Autumn Cottage Diarist

An Hour a Day

Clematis tangutica seed-head

I've never done anything like this before...but today I committed an hour a day to work though an on line course in enhancing one's spiritual connection with Nature. I was first directed to the course through the postings I sometimes receive from the non-profit  Gratefulness.org (worthwhile exploring in itself) - and from there to another site, Spirituality & Practice (run by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat), initially giving details of a course on "Living the Hours" - mindful living through following the medieval day-pattern of the Monastic Hours. But for now, Spirituality & Nature seemed to be more appropriate for me, as this time of the year is particularly conducive to a heightened awareness of the natural world for me. (So much to learn - so little time - "The Hours" will come later !)

I'm doing this study for several reasons - but mainly as a personal discipline and also to introduce myself in a more ordered way to more  of the writings on the connection between the natural world and ourselves, for
future incorporation into my own writing courses, run here at Autumn Cottage.

The e-course costs hardly anything - around $19.00 US dollars, and for that I will receive 40 daily prompts and direction to further writings. I like the fact that prompts and suggestions are given out once-a-day, instead of all together, forcing me to pace myself and take time to go deeper into each piece of work.

I'll post some of the images here as more photo-essays...unfortunately, part of my commitment is that I do not re-post the original prompts - a fair enough request, (you could perhaps have fun trying to guess what the original question was!. I will, however, give some feedback at the end of the course, for those of you who may be interested in looking into one yourselves. Definitely no affiliation - just an enquiring mind who wants to know...more...and more...and more....:-)

Explore Gratefulness.org - there is much of value, and look here at Spirituality and Practice if you would like to investigate any of the e-courses further.

Now - the results of my first day's exploration and enquiry.

Bergenia leaves ("Elephant ears")

Water lily leaves

Milk-thistle

Hosta leaf

Crocosmia seed-head

Sempervivum

Leycesteria

Eryngium

Phlomis fruticosa (Jerusalem sage) seed head

An unidentified - but beautiful - moth, trying to merge with the pale yellow wall of the house

The vine..still green

....but turning

 

As is the rest of existence...

Gardening for the Spirit

Up at 5.30 this morning, as Lissie had decided to rattle the door from the kitchen to my hall. I thought it was a case of "urgent necessity" - went down to let her out...she promptly climbed back up on her chair in the kitchen, curled up and went back to sleep!

The order of the day when this sort of thing happens is - cup of tea, and back to bed with a book and my journal! There is something very blissful about being able to go back to bed - something I don't often do, but just sometimes...aaaah! it is lovely!

 

The favourite book on my bedside table just now is "Soul Gardening", bought for 50 pence ($1.00) from "Sally Anne's" -  the Salvation Army charity shop in Newbury last week, written by ex-priest now gardener and garden designer Terry Hershey. He tries a bit too hard to be clever with the words to begin
with, but once he settles down and just focuses on  gardening, he becomes less self conscious and does express many sympathies that are so in tune with my own.

He has some interesting things to say about how he changed his mind on what can be described as "Everyday Sacred", a sentiment expressed and exemplified every day by my good friend Fran Redondowriter  on her inspirational blog  "Sacred Ordinary". And here he is describing a visit to an English cottage garden, where he had been absorbed for two hours "immersed ...into the mosaic of colour and the jumble of scents"..

"It's not easy, to just sit. I wanted to be productive in my sitting. I wanted to describe what I was seeing, what I was feeling. I wanted to find the right words or take a picture, wanting to find a container for this moment. Before long, the internal manic cadence begins to lose its steam. And your eyes begin to refocus. Off come the shoes and you settle in, to revel in the gift.

And on this afternoon, you pretend to be characters in some Victorian novel, enjoying tea under the pergola, served by butlers, no less, and serenaded with the continuous hum of bees busily absorbed in honeysuckle and delphinium. On this afternoon, you play guessing games with white cloud shapes and relish the buoyant blue  sky and the lavish waste of time.

For there is something about the whole experience that provokes a replay of the lazy summer afternoons of childhood, laying belly-up under the apple tree, grass stem in mouth, a remembrance of the time when one unquestionably expected fantasies would come true and when ordinary wardrobes did indeed lead to the land of Narnia"

This passage rings so true with me, especially after yet another lovely autumn day today, the sort of day that I, like the author, have struggled to describe, to capture evocatively in my journal. The fleeting, ephemeral atmosphere is almost impossible to capture, which is perhaps what makes it so special, and why we should just enjoy it with abandon while we can.

Hershey mentions photography as one way of capturing the moment, and here is just such a moment in the photo below, captured over 100 years ago,from an old photograph album that I am currently scanning. Taken in the late Victorian/early Edwardian period, do you think that the people in the picture have also spent a lazy summer afternoon, listening to the bees and taking tea on the lawn. I rather think they may have done, don't you?

( Click on the image to enlarge it, so that you may enjoy looking at the fascinating detail at your leisure. Email me if you would like an even higher resolution image)

Ted Bowman - Spreading the Good Words

Jon C. and Ted Bowman at Autumn Cottage

I had the pleasure of the company of Ted Bowman, Author, Educator and a  member of the American National Association for Poetry Therapy yesterday afternoon - and what a pleasure it was for me and my colleague at Cruse Bereavement Care, Jon C.

Ted is in the UK for his annual visit to travel all over the country, giving talks and leading inspirational workshops, focused chiefly in the area of loss, hope and transition. Today, he is here in Newbury, talking to other local educators, and this evening working with us at Cruse to discover how we can practice self-care in the caring professions.

Already familiar with Ted's spoken and written work, I can be sure that there will be emphasis on deep listening and witnessing of our own stories, those of our clients and within our own communities - and the use of poetry and writing as a resource for us, both at times of "Loss of Dreams" and to help in "Finding Hope When Dreams Have Shattered" - the titles of Ted's first two books.

His third book, just recently published, and entitled "Crossroads - Stories at the Intersections" is a collection of musings and reflections on different life issues - birth, marriage, divorce, growing old, dementia, bereavement, lamentation, reconciliation and rejoicing, personal observations in poetry and prose of how Ted has experienced these events and feelings, and  interlaced with  other authors poems which have struck a particular chord with him.

The wonderful poem entitled "The Archbishop Chairs the First Session" (click link then scroll down) by Ingrid de Kok, about Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa pierced me to the core - and there are many other pages that I know  will give readers considerable pause for their own thoughts and reflections.

"Crossroads" is a marvellous resource for anyone who is interested in their own or other's life writing in any form - when Ted arrived yesterday, I already had practically every other page flagged up with sticky markers to ask about various thoughts and reflections of my own! Such rich pickings can be gleaned from all three (very inexpensive) books, which I would suggest should be on the bookshelves of anyone interested in the arts of living and communication. (No affiliation, just enthusiasm!)

Jon and I share a mutual enthusiasm for creative ways of working with clients as fellow human beings, including the use of poetry and  therapeutic writing. It's such  a pleasure to see these ways of seeing and sharing now becoming more incorporated in mainstream therapeutic work here in the UK - and it is thanks to the advocacy of  people like Jon and Ted, two true gentle-men, that information about  the creative therapies is being disseminated and  integrated.
Long may it continue!

(Details of Ted's books and workshops are available from him at
bowma008@tc.umn.edu.)

The Most Beautiful Dining Room in the World?

I was entranced, over the weekend, by this immensely beautiful photograph of the refectory of one of the monasteries on Mount Athos in Greece. It came from a two part supplement to “The Guardian” newspaper, in which some facts about the health and diet of the monks living there were discussed – being described as “The World’s Healthiest People”.

There were some very impressive details from studies that have been carried out with the inhabitants of Athos. A five year study of 2000 monks found virtually no incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, with exceptionally low rates of heart disease and “unusually low rates” of many different kinds of cancers.

One of the reasons cited for their exceptional vigour is that they eat a modest diet with no meat, totally fresh foods, semi-fast every otherl day and live under conditions of very low stress.

I would suggest that being surrounded by the extraordinary beauty of these wall paintings – living in an environment where beauty was seen as necessary to the health of the whole person, would make its own contribution to peace and tranquillity, which surely can only be beneficial to the wellbeing of body and soul?

Photograph by Mark Read, Guardian/Observer supplement, Sunday 17th Feb 08