"This earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring and how loved I am, how we admire this strength in each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know: we are stunned by this beauty and I do not forget; what she is to me, what I am to her." Susan . . .
The death of winter
Death or the long sleep, is a subject that I am endlessly interested in. There is such beautiful decay around us in everyday winter fading. Maybe we are divided into those who yearn for Spring and those who are slower to leave Winter? Confinement has shrunk my world for now, and yet I'm closer to the small and the . . .
Better than the real thing
My dear old Dad loved Christmas and did his very best to provide a magical morning of surprises under the tree. During the years when he was left alone with four girls under the age of 9, his inner child often went shopping for the kind of presents that any small boy would adore. We girls got cowboy suits, holsters and dart . . .
Suddenly it’s winter again
Suddenly it's winter. A time I savour. The inclination is to hibernate, pause, mull over stuff. It's a time for saying no. A time to rest. A time to enjoy early frosty mornings. Although in truth we get very few of them here in the South East of Ireland. The changing seasons are a constant reminder of the cycles of life. While . . .
Dreamy summer
These dreamy days. The scent of meadowsweet. Foxgloves swaying in the summer breeze. Everything a tangle of lush green. I am following a whim to return to this special space. This small window on the larger world. Peace is always only temporary. But that's where things are at for now. There are daisies, there are blackbirds. There are . . .
Unfurling in their own time
I hear myself saying- I don't know what I'm doing. And there's a freedom in that. I say it, often in the most inappropriate places, only to discover that I'm talking to myself. This phrase soothes me, puts me back on the ground, drags up my humility. Humility which is sometimes in the clutches of . . .
New life, a calf, and a pheasant’s nest
She began to bellow just before 3.30 AM. There's a hill of blazing gorse to the east and she had gotten herself up on the top of that hill to give birth. My son came running downstairs, "Is she dying?" Quite the opposite, it was another new life. The awful sound of pain had dramatically increased and then suddenly . . .
Start slowly
Today I make a slow start. The deep winter is here. January brings, at last, the space I've been longing for. 2017 stretches out ahead, silently for now. Illness has contributed to lower energy than usual but when I look into the fields I sense some common ground. There is a quiet stillness amongst the trees and the hedgerows. . . .
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 . . .
Autumn walk
"There is human time and there is wild time" Clarissa Pinkola Estes This year as part of the Waterford Imagine Festival I will be hosting a Sunday morning walk on the wild side at Carrickavantry Lake. The numbers are very limited and you can book here. The walk will be a real life, real world sharing of contemplative . . .
