Birthday

For a Daddy who left his family and his broken land when just 16 to find a better life. Who takes his girls to ballet early every Saturday morning so Mummy can rest and read and write. Who makes up impromptu songs on his guitar for the dancing feet of five. Who takes me for coffee every Sunday afternoon and generally puts up with being outnumbered by women 7 to 1 (because even the dog and cat are girls)
We love you much.

Grassy Verges

I'll light a candle and the children will fill bowls with flowers picked from fields and verges.

 

Summer Adventures

 

August

Saint Francis and the Sow

Saint Francis and the Sow Galway Kinnel The bud stands for all things, even for those things that don’t flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;    though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;    as Saint Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow, and told her in words and in touch    blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow    began remembering all down her thick length,    from the earthen snout all the way through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,    from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine    down through the great broken heart to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering    from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them: the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Water it

Every act of beauty is life giving.

A counter to all that is dark.

It pulls back the curtain saying 

This is not the only room.

There is a garden too.

Clothed in green shoots and tender leaves.

Water it.

Down the lane, and back again...

A gentle meander through the lanes. Stumbling upon beauty, like a treasure hidden in a field that you might give your whole life for.

Birds Foot Trefoil or Bacon and Eggs. Wayside flower of the wanderer. Star of the sojourner. Matilda loves your bright yellow bib and so do I. Why do I always smile when I see you merry jester of the hedgerows and by ways? You are the gentle fool of the fields. Teach me "to be ground", teach me to "be crumbled" so wildflowers may blossom from the footprints I leave behind me. Maybe even years after I have passed by.

 Fields of green and gold rustling prayer flags of wheat and barley. Grasses shimmering in the last of the light. Let me learn what holy abandonment is from your evening vespers.

Secret, small and hidden between the dry stone wall, ancient and overgrown with ragged tales and poetry. Whisper the words of woodlands and saints into my ears.

Or remain silent and teach me the greatest lesson of all.

"We cannot understand anything in isolation. We have to look at the connections" Gabor Mate



The Buddha taught the interconnected nature of phenomena.
Gabor Mate


“Contemplate the nature of interconnected arising (everything thing causing everything else) during every moment.

When you look at a leaf or a raindrop, meditate on all the conditions near or distant that have contributed to the presence of that leaf or raindrop.

 

Know that the world is woven of interconnected strands; this is because that is, this is not because that is not, this is born because that is born, this dies because that dies.



The birth and death of any phenomena is connected to the birth and death of all other phenomena.
The one contains the many and they many contain the one.



Without the one there cannot be the many and without the many there cannot be the one."

 

The Buddha

narrow

Sometimes I just long for the loving embrace of God. I feel homesick. The ache in my heart is more than words can express. It is like a deep pool beneath the cave of my chest.Over the last few years God has really humbled me and I know myself very clearly. Sometimes I feel like God is trying to console me but I find it hard to accept the consolation knowing how undeserving I am of it.
I feel that my path has narrowed considerably. Things that I would have been able to do or feelings I would have been able to indulge in, in the past now seem like a sin for me. And when I fail, my failing seems so much greater and my sorrow over it so much more pronounced. The more grace given by God, the more you are compelled out of love to live up to it. To abandon yourself to it till it feels almost as if you don't quite exsist.
And yet I feel my faults, my failings, the difference between who i am and who Jesus is so surely.
I trust that I am His child. And I feel a certain peace at knowing that I see myself in this very honest way even though it is not easy for my ego. It gives me peace to see the goodness of others above my own because I want to serve.
Jesus, give me the strength not to fail You.

stop weaving

Breathtakingly beautiful orthodox liturgy.