Snow, beautiful snow,
Angels, footprints, sledging,
Walking on the moor,
Becky’s perfect ice house.
Scotland, jaw-dropping vistas,
Nature raw and exposed,
Unexpected happenings and
Departures, emotion and sanctuary.
Retreat to the mind,
A one of a kind,
Not for the hills after all,
Stay in the mix.
She slid into the water,
This is it,
Much laughter
And eventually we’re paddling along.
Back down south,
Opportunities, possibilities
Only to discover the false dawn,
More tears and surrendering to the mystery.
Walks in the woods,
On the trail of beau fizz,
Instead I looked to the stars
And found my heart stolen.
Sun, beach, sand and sea.
Moors, pony’s, heather and gorse.
Heaven on earth.
Music, moons and dancing til dawn.
Falling, falling, falling
Down the rabbit hole,
Only to look behind,
To see the end of time.
Over land and under sea,
To foreign lands,
Many people, too many
Memories, the best yet.
Home, home of sorts,
Questions and stalling,
Eventually to a halt,
The biggest surprise of them all.
I hear the sound of the drum
And I am gone
On another adventure,
Above the trees to the mountains.
Gone from this physical world,
Nothing will be the same again,
I’m sorrier than words can say,
The greatest love of them all.
Tears roll like never before,
And yet I discovered
You’re as close
As it takes to close my eyes.
Owl is my friend,
You are too,
Forever true,
My little boo.
This way and that way,
Trying to find my way,
My words,
Drowning in others.
Too many voices,
Too many choices,
I am on the road
Again no knowing where I’ll go.
Find my way to you again,
Trying to keep true to me,
Moving this way and that,
Looking for me.
Pushing hard to the horizon,
Diving to the depths,
Not turning away,
Holding on to the rails.
Hard to hear,
Hurts to watch,
Heart can’t feel no more,
It's too much!
Catch my breath,
Time to reflect,
Many blessings, new friends,
Experiences beyond compare.
Thank you everyone
And everything
I dare not blink
Don’t want to miss a thing.
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Is it ever too late?
An outsider
Bursting in a cosy room
With familiar faces
Stories have grown
Been fed in my absence
And now I ask, can I
Knit myself back in?
Is it ever too late?
Bursting in a cosy room
With familiar faces
Stories have grown
Been fed in my absence
And now I ask, can I
Knit myself back in?
Is it ever too late?
Early Morning on Dartmoor
A new day
Stamped in gold
By the morning sun
Orange burnt on the hillside
Moss Green covered stones
Lining the road, where
Startled white rotund sheep
Scuttle and skip
Grey rocks jut above the
Skyline like dinosaur bones
And the round brown hoof
Prints of a passing pony
Lead off into the distant
Mist
Stamped in gold
By the morning sun
Orange burnt on the hillside
Moss Green covered stones
Lining the road, where
Startled white rotund sheep
Scuttle and skip
Grey rocks jut above the
Skyline like dinosaur bones
And the round brown hoof
Prints of a passing pony
Lead off into the distant
Mist
The Emptiness of Nothing
The emptiness of nothing
Is as it is
Could it be any other way?
Look closer,
Closer again
The emptiness of nothing
Is what you perceive
I see mountains, trees
And lakes covered in snow
Geese flying above
A fox glancing an eye
On high
The emptiness of nothing
Is as it is
What do you see?
Is as it is
Could it be any other way?
Look closer,
Closer again
The emptiness of nothing
Is what you perceive
I see mountains, trees
And lakes covered in snow
Geese flying above
A fox glancing an eye
On high
The emptiness of nothing
Is as it is
What do you see?
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Sunday, 21 November 2010
The Owl and the Moon
Said the owl to the moon,
what is your tune?
on this fair night in
deepest November,
the sight of your silvery glow,
is enough to want to know
answers to questions
that hang in the air
like yesterday's children,
all bright and expectant!
what is your tune?
on this fair night in
deepest November,
the sight of your silvery glow,
is enough to want to know
answers to questions
that hang in the air
like yesterday's children,
all bright and expectant!
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Saturday, 30 October 2010
Friday eve 29th October 2010...
It has been a wild and windy evening, the autumnal leaves sashaying and swirling from one place to the next, making unique patterns lasting moments, nothing seemed to settle for long. As I wandered up the hill navigating my own path through the twilight I collected leaves from the woodland floor. Before reaching the place I had chosen I'd ducked under branches and lost my footing into the mud. She would be padding about following scents here and there, occasionally lifting her head to listen. I set my bag to one side and began the process of making a small nature alter on a stone next to the stream.
I called in the spirits and ancestors from the four corners and welcomed father sky and mother earth to our ceremony this night. By now the twilight had deepened into darkness. Leaves were cascading down from the surrounding trees, some gently glancing my shoulders. I nestled the container holding Becky's ashes into the mossy rocks of the dryer raised section of the stream secluded under the wooden bridge. She would be sat nearby, scanning the horizon, in no hurry.
By the light of a torch I read aloud as best I could a beautiful Mary Oliver poem that sums up everything I could possibly say in words from my heart.
Her Grave*
She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog.
She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin
from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile -
and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and
her cunning elbow,
and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming
perfect arch of her neck.
~
It took one to carry her ashes into the woods.
I did not think of music,
anyway, the wind rustling
the leaves echoed my every step.
~
Her wolfish, invitational, half-pounce.
Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something.
My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash
of happiness as she barged
through the pitch pines swiping my face with her
wild, slightly mossy tongue.
~
Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?
He is wiser than that I think.
A dog lives fifteen years, if you're lucky.
Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds
think it is all their own music?
A dog comes to you and lives with you in your house, but you
do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the
trees, or the laws which pertain to them.
Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her long slumber?
A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you
know almost nothing.
Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think
the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace
of his own making?
~
She roved ahead of me through the fields, yet would come back, or
wait for me, or be somewhere.
Now she is scattered in the stream and round the trees.
Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and
not to be angry.
Through the trees there is the sound of the winds, palavering.
The smell of the pines needles, what is it but a taste
of the infallible energies?
How strong was her dark body!
How apt is her resting place.
~
Finally,
the slick mountains of love break
over us.
I moved to scatter Becky's ashes in the flowing waters of the stream, in the breath of the winds and in a circle around the trees. I sat a while, eyes closed, in complete gratitude and true amazement of our ten years in physical form together. What a blessed adventure. The best teacher ever, bar none! Long may it continue. We thanked the ancestors and spirits who came this night, father sky and mother earth. Not without getting a little directionally dyslexic on the way, still so much to learn and yet even now there is always a smile to be had. Last of all we left a small token for the woodland and all its creatures, an apple was placed in the centre of the nature alter. We then made our way through the darkness, slowly picking out a pathway back down the hill.
I'm reminded it is Samhain. In a couple of days, the eve of all hallows ... a magical time for the Celts who acknowledge it is the ending and beginning of their yearly cycle. Now we affirm rebirth in the midst of death and darkness. The dark is not to be feared, it is important to take time to rest, to journey, dream, explore the mysteries, communicate with our ancestors, seek our inner wisdom, incubate the seeds of our ideas and future potentials. Out of the darkness comes renewal and rebirth. This cycle means their are always new opportunities to start again. Embrace the light and the dark, accept they are both a much needed part of what makes us whole.#
* Apologies to Mary Oliver afficionados for the few words that have been changed to fit the occasion.
# From Glennie Kindred, The Earth Cycles of Celebration.
I called in the spirits and ancestors from the four corners and welcomed father sky and mother earth to our ceremony this night. By now the twilight had deepened into darkness. Leaves were cascading down from the surrounding trees, some gently glancing my shoulders. I nestled the container holding Becky's ashes into the mossy rocks of the dryer raised section of the stream secluded under the wooden bridge. She would be sat nearby, scanning the horizon, in no hurry.
By the light of a torch I read aloud as best I could a beautiful Mary Oliver poem that sums up everything I could possibly say in words from my heart.
Her Grave*
She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog.
She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin
from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile -
and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and
her cunning elbow,
and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming
perfect arch of her neck.
~
It took one to carry her ashes into the woods.
I did not think of music,
anyway, the wind rustling
the leaves echoed my every step.
~
Her wolfish, invitational, half-pounce.
Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something.
My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash
of happiness as she barged
through the pitch pines swiping my face with her
wild, slightly mossy tongue.
~
Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?
He is wiser than that I think.
A dog lives fifteen years, if you're lucky.
Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds
think it is all their own music?
A dog comes to you and lives with you in your house, but you
do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the
trees, or the laws which pertain to them.
Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her long slumber?
A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you
know almost nothing.
Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think
the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace
of his own making?
~
She roved ahead of me through the fields, yet would come back, or
wait for me, or be somewhere.
Now she is scattered in the stream and round the trees.
Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and
not to be angry.
Through the trees there is the sound of the winds, palavering.
The smell of the pines needles, what is it but a taste
of the infallible energies?
How strong was her dark body!
How apt is her resting place.
~
Finally,
the slick mountains of love break
over us.
I moved to scatter Becky's ashes in the flowing waters of the stream, in the breath of the winds and in a circle around the trees. I sat a while, eyes closed, in complete gratitude and true amazement of our ten years in physical form together. What a blessed adventure. The best teacher ever, bar none! Long may it continue. We thanked the ancestors and spirits who came this night, father sky and mother earth. Not without getting a little directionally dyslexic on the way, still so much to learn and yet even now there is always a smile to be had. Last of all we left a small token for the woodland and all its creatures, an apple was placed in the centre of the nature alter. We then made our way through the darkness, slowly picking out a pathway back down the hill.
I'm reminded it is Samhain. In a couple of days, the eve of all hallows ... a magical time for the Celts who acknowledge it is the ending and beginning of their yearly cycle. Now we affirm rebirth in the midst of death and darkness. The dark is not to be feared, it is important to take time to rest, to journey, dream, explore the mysteries, communicate with our ancestors, seek our inner wisdom, incubate the seeds of our ideas and future potentials. Out of the darkness comes renewal and rebirth. This cycle means their are always new opportunities to start again. Embrace the light and the dark, accept they are both a much needed part of what makes us whole.#
* Apologies to Mary Oliver afficionados for the few words that have been changed to fit the occasion.
# From Glennie Kindred, The Earth Cycles of Celebration.
Friday, 24 September 2010
Ethical Ambition and Courageous Leadership
Richard Olivier is a highly skilled exponent of mythodrama. He uses this process as a means of exploring and understanding some of the most pressing themes and issues of our times. He writes, "using the adventure with Shakespeare’s Macbeth it is possible to live through this myth to learn for ourselves behaviours that make or break individuals and groups. Macbeth’s descent from fearless warrior to ruthless tyrant invites us to identify excessive and dangerous behaviours – both in ourselves and others. Prince Malcolm’s journey from runaway prince to steward king reveals the path to ethical leadership. Malcolm shows that we too can become generative leaders, creating meaning for ourselves and hope for our collective future.
I believe that a fundamentally important issue for all of us alive at this time is to discover our unique, appropriate level of ambition. We certainly need to figure out how to better manage the over-ambitious natures of the selfish few who get their kicks from power, prestige, obscene wealth and fame - but how are we going to ramp up the ambitions of the unselfish many who get kicked by power, outshone by prestige, outmaneuvered by wealth and outvoted by those in search of their 15 minutes? Surely we too need our version of worthy goals, ambitious targets, as yet unrealised dreams - and we need an ethical centre from which to operate, an internal "great bond" that keeps us pale not only in the face of obvious wrongdoing but also in the face of withdrawal and fearful submission. For all too many of the "good people" in the modern world it is not a case of too much, but too little too late. The great brains of the Oxford University James Martin 21st Century School contend that, given current trends of industrial waste, population growth and biological warfare potential, there is a high percentage probability that the human race will not survive the century we are living in. If we are to confound their predictions surely we must find a way to encourage apparently ordinary men and women to step up, to raise heads above the parapet, to find the niche, however seemingly narrow, where courage is called for and appropriate ambition required.
Imagining the future can make it real.
To attempt this, we need to expand our moral imaginations; the human race is capable of so much, has so much latent evolutionary potential to be stewards of the planet that sustains us, but so often we treat it as an object, something to be owned, mined and undermined, flown over until a volcano opens its mouth to decide otherwise. Great myths and inspiring stories can inform this expansion of our moral imagination, imagining the future can make it real ... The imagined can make it real, by stretching our own image of ourselves we can make it more likely to happen in reality.
So where is your ethical ambition, now? Is it well tended and watered? Is it starving for attention? What exactly are you doing with the garden that was entrusted to you? As poet David Whyte wisely asks "What shape waits in the seed of you to grow and spread its branches against a future sky?""
For more on ethical ambition and courageous leadership you can read the entire essay by Richard Olivier at http://www.findhorn.org/onlinecommunity/news/2010/05/the_myth_of_macbeth.php
I believe that a fundamentally important issue for all of us alive at this time is to discover our unique, appropriate level of ambition. We certainly need to figure out how to better manage the over-ambitious natures of the selfish few who get their kicks from power, prestige, obscene wealth and fame - but how are we going to ramp up the ambitions of the unselfish many who get kicked by power, outshone by prestige, outmaneuvered by wealth and outvoted by those in search of their 15 minutes? Surely we too need our version of worthy goals, ambitious targets, as yet unrealised dreams - and we need an ethical centre from which to operate, an internal "great bond" that keeps us pale not only in the face of obvious wrongdoing but also in the face of withdrawal and fearful submission. For all too many of the "good people" in the modern world it is not a case of too much, but too little too late. The great brains of the Oxford University James Martin 21st Century School contend that, given current trends of industrial waste, population growth and biological warfare potential, there is a high percentage probability that the human race will not survive the century we are living in. If we are to confound their predictions surely we must find a way to encourage apparently ordinary men and women to step up, to raise heads above the parapet, to find the niche, however seemingly narrow, where courage is called for and appropriate ambition required.
Imagining the future can make it real.
To attempt this, we need to expand our moral imaginations; the human race is capable of so much, has so much latent evolutionary potential to be stewards of the planet that sustains us, but so often we treat it as an object, something to be owned, mined and undermined, flown over until a volcano opens its mouth to decide otherwise. Great myths and inspiring stories can inform this expansion of our moral imagination, imagining the future can make it real ... The imagined can make it real, by stretching our own image of ourselves we can make it more likely to happen in reality.
So where is your ethical ambition, now? Is it well tended and watered? Is it starving for attention? What exactly are you doing with the garden that was entrusted to you? As poet David Whyte wisely asks "What shape waits in the seed of you to grow and spread its branches against a future sky?""
For more on ethical ambition and courageous leadership you can read the entire essay by Richard Olivier at http://www.findhorn.org/onlinecommunity/news/2010/05/the_myth_of_macbeth.php
Monday, 20 September 2010
Friday, 17 September 2010
Taliesin
There is a saying in Irish Gaelic, which when translated says, 'All things are connected by a thread of poetry'. The lifeforce or Dana, as they call it in Gaelic, is poetry. Writing poetry is a form of shape-shifting. Celts as poets understand each other. They may not appear to speak clearly or literally. In the way of Taliesin, Celts speak in riddles, in the language of the birds and of animals. We are reminded of Black Elk when he said, 'all things are alive and they want to communicate'. And as Keat's suggests 'we're here to make our soul.' And so it is the poet who knows how to capture the language and images of the lifeforce in all things. We learn to live with mystery and not get hung up on fact or reason.
She pointed up
At the night sky.
Can you see them,
Flying?
No, I replied.
You do believe me?, she asked.
Yes, I said.
And I did believe her
(I still couldn't see them).
A poet is a person who has visions. Who sees things that other people can't see. Some resist the idea that the poet is a mystic or visionary. What Taliesin did is identify with nature, by opening up to something that was always there and to the realisation that we are already connected to everything. The Celtic soul is not a soul trapped in a human body. The soul is free, it can wander, it can shape-shift. As Hildegard of Bingen said, 'just as the heart is hidden in the body, the body is hidden in the soul'. The Great Mother of life wants to enrich our souls. And the power of the soul reaches to the end of the earth ... in this way the earth is still reaching out towards its own creation. We're here to take the greatest stride our souls can take, which is to shape-shift, to realise the oneness of all things. We appear to be separate in order to make it through this physical world. Ego boundaries protect the body, but this only represents 10% of the soul, the other 90% of the soul is out there being a hawk, an oak tree, a raindrop. The goal of the 10% ego identified part of our souls is to realise it is one with all things, to become integrated with the other 90% of the soul. To become WHOLE.
"Sitting by a tree, near to a stone and next to a stream it was difficult to separate the three. They all called at once. I placed my attention on the stream and I imagined what is the stream? Is it the container, marked by the stream-bed and the banks. These connect to the soil, which connects to the rock and the tree and beyond. Is it the content, the continuous flowing fluidity of water, never still, always moving. The stream seems to have no boundaries; it is everything. I then realise I can fly about in something indescribable and to create awareness of a tree or rock. With the rock I could feel its ancientness, its age and I was aware it could seem dense and solid but it didn't need to be. I could pass through the rock and it could pass through me."
My home is my sanctuary.
It is my place of safety.
Where I belong.
Take this away and I can
Feel lost, I can struggle
To recognise myself. I
Lose my sense of stability.
In these times others,
Special people, have come
To remind me who
I am - Who see me.
Blink, I'm awake.
Not awakened.
Scared and alone.
Disconnected.
Heart racing, heat rising,
Mind swirling, fear driving
This ship bobbing
On turbulent seas,
Gripping tightly - I breathe!
Unseen and unseeable
To all but a few.
Tracks of fear
Circling around me
Tormenting my soul.
The warm winds gently
Tap on my shoulder,
I turn to follow
My path.
The Celts have a tradition of the great song. Your heart song is the idea of your thread, it's always there. Even though there are times when you might not see it, it's always there. Remember all things are connected by a thread of poetry.
Joy is speaking my truth.
Sorrow is not speaking up loud enough, saying NO and meaning it!
Peace is being heard.
"The song of peace comes from my heart. It is open and expansive, it lightens and relaxs everything around me like a beautiful lullaby. I can go into a place of intimate togetherness with love. I'm in a relaxed place of feeling, wanting to be there and wanting to share. I feel the tension and anxiety releasing from my back. In peace everything will be ok."
Be brave
Choose joy
Know sorrow
Find peace.
I can fly
Not as you might imagine
I forgot how for a long time
I can fly
It's time to lift myself
Up, be joyful
Ease back
Take flight
And spread my wings.
In the words of Taliesin from the Hostile Confederacy ...
I am Taliesin
And I defend the true lineage
Until the end of time.
I know when the spark of hardness works from the stones.
I know the end of the dawn.
I know what made enduring patience when the sky was raised.
I know why a hill resounds.
I know why the silver vault was knitted.
I know why the valley is radiant.
I know what name of two words will never be taken from the cauldron.
I know the four elements but there end is not known to me.
I have been dead, I have been alive.
I am Taliesin
And I defend the true lineage
Until the end of time.
# Acknowledgement to the shamanic teachings of Tom Cowan 2-5 September 2010 at Cae Mabon, North Wales.
Thursday, 16 September 2010
What's it all about?
Now do come on people...
you all know that I'm a gentle subtle soul
who likes nothing more than tea, biscuits, slippers
and a bit of yoghurt weaving to send me to sleep.
But sometimes I have to let the bulldozer out.
I hear the diatribe of complaint about current times
and those to come, but come on....
What do you think you are really doing down here?
Do you remember why you volunteered to come here in the first place?
You are all specialists in your own field
who through the necessity and trauma of birth
have forgotten why you're here.
This is the most compressed time of human history,
we are on the point of a consciousness breakthrough
never seen before but imagined,
and we have the privilege of seeing the revelation.
And compared to the gargantuan developments of recent months,
the coming few months are a piece of cake -
it's just that they'll be typified by metaphorical actions
involving lasers and scalpels as opposed to the lump hammers
and cudgels of recent months.
It's time to start getting specific.
Never forget - you were born for this, this is why you're here.
And as the genetic time bombs encoded in our DNA begin to explode,
so memory and purpose return.
We are here to facilitate an acceleration and transmutation
of global consciousness and awareness,
nothing more and nothing less.
So you can either act, or react.
.... Steve Judd ....
you all know that I'm a gentle subtle soul
who likes nothing more than tea, biscuits, slippers
and a bit of yoghurt weaving to send me to sleep.
But sometimes I have to let the bulldozer out.
I hear the diatribe of complaint about current times
and those to come, but come on....
What do you think you are really doing down here?
Do you remember why you volunteered to come here in the first place?
You are all specialists in your own field
who through the necessity and trauma of birth
have forgotten why you're here.
This is the most compressed time of human history,
we are on the point of a consciousness breakthrough
never seen before but imagined,
and we have the privilege of seeing the revelation.
And compared to the gargantuan developments of recent months,
the coming few months are a piece of cake -
it's just that they'll be typified by metaphorical actions
involving lasers and scalpels as opposed to the lump hammers
and cudgels of recent months.
It's time to start getting specific.
Never forget - you were born for this, this is why you're here.
And as the genetic time bombs encoded in our DNA begin to explode,
so memory and purpose return.
We are here to facilitate an acceleration and transmutation
of global consciousness and awareness,
nothing more and nothing less.
So you can either act, or react.
.... Steve Judd ....
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Touched by an Angel
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
- Maya Angelou -
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