This month, the first one of 2021, has been a month of restrictions, lockdowns, a month of not seeing people, not travelling, staying at home. Many days have been grey and wet. We have had some light snow, rare here in the south, but not enough for fun and games. The news about the Covid virus has been generally gloomy with increasing casualties, both amongst those who have become ill, and those who have been caring for them.
I am grateful that I have not been in either of those categories, but nonetheless the mood of the month has been miserable. At the beginning of the year I set myself a daily challenge to make a small picture with collage, paints or pens, capturing something about each day, birthdays, things I saw, ephemera or a doodle. They are only 1.5 x 2.5 inches in size, and made in the little book I bound together. Some days I forgot and had to play catch up, but 30 days later they make a surprisingly colourful collection.
A collage of moments
As I gaze out on yet more grey skies today this little collection reminds me to keep my eyes and heart open. Those fleeting insignificant moments may seem transitory and boring, but they contain our treasure.
Some ephemeral moments must be given a memory, because the temporality of an instant may radiate a twinkle of eternity. ― Erik Pevernagie
It was a special moment for me when the postman delivered an envelope the other day which was handwritten. So many of our letters these days are printed, but this was not only written by hand, but I knew whose hand had written it. A five year old, whose every letter is painstakingly and beautifully formed. He writes with such care, the process of addressing the envelope becomes an act of love. The writer is our grandson, who has made us an advent calendar this year, complete with numbered flaps and little surprises to discover each day. What a wonderful way to show his love, it will be treasured and enjoyed by us every day.
My grandson’s handwriting is much better than mine was at age five, and, dare I say it, more legible than mine often is today! There is something magical about handwriting, the action and feel of the pen on paper, the slight resilience to the smooth flow, the shape of the pen in our fingers. And handwriting is in some way unique to each of us, an expression of ourselves, and can be a gift to the reader.
I have also been enjoying a different kind of writing gift from Beth Kempton, author of Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year. Her Winter Writing Sanctuary course, which she offered free, has been a gentle way to remind ourselves of what’s important in this season, and in this particularly difficult year.
Writing doesn’t have to be hand writing, or even on paper, as Beth says in her Winter Writing Sanctuary. “To write is to pay attention to your life and to open up the channel for magic and mystery to flow out. Writing is about so much more than putting words on paper with a pen or typing into a laptop. It’s about listening. It’s about opening. And it’s about spilling so that your ink becomes stories and lessons for yourself and for other people. “
Recently I received a birthday gift of writing in the shape of a book. The writer is someone whose listening, observing and spilling not only helped her through deep depression but is an encouragement to others. The Wild Remedy by Emma Mitchell is an expression of her feelings and insights, as she takes up her pen and pencil after her walks in nature. It is a joy to read, and has encouraged me to make walking, looking and listening (and writing about it) a part of my daily routine.
Whether the words come from a five year old grandson carefully writing an address on an envelope, or a published author who is a stranger to me, the act of writing is a gift, and can be a source of great healing and joy, both to the writer and the readers. Keep writing everybody!
Deep down we knew there were better ways to show our love than spending more money on more stuff that would get lost under a bed or sit in landfill for fifty thousand years. Beth Kempton
This time last year, August Bank Holiday Monday, the weather was warm and summery, and we were off on holiday. I remember watching the sunrise over the M25 en route to the airport, and feeling excited. We we off on a long planned trip to Canada to stay with family.
This year things are different. The sun is shining here but the weather forecast is distinctly cool. Holidays and traveling are not on the agenda. Family visits are few and far between and socially distanced. Even a day out is a bit of an adventure. Things are not normal and certainly not as exciting.
As I look out of my window this morning, I can see our summerhouse. As usual there are hanging baskets on the corners, prettily planted with petunias and other appropriate hanging basket plants. But all is not normal there either, there is a misfit, an oddity, an unexpected appearance.
There is an unplanned, surprising sunflower, leaning at an awkward angle but opening its face to the world. It is hanging, suspended and confined, completely out of it’s normal comfort zone, but flowering anyway.
It is not very elegant, and looks like a mistake. But as I look closer it’s complexity and beauty becomes more evident.
These days things are strange, awkward and often difficult to manage. We find ourselves wondering when, or even if, things will ever return to normal. Normal, that word which comes from a carpenter’s measuring square, used to make sure things conform to a rule or pattern. Sometimes those old patterns seem a distant memory.
But this morning my non conformist sunflower greets me with a smiley face. This unplanned, abnormal flowering reassures and encourages me that perhaps things don’t have to be normal to still be OK!
At the bottom of our garden is an important area where sometimes there are smells which might not be pleasant. At my husband’s compost bins this rarely lasts long as the worms get to work, and his frequent turning and aerating helps the decomposing process, producing an almost sweet smelling, essential and richly nutritious growing medium.
This week I have been thinking about smells, pleasant and less so. Early in the week it was the rank whiffs of treachery and untruth in our national government which were troubling me, and even keeping me awake at night. I found the political rumours and statements, with media quick on the scent to hunt out lies, were very upsetting both emotionally and physically.
Covid 19 is now known to affect our sense of smell, even blocking it altogether. Unpleasant odours are often an important clue warning us that something is “off” or not quite ok. What our noses can detect is not as sophisticated as most other animals, but they are very sensitive, literally and metaphorically none the less.
It feels to me like some of us are infected not just with a physical virus which stops us smelling, but metaphorically too. We are being encouraged to not only cover our mouths and noses to avoid spreading disease, but to hold noses and twist our tongues to obscure and hide dis-ease, and whiffs of untruth.
It was a friend from our allotment site, with a life time of growing experience as well as political wisdom, who described this week’s political stink as perfidy. I have certainly found the smells of betrayal and distrust, utterly sickening.
However the compost bins teach me that the waste, mistakes and difficult clippings of our lives don’t necessarily have to decompose into this kind of a foul stinking mess. With acceptance, honesty and TIME even apparent nastiness can produce healthy growth. In fact other parts of the garden prove that the very plants fed by a natural decomposition produce perfume extolled through out history. This week I picked our first sweet peas, and my husband made fragrant elderflower cordial from flower heads in the garden. We picked sweet strawberry fruits and crushed aromatic catmint leaves from the allotment. Every step brings new smells, from delicate jasmine, to the heavy scent of roses.
This coming week I am joining in with Satya Robyn’s Dear Earth e-course. I am already finding that her idea of writing “Earthellos” is a process which is helping me acknowledge where I am, lean into the wisdom of the earth, and breathe the deeper perfumes of Life. Perhaps you too may find it encouraging to sniff out some sweeter scents among the horrific stinks which pervade our global atmosphere, and allow the longer deeper processes to begin their work in us all.
These days I seem to wake early and I often listen to my little radio through my earphones while hiding under the duvet. Yesterday I listened to Open Country on Radio 4 an audio diary by Brett Westwood made in his urban garden under lockdown. It was wonderful to listen to someone who knew about the different insects and plants, just reveling in the variety and profusion in the small space of his garden.
It inspired me to try walking differently around my garden. Usually I take my phone to clock up steps on my pedometer, (and I’ve walked 100 km since I started doing my daily circuits!) But yesterday I took my mind off my steps target, and walked slowly like Brett Westwood. I carried my phone, but with my camera ready. And there was much to marvel at.
The rhododendrons are beautiful at the moment. Most weren’t planted by us, but have been gradually restored to strength and vigor over a couple of decades by the careful maintenance and nurturing of my gardening husband. He frequently has to cut away large branches which “revert” to the old common rampant purple rhododendron, and which threatens to overcome the more delicately marked flowering and subtle beauty of the different varieties. It has been the work of years.
These branches with their beautiful purple blooms had to be pruned out yesterday to protect the pale pink blooms of the rhododendron they were growing in!
Christine Valters Paintner, a writer I have mentioned before encourages the art of photography in spiritual journaling. Her emphasis is on using our cameras not to capture shots or scenes, but to receive moments. So I walked slowly, and stopped, keeping my eyes open for what might be given to me rather than things which I had to struggle to get. As I waited I became aware of smaller life forms just doing their thing quietly in front of me. Many are very beautiful even though I know what they do can be destructive to our plants and vegetables. There are many complex relationships here I don’t understand.
In my early morning sleepy state I had heard Brett Westwood on Radio 4 describing the Holly Blue butterfly. It is a butterfly which can have two generations in one year, but Brett mentioned that there are also longer cycles and deeper rhythms to be aware of. The population of the Holly Blue grows and falls, numbers fluctuating widely over a cycle of several years, apparently connected with its relationship with a parasitic wasp. More to read here.
On my slow walk, and with my decision to receive rather than struggle to find, I was excited when a Holly Blue flew past me. It landed at my feet on the soil by the rhubarb. I was able to photograph it just by bending down. Not a perfectly focused and composed picture, but it felt like a gift to me.
I am still pondering this gift to me of the Holly Blue, the other insects and the seasonal beauty of the rhododendrons. These are not automatic yearly cycles, there are much longer and deeper relationships at work, with complex processes which require pruning back and rejuvenating, involving destruction and death, as well as resurrection and new beginnings.
Whether plant or creature in the garden, I felt their gift to me on my slow receiving walk was to help me be more aware of the bigger pictures, and the many different perspectives on the ups and downs of life – seasons of growth, and seasons of diminishing. And, you will be glad to hear, tuning into the deeper hidden processes and patterns did not stop me meeting my daily steps target. It just didn’t seem quite so important in the big scheme of things that I am realising I am part of.
I am continuing to walk circuits of my garden as daily exercise, and am beginning to wear a track through the trees and across the lawn. So far my pedometer tells me I have covered over 70 km this month, simply walking through the shrubs and trees, past the poly tunnel and summerhouse, around the vegetable garden and fruit cage and back to the compost bins where I count my circuits in fir cones. It is a gentle therapeutic activity, when I can settle into a steady rhythm of soothing movement.
It is also becoming an automatic activity, and can be a habitual route which I follow almost mindlessly. But sometimes my unthinking steps are stopped, when I notice something new or different. This week I was surprised to notice a solitary lily of the valley flower beside the path. I remembered we had planted corms there several years ago, but had never seen a flower. I stopped to pay attention to it, and point it out to my husband. We marveled at its appearance. Why now? And why so long in coming? No answer was revealed. But we enjoyed it and hope for more in future.
Another not so pleasant stop to my routine and automatic movements occurred this week when my elderly well worn iPad, (constant companion and currently an important link with the outside world) suddenly broke beyond recovery. Its replacement is pristine and unmarked, but setting it up has made me realize just how much I had come to rely on predictable routines, with automatic passwords and access habits. This week I have had to wake up and pay attention to security and updates and all manner of unsettling small changes. It has also given me a fresh appreciation of the powerful technology at my fingertips.
It has made me ponder how much of life is routine and automatic, until something happens to bring me to a stop. Certainly the Coronavirus crisis has stopped us all in our tracks, and disrupted our lives beyond our imaginings. So many routines are changed and plans are on hold, some indefinitely. It raises the questions again. Why now? And what now? The answers are not revealed. It remains hugely uncomfortable and the grief and loss for many is devastating.
As I walk the beaten track around my garden this week I am aware that the daily routines bring structure and calm to this strange time, but they can also become habits which make every day feel the same and blur into one. But if I keep my legs moving automatically AND keep my eyes open then I can tune into deeper rhythms, daily changes as buds open, and colours emerge. The blossoms of last week have gone and tiny fruitlets are coming in their place. Sometimes there are new seeds in the poly tunnel germinating each hour. When I wake up from my automatic mode, stop and and pay attention I see things differently. The difficult questions remain unanswered, the circumstance are unchanged but I find myself noticing the tardy lily of the valley, the frog which was recently a tadpole, and tiny cherries forming. And I find a burgeoning hope, for nothing ever stays the same.
A journaling course I am following recently suggested that at a time of crisis it is good to return to favourite books and re-read them. Sometimes the predictable and familiar can be a comfort when things are uncertain. The first book I selected from my book case was The Scent of Waterby Elizabeth Goudge. My copy is old and battered, and the story of a successful business woman who leaves her London life to live in a house left to her by a cousin she met once, never fails to remind me of unchanging truths. It is not modern in its content or language, but the theme of the book is that the past can often be the key to the present.
In the front of the book are these words…. For there is hope for a tree, If it is cut down, that it will sprout again, And that its tender shoots will not cease. Though its root may grow old in the earth, And its stump may die in the ground, Yet at the scent of water it will bud And bring forth branches like a plant. Job 14 v 7-9
This image was made very real when the weather broke this weekend and we had some heavy rain. I ventured into the garden and the scent of water was everywhere, the damp earth releasing pungent aromas, full of living promise. The plants seemed to be responding by drinking deeply and standing tall, their roots reaching deep and strong.
And then I pulled another old favourite off my bookcase. Journal of a Solitudeby May Sarton. It starts, “Begin here. It is raining”, and as I opened it further at random I found more words about trees and roots.
“ I think of the trees and how simply they let go…and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep…. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover and remember that nothing stays the same for long,not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go. “
It was the words about sitting it out and letting it pass which spoke to me at this time. We have been told lock down restrictions because of the deadly coronavirus will continue for at least three more weeks. This process cannot be hurried, horrible and painful though it is.
On the same page May Sarton quotes words from another old book I have on my bookcase T.S. Eliot’s Collected Poems. The words she quotes are from his poem Ash Wednesday. On paper yellow with age, they were underlined by me probably four decades ago. I don’t know what was in my mind back then, but the words “teach us to sit still” spoke to me powerfully when I re-read them today.
Sit still, let go, return to the deep places, and re-root to find peace. That seems to be what my old books are saying to me this week. Easier to read than to actually do, as always! But I am trying to hold these old truths in my mind as I walk my garden circuits, and pick posies of flowers and buds fed by the scented rain.
My five year old grandson knows what to expect at Easter. Chocolate! An Easter egg hunt has always been part of his experience at this time of year. He expects to have to hunt, use his eyes and look, and he is not without hope!
Easter has different meanings, customs and dates even according to where we are in the world. But here in the northern hemisphere it is always linked with the new life of spring after death of winter. Early Christian celebrations were of life over death, resurrection, hope and joy. Our garden certainly seems to be celebrating that at the moment.
But I find it comforting that there are other aspects to the Easter season. The expectations of the women who visited Jesus‘s tomb on the first Easter Sunday were certainly not celebratory. That first Easter the friends of Jesus were in the black despair of the afterwards. Grief, loss of their beloved leader, the smashing of all their hopes. They had no hope of a triumphant resurrection. They had no idea about Easter, as Graham Kendrick wrote in this Easter song, sung here by my son and daughter-in -law. “….they turned away and no-one knew that it was the first Easter Day”
Click the picture to listen
For me Easter 2020 is a strange mixture. It is full of a triumphant sunny spring beauty, which assails my eyes, ears and nostrils the moment I step into the garden. It also feels weirdly subdued and quiet, full of disappointment, sadness, loss and fear. Two of my friends on social media recently expressed similar feelings of the contrasting aspects of this time. This poster shared by one of them says it well.
The first Easter was not recognised as a momentous turning point at first. It was full of fear and grief, before came the slow dawning of hope, stumbling recognition and hesitant amazement that the unexpected might be happening.
My expectations this Easter do not have to be either/or. I don’t have to force a positive grin if my heart is breaking. I can try to embrace the “and” of this liminal time. Today I will allow room for the clouds and the bright sunshine, missing my family and enjoying beautiful flowers. And I will keep my eyes open for the unexpected.
Many of us are living a more sheltered life than usual. Indeed a considerable number of our community, those with a variety of medical conditions, are in a state of “shielding” on government instruction. All of us in the U.K. are currently in a state of social lockdown, confined to our homes except for a few specific purposes. And with good reason; to protect us from the spread of coronavirus.
Staying indoors the whole time can become claustrophobic. I am very fortunate to have a fairly large garden,and I have taken to walking round it and counting my circuits in fir cones! According to my pedometer 16 circuits of my garden is around 2 kilometres. As the rhythm of walking calmed me, I pondered the meaning of claustrophobic. It’s roots are in the Latin for claudere – to close, and it is linked with the word cloister which means partitioned, closed in and has connotations of monastic life.
I began to see my garden as a kind of cloister, surrounded by high hedges and fences it shields and shelters me from the road, with its passing (empty) buses, and now infrequent traffic. As I walked I become aware of so much beauty and variety around me, always there, but not often noticed. My circuits brought me to the same places en route each time, but I saw different details. I decided to pay attention to just the variety of leaves I could see.
A collage of just a few of the leaves I saw…
Walking in circles is sometimes seen as somewhat purposeless and futile. Most journeys and pilgrimages have a route and a destination in mind. But in fact “walking the rounds” is an ancient spiritual practice, particularly among Celtic people; their love of circles, spirals and intricate intertwined patterns is evidenced in their art work.
I have just started reading Christine Valters Paintner’s book The Soul’s Slow Ripening. In one chapter she describes the practice of walking the rounds as a kind of embodied prayer, whose circular movement moves our brains out of the linear pathways we so desire. Most of the time we want to know the next step, what will happen next, and where we are going. But at times like this, when the world is facing the unknown, it becomes more important to pay attention to the moment than have a clear cut path ahead. We need to let go of the map, circle slowly and wait patiently. It is not easy for us 21st century creatures, with our need to know and understand, to stop trying to work it out, make sense of everything, and simply be present.
For me my walking round and round the enclosed space of my garden cloister is helping me begin to move out of my linear ways of thinking. I am learning to rest a bit more in the spiral nature of time, and lean into the unfolding circle of the seasons. The Celts walked their rounds “sunwise” (no need for clockwise) and as the days merge and blur into one, the circular repeating pattern of the sun changes my perspective, and is a reminder of far bigger universal truths, and hope beyond the small confines of my tiny mind and garden hedges.
So on this Sunday morning I’m off to walk some more contemplative circuits of the garden.
As many of you know since I retired I have worked at my local volunteer run Community Library. I love libraries and the amazing access they provide to ideas, and learning. I often order myself books which I have seen recommended. A few weeks ago a book arrived at the library for me. I recognised the title but I couldn’t remember why I had ordered it, or who had recommended it. Once I started reading it I found myself frequently wanting to underline bits, or make notes in the margin, there were so many references I wanted to stop and look up. I knew this was a book I needed to buy! Sadly our Community Library is closed at the moment, because of the Coronavirus pandemic, but I now have my own copy of “What matters most” by James Hollis, for which I am grateful. (Although I still don’t know who it was who recommended it to me…. Let me know if it was you!)
The Coronavirus pandemic is not just closing libraries. It is killing many, many thousands around the world, and causing deep fear and suffering to those who are ill and those who care for them, as well as those of us who are well at the moment. I found it very startling and pertinent then that the first chapter of this book is headed by this quote.
“It is a bewildering thing in human life that the thing that causes the greatest fear is the source of the greatest wisdom” C.G. Jung
How can this terrifying thing which is happening on a global scale be a source of wisdom? I would be both presumptuous and arrogant if I said I knew the answers to that. But I can say that the enforced “stay at home” is helping me live a more “considered” life.
I find myself having to pay attention when I react with annoyance to another member of my household. I am forced to notice my feelings when I watch the news (or decide to turn it off). I am compelled to structure in positive and meaningful activities for myself, to fill the time I would not normally have been on my own. I am having to consider what are the things that matter most to me in my life, and what is most important for a healthy community? So many things which often get pushed aside in everyday normal life.
While I am “staying at home” I am not only reflecting on my priorities, and my inner journey, but I am also using my art journal to reflect on the process. This is a recent scribble/doodle page working with colour on a dark background. It was only afterwards I realised it expressed just how important my home is to me, the flowers in the garden and the cacophony of birdsong I have been noticing now the traffic noise has gone.
In the U.K. we are only at the start of this “stay at home” journey. We have many more weeks ahead to explore the inner world of being “at home” with ourselves. It will not be easy at times, but perhaps we will indeed find that it can be a source of wisdom and re prioritising for us all. Stay well everyone, and stay at home.
Weavers Journal 