Healing reflection on Christmas Eve - for Alison

first floor room

number on door

- three

for the wise men,

the kings,

the Trinity

such good colour

air filled

with rainbow

for hope,

for healing,

for joy

hawthorn in aura

space clear

- not empty

angels keep watch

at door and windows

wingbeats rhythmic lullabies

i sense an archangel

behind and then

it is within me

i am 10 feet tall

my wings even folded

nudge the walls

and the song

begins to echo

round the room

I am the song

each note vibrates

and sings me into being

and you?

O dear friend

you are the lyre

sweet and pure

my song-self plays you tenderly

draws you into my song

our music

is more

than a hospital

room can hold

it choruses

over the window ledge

and

dances

over

the

street.

Fear of being free...

When i watch a bird gliding on a thermal, effortless and free
i long to be up there, to be that bird
and yet i am also afraid
afraid that, once i notice i am flying,
i will crash to the ground
or will pass out from vertigo.

Being free - what does that mean to the bird?
Free to choose its life?
Free to be all that it is designed to be?
Free from fear?

As i spend this semester studying ethics
i am contemplating what is important
- to me, to us, to the universe
and who or what i'm responding to
when i choose to act or not...

I think that i am free to be myself (but not to be a bird)
i am not free from fear (though Twelve Step programmes say i should be able to replace fear with faith)
but i am free to choose how i respond to moments of fear
how i react to feelings of fear
and then perhaps i will learn to use the key to unlock my inner wings and fly...

Passionate Friendship

Today i had a gentle start with my girlfriend Gail - now there's a passionate friendship that grew from mutual respect, shared interests and a passion for justice, spirit, labyrinths and photography among other things!

We found this card with an image of a beautiful naked woman at a gallery in the Borders and today sent it to Kate for her birthday - a passionate friendship that began back in the early 90s when Kate was doing her PhD and i was working in the university bookshop.

Then i drove up to Dunblane to visit Alison and she showed me the painting they had commissioned in Brisbane and which had just arrived back with them safely - it is by an Aborginal artist and shows a family of two parents and three children with the ancestor spirits as dolphins above.  Alison and i are passionate friends and Friends (Quaker) and first met in the late 80s at university in St Andrews.

Passion is not about romance or sex or about heightened emotion or about any one aspect of life.  It might be jealous, it might be angry, but it always holds love at its core.

Passionate friendship is about caring so deeply that you will work on the difficulties, face any challenges and sustain the friendship no matter the distance or differences...

Well, that's what it means to me.  What about you?

Essay - try - and hope...!

Given a task i dress myself in the mantle of one who has been given something onerous, burdensome and painful to carry out. Whilst a part of me is excited by the challenge, digs for references in the obvious treasure-trove of the college library and in the less obvious arena of podcasts, blogs and the main library's economics and politics sections there is, nonetheless, a big part of me that feels immediately overwhelmed. An ever-present voice warns me not to disappoint the lecturer, tutor, advisor, friends and family while my girlfriend's and several others' voices gently remind me that i am studying out of choice, that my assignment only needs to be good-enough, that i should enjoy the process, that there is more to life than the grade on my paper.

Well i tried and now i simply have to hope!


J'ai essayée et maintenant il faut que j'espère...

Rainbows and Moons

It was easy to feel that it was simply another dull November day. The sky was grey, the clouds were greyer, the rain and wind kept coming straight at me. Then, as i walked along George Street from the bus-stop towards Hanover Street, the Mound and New College i looked down towards New Town and there was a rainbow, faint but definite.


And then again, as i walked back along George IV Bridge after the college library gently evicted me so that they could close for the night, i glanced down Chambers Street and there, high above the street lights, was the Moon, bright and bold, one day past Full but not quite ready to wane!


Sometimes i miss the beauty that is there, sometimes i see the beauty but don't recognise it, and sometimes, just sometimes, it hits me with all its potency and i am replete.

Choosing to

I can choose
to engage with,
to ignore,
to marvel at,
all that autumn offers.
I walk along pavements slippy with fallen leaves,
dirty with all and sundry
then i turn to walk along paths which track straight lines
through the Meadows
and i can kick up the leaves
almost knee-deep in places
i squat down to photograph them
and to sniff the autumn-ness
the pre-requisite for a November bonfire.
I stop to chat with a man resting on his rake
i watch a Big Issue seller selling not begging
laughing not pleading on this bright, fresh Monday.
and i chuckle at the pumpkins, cut out heads
abandoned but happy
burnt-out nightlights inside them
telling their own tale of an evening's fun.

Moon Rise

Sunsets on the West Coast
obvious, expected, romantic

Moonrises over winter loch
surprising, rising, uplifting

The water receives the moon
soaks her up, sends ripples through her
but does not, can not, hold her

She rises higher, stronger, sharper
and i am soaked by her lunacy,
ripples cross the surface of my soul
and i am held in awe, in spirit
in love...

Steps

Sunsets...

Nature so often knows the right thing to say...

In perspective...

How can i mind going to an out-of-town retail area when i get to see skies like this?!!!

And then driving home when, instead of being bothered by impatient drivers behind me i see the sun setting...

I do not live blissfully yet i experience many moments of bliss and each of these moments top up by eudaemonia tank (well worth looking this word up if you haven't come across it! (eudaemonia/eudemonia not "tank"!)

Learner

Two days running this was lying on the path as i crossed Bruntsfield Links... The second day, having photographed it, i placed it in the bin... But it really appealed to me. It could simply be the corner of a cardboard box or frame...or it could be an "L" plate! Whose?

What do i still need to wear Learner plates for in my life? And will there ever be a time when i think i don't need them any more?!!!

Do i know how to say this?!

It's a tough one... How do we say no to someone, how do we allow ourselves to have space in our diaries without filling it as if it's a dangerous hole rather than a beautiful sigh... Several folk on a course i was running today talked about spreading themselves too thin, taking on too many new things, feeling stressed. Why do we even feel the need to justify, to apologise, to excuse ourselves?

I will continue to work on this, hopefully gently, lovingly...until i can say "i am choosing not to do this", "i am unavailable", "i would love to do this. What would you like me to drop to make space for it?"!!!!

If i run myself into the ground in order to please everyone else am i being true to myself? Am i growing as a person? And what about those i love and who love me? What space do i create for them?

Friends and family and my darling Gail - walk with me towards the space and bring your sign with you - let's be unavailable to duty and available to love...

Signs on the journey

The writing wasn't on the sign but the thought was in my mind...

What did the green arrow mean? Who was it for? Where did it end?

I didn't see any further arrows. I worried about whoever they were meant for - how would they know where to go after this arrow?

They were gone today...

Widening the imagination

How can i look across such a landscape and then walk through the gates into the hallowed grounds of New College and allow my mind and my imagination to be narrowed? I can't! I have to take the breadth of vision i see in the world and then encourage my academic self to unfold this landscape in my work...

Just when i thought academia had taken over my mind...

...i left New College with Kant's concepts of reason and duty, Milbank's statement that social theory is dead, theology (by which he means radical orthodoxy) provides the answers to everything buzzing round my tired brain...and i was wondering about the value of all this learning when i turned the corner and started climbing the steps and there in front of me in white chalk was the answer:

LOVE IS ALWAYS

Love is always the question
Love is always the reason
Love is always the answer
Love is always
Love is
Love

Can you tell what i'm studying?!

Chiarascuro

Without the silhouette of the building against the vestiges of the light in the sky this image would be lesser; the contrast of the light and shadow, the presence of the two is what draws the eye into the centre of the image. The background is three photos superimposed on each other - our eyes struggle to bring the image into focus but if we cease struggling what happens then?


Meditation is letting go of the struggle, opening our fist to become an open hand, letting a thought float away without needing to hold on, engaging with the breath


Exploring Christian ethics is to tussle with the theories, engage with the questions without any need to come to a conclusion, simply to accept that there are more questions than answers and that to fix one's belief is to close down rather than open up the spirit

If i study in order to gain good marks i am diminished.  If i study in order to engage with the theological chiarascuro (accepting the need for the presence of both the "good" and the "evil", the light and the shadow, the agony and the ecstacy, the anxiety and the bliss) then i can authentically walk the path, can live the questions now (to paraphrase Rainier Maria Rilke), can be enthusiastic in conversation, curious in learning, without needing to own "the way".

Doors Open - to the outdoors as well as the indoors

We had an interesting time on Saturday visiting the Church of the Sacred Heart, Granton Lighthouse, and St Cecelia's Hall which all had special events to mark Doors Open Day 2009.

  But whilst the stained glass, statues, musical instruments and buildings were fascinating they were nothing when compared to the light and the clouds outside!

We walked round the church with its friezes, Stations of the Cross, marble and finely embroidered vestments...  The light through the cupolas kept drawing my eye - oh for a church without walls...

And by the time i was walking down to buy vegetables in the late afternoon the cloud formations were simply stunning!  Indeed i had to phone Gail and pull her away from doing chores to step outside and enjoy them too!

Signs on the path

Walking along from Canonmills to the Botanics today i noticed an antiquarian bookstore that was closed and had a sign taped in front of the CLOSED sign. My mind started racing as to what might have happened to the poor individual given that the store is still closed! Then i saw the other sign on the door which said Relax! It made me chuckle and gave me a simple pleasure on a day of worries about being a student and visiting a friend who is not keeping well. Sometimes it is good to stop and read the signs on the path!

And then it was Friday...

Now is the time
to say "Yippee! it's Friday!"
to look up again at the skies
see their blueness
observe the clouds
and climb on the bus one last time
before the long weekend
and the beginning of
my next beginning
this time as a student

Jet Stream Meditation

From 08.59 until 09.49 i tracked this jet stream as it
slowly, slowly dispersed

I was walking once again to student registration
and joined the many active commuters so far as
treading the same path is concerned but while they
had their heads down and shoulders hunched
i turned my face to the skies

Between 09.14 and 09.49 i was sitting in Adam House hoping
to be able to collect my student card...
By the time i came out again i thought there would be
no sign of the jet stream but it was still there...just.

The moment arrives...

Dramatic pause
night stretches
between day before and the day itself
half stays by the gate, lingers, drags her feet
half rushes forward,
anxious, excited, terrified.

The night will take its time,
its usual time,
to pass
yet it will feel like the longest
and the shortest
night of my life.

Destination university

one-way ticket to the future

but where's the map

and how do i get there

and what if i get it wrong?

The air becomes clouded with questions

each gasped breath creates a new cloud

as it is exhaled until

there is only cloud

no space in between.

Thoughts pierce the fog

as the cloud settles across the bed

the blanket of knitted questions

gently smothers

until i become the air

floating above the cloud

above the blanket

above myself.

And then the day arrives
time continues
at its usual pace
but seems to be rushing me out of the door
and down the road.
I walk - the bus is not at the bus-stop and i don't have time to wait...
There are few clouds, the air is blue and bright and clear
and i am too busy keeping up with time to fret...too much


This day, the one that has arrived, is part one only...
This beginning, firmly now set in motion,
has a lengthy introduction!