stay awhile with you
here rather than thereNow
perhaps I’ll pen illuminated haiku
_______
yellow daisy. door
sunlit soul open to Sound
michaelmas blue_______
dwellings host watchers
swell carries voyagers home
bring me too with youSRM
The Red Boat
In the late summer of that year we
lived in a house in a village that looked
across the river and the plain to the
mountainsErnest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms, 1929Then when autumn mist is come I yearn
for a cottage set high on the hillside
framed by cerulean blue to the left of
a sculptured fountainSRM
Aloft
Stories
Sometimes the stories of
the garden of our lives
are written in ink or
by ribbon or toner and
machine, engineered
instrument or flight-capable
quillSometimes the stories of
our flowering and light
are written in soft breath
gossamer touch, sunlit
thread, the sudden
resurrections of graces
we’d thought might be quite
deadSometimes the stories of
images arise in our hearts
the aching loves and the
false starts and the hopes
and aspirations turned, as on
a wood-artist’s lathe: formed
resuscitationsAnd so day by day I return
to the garden to be still –
howsoever the stories are
inscribed, however revealed
my spirit knows that in this place
simple, silent and smiling –
they willSRM
Who wants to leave?
Origins
Origins in timelessness
primal turquoise and tender
held by the softening sigh of
The Soundborn hearing the mothering
sustaining, nourishing seascape
of Wisdom’s womb – our first
teacher suckles, sings, balancesmakes connections, blankets
secure and hums lullabies
about our shared sky – teaching
the heart to seek answer to oureternal why. Yes, I will forever
remain bound to this
mothering sustaining
in the soul of IonaDepth and flow
and height and breadth
and symphony of
silent musicFrom her I am born
to move outward
to her – and to Wisdom
I will ever returnSRM
Silent words!
What a home base
Rock of the Aeons
Be still. Be still
until the will to
clatter and clamber
up the hill of life’s
vicissitudes surrenders
with gladness and
placidly to clear-eyed
remembrance of the
level-way – the going
that’s sustained by the
daily choice to stay
within earshot of
singing invitation to
steadying anchor of
contemplation
meditation
resuscitation and
gentle gradation
where movement
inward shepherds
sustains and balances
our explorations
outward –
be still. Be still
until the will
meets the Isle
of the ancient
sanctity. Rock of
the aeons withinSRM
This year’s first sight
She is serene
The light of many lives –
he was quite unnoticed
she smiled, serene –
altogether lovely in bluetousled in the sea breeze
elegant, confident, peaceful
full of life – the most
electrifying, beautiful sighthe had ever seen
Her name is Iona
SRM
Iona
Long road and passing places
Easy, smiling warmth
in a ferryman’s greeting
camera primed and ready
for lighthouse and Duart Castle
in the Soundwind enough to dispatch
cobwebs quickly back to Oban
and memories of the road to
Fionnphort’s being narrow
and a long onethere’ll be passing places
and acknowledgements –
some smiling, some impatient
and in all intent for pressing on
and knowing one wondrous truththat goads a person on
Yes: at the end of this
long road when one has
lost count of passing places
and greetings lies a visionset in turquoise that points
to the rich fulfilment of
our lives’ diverse seasons –
here’s the Iona that calls
souls homeSRM
Connel
song at evening
sometimes there arises
a wholly extraordinary
clarity in my hearing the
bowl sing. It has origins
in something, somewhere
quite beyond and yet entirely
within anything and all
that I can bringSRM
wind in my wheels 🌱 