this wide night sky asks
me to entrust our times to
a vast arc of peace
Our times
Month: December 2022
Waloyo Yamoni
Christopher Tin’s Waloyo Yamoni * – ‘We Overcome The Wind’ caught me unawares this morning! Paradoxically, it fills me with the kind of joy that is closely accompanied by tears. Contemplating the close of one year and the dawn of another – this glorious, pulsating music is reflective, energising and hope-filled. I’ve been dancing around my kitchen! Care to join the dance and the song – wherever you are? And hold close to your heart the many for whom hope is as precious as food and drink today 🤗x
* From The Drop That Contained The Sea
Through the window
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it
🌎 🇺🇦 🌏
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Light
old or infant may
we each be a light in our
world by day or night
🇺🇦
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Winter’s fine art
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Winter’s fine art in beautiful South Lanarkshire, where I was delighted to be able to spend some time with special friends today.
‘tis the season
Every time I look up
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Every time I look up, from year’s beginning to year’s end, there’s something fabulous – sometimes very old, at others very new – just asking to be photographed in Edinburgh. The crafts and voices of history speak to me daily, in company with the sights and sounds of modernity in the present. Echoing …
Dynamic Earth
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Dynamic Earth, Holyrood, Edinburgh: here’s a place, nestling beneath the great volcanic Crags in Scotland’s capital, that celebrates Earth’s beginnings 4.5 billion years ago, AND the light and far-reaching creation that’s still taking place right here in the present. There’s such an energy here, such a history, such a present, such a future …
The things of the heart
There are so many colours in the things of the heart. And so much warmth and light. One much loved corner of Edinburgh tonight celebrated a gathering of close-knit souls, some present in person, some physically absent but no less present, in the circle that this colour, warmth and light creates – uniquely – on every such occasion. And in that circle I continually rediscover the meaning of the word ‘awe’ – with profound thankfulness.
Scarves, gloves and puffas
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Christmas shoppers are enjoying blue sky, bright lights and all-round fabulousness in winter-sunny Edinburgh this afternoon. By ‘eck it is cold though. Two shop assistants told me that the fastest selling items in their stores today have been scarves, gloves and puffa jackets. And I’ve been among those who are glad of all of them.
Pride in The Meadows
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I’m not sure how impressed these lions are with today’s ice – but they’re beautiful. As is the icy mist, lit by the low winter sun.
The 24 bronze lion sculptures have emerged on the Meadows and St Andrew Square in Edinburgh as part of the Born Free (link) wildlife charity’s touring art exhibition that aims to raise awareness and much needed funds for wildlife conservation.
Out and about
Hushed
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Winter-Time
Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.
Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.
Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.
When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.
Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding cake.Robert Louis Stevenson
Bitter and beautiful
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I’ve been meditating on the juxtaposition of two words in my mind today: bitter and beautiful.
Bitter – because this afternoon’s cold recognises no barrier in five layers of clothing and a felt hat. I am chilled right through to my very bones.
Beautiful – because this is Holyrood, Edinburgh, a place where both natural and humanly-fabricated elements of the city appear to revel in their own illuminated loveliness. A bit like the light in some of Rembrandt’s glorious portraits, one witnesses something of a warm glow, from the inside out. Soul-shining.
It’s an odd and delightful sort of thing, isn’t it, that the two can co-exist in the same moment? – the extreme discomfort of bitter cold, coloured and warmed by awestruck appreciation of the bared beautiful. It’s only a little while since these trees were dressed in all their best finery, peaceably overlooking the delights of garden parties in the great Palace of Holyroodhouse. Today the bitter cold has nipped the last of the leaves at their stems. Fallen and blown, they will now nourish the ground of future’s green glory. Limbs are bared as they face the months of winter, just as our human frame and spirit is bared – and ultimately nourished and grown – by assorted forms of all that we describe and experience as bitter.
All life has deep roots – temporal and eternal. We, with cities and trees, learn that bitter and beautiful work together. And those of us who have learned, and are learning this well, will wait quietly for Spring. Patient, and shining, from the inside out.
Navillera
Navillera – to soar or fly, like a butterfly. Now on Netflix, I’ve just seen the last of 12 episodes and don’t know how to speak of how enchanted and moved I have been by the entire series (with subtitles). I just know that I want to share it with some special friends, near and far, each of whom will know – in their different ways, and with their own reasons – why I’m doing so …
wind in my wheels 🌱 