“Advent is a story of Old Testament prophecies. It is a story of cosmic fulfillment. The dream of a world repaired in the holy darkness of Advent. A whisper is heard, words are formed.” Rev Lisha Epperson Packing to go on holiday always induces fear in me as well as excitement. It is the fearContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 7”
Tag Archives: birthing
Christmas Day: for birth
Light splashed this morning on the shell-pink anemones swaying on their tall stems; down blue-spiked veronica light flowed in rivulets over the humps of the honeybees; this morning I saw light kiss the silk of the roses in their second flowering. my late bloomers flushed with their brandy. A curious gladness shook me. So IContinue reading “Christmas Day: for birth”
Christmas Eve: for reframing
Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to me.Is someone here? I ask.The moon. The full moon is inside your house. My friends and I go running out into the street.I’m in here, comes a voice from the house,but we aren’t listening. We’re looking up at the sky.My pet nightingale sobs like a drunkContinue reading “Christmas Eve: for reframing”
whole: Christmas Eve
BEAUTY CAN SAVE THE WORLD so says the magnet pinned to the front of my fridge. But what does it know clinging to its empty whitewashed tomb? But then as I drive beyond the endless fields of rabbit’s foot and wild rye, I pass a hillside of white tulips—their cotton petals flinging the sunlight backContinue reading “whole: Christmas Eve”
whole: Sunday 3
I understand now that I’m not a mess but a deeply feeling person in a messy world. I explain that now, when someone asks me why I cry so often, I say, “For the same reason I laugh so often – because I’m paying attention.” Glennon Doyle Melton FOR NOW WE SHALL SEE THROUGH AContinue reading “whole: Sunday 3”
wisdom of the gut: (Imbolc 2021)
If Candlemas Day be fair and brightWinter will have another fight.If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain,Winter won’t come again. (Traditional) It has been a very grey January outside my window, and I although I resist turning on a light as soon as I wake up in the morning then leaving it on all dayContinue reading “wisdom of the gut: (Imbolc 2021)”
furled fire (a Beltaine Birthday Blessing)
Every year I wonder whether to write something to mark Beltaine, the Celtic feast which celebrates a cross-quarter day in the year’s wheel, the end of the dark half of the year and the beginning of its half of light. I celebrate the waxing of the arc the sun’s path makes across the little sliceContinue reading “furled fire (a Beltaine Birthday Blessing)”
feeling vulnerable: Blue Christmas 2019
The following was written for the Godspace blog, as part of their Advent series on ‘Who is this child?’ visual journalling page from Kate Kennington Steer I was unable to have children of my own, so holding my nephews, niece and friends’ children over the years has been such a precious bittersweet joy. AsContinue reading “feeling vulnerable: Blue Christmas 2019”
advent apertures 2019: day 14
weep not for me, mother, although the world’s weight rests on my shoulders along with your parting embrace, the dark shadow of the cross behind us now and the box below waiting to transport me to the tomb. Weep not, for what is finished is but the conception of the great beginning, a birth youContinue reading “advent apertures 2019: day 14”
adventapertures2019: Sunday 1
I was passionate, filled with longing, I searched far and wide. But the day that the Truthful One found me, I was at home. Lal Ded (a 14th century Kashmiri, translated by Jane Hirshfield) ‘How can this be?’ If an Archangel appears in my living room speaking of me as the fulfilment of anContinue reading “adventapertures2019: Sunday 1”