Autumn Cottage Diarist

A Pilgrimage Round the Garden - Easter Day 2020

Today - contemplations on Grief and Gratitude and how we can help ourselves to cope with life in unusual times

 

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The Veil is Thin…Honouring Those Who Have Gone Before

Early days - Dad's ex-RAF German Shepherds were my earliest friends

It's Halloween and in many places, little folk will be carving pumpkins, dressing up in spooky costumes, having fun parties and 'trick or treating' their way around neighbourhood houses. Maybe others will be following the Latino/Catholic traditions of the Days of the Dead, when the spirits of the Ancestors are thought to pay a return visit to their homes. Offerings and memorabilia are set out on home altars - both to 'greet the Spirits' - and to act as aids to remembering the dead.

Those - like myself - to whom the concept of the Pagan 'wheel of the year' makes sense - the cyclical travelling of the natural world (of which we are all part) through both summer and winter, through life, death and many forms of re-birth/re-emergence/resurrection, mark and celebrate this time of the year as the Quarter day of Samhain; it is an acknowledgement of the declining part of the cycle into the breakdown and decay of all that has grown - but a breakdown into components that will contribute to the cycle by providing the resources for future regrowth. All is as it should be.

The Ancestors and departed loved ones and their importance are also an important focus of contemplation and honouring at this time of the year - those that have grown, flourished, died and decayed in bodily terms before us - (both in our own family lines, but also in our wider communities). But they have left important nutrients to our own identities - the nutrients of memories, shared through story, which can feed us so vigorously , individually and communally, if we are prepared to engage with them.

They can feed our understanding of  ourselves by understanding our context - our place in the world, where we 'fit in' in the long, often fragmented and convoluted line of both our personal and community histories. They also contribute to who we have become by just being present at a particular time, in a particular place. I believe that this learning and this understanding can contribute to us a sense of  stability in what often seems a constantly more unstable world. 

My Mother - my human most Loved One of all and 'Weekie' the Westie

However…it is not only Human beings of whom I speak. You may notice in many of my posts the affinity I also  feel for non-human beings. To me, companion and other animals are as much a part of our communities as are our humans - they have contributed greatly to my life, made a difference to it, have shaped and influenced it, and have, in part, made me who I am.

So on this Samhain 2017, when the veil between me and the Others is thin and their presence - as memories  - is close, I share with you just a few images of the other Dear Ones that have been meaningful to my life. I would love it if you wanted to share some memories of your own non-human loved ones as well.

Feeding time on my Uncle's farm, a place and creatures that played a huge part in my childhood and love of the natural world

All creatures, great and small, are my companions at Autumn Cottage

My darling Lissie - 3 months old. As in this picture, never far from my heart.

Each one departed now - but they have all helped to make me who I am. Today, as the Great Wheel turns once more, I honour and thank them all.

Once Again - Time is Flying!

Sumach suckers, leaves about to fall...

Already December is nearly upon us, while I am still getting used to the fact that it is no longer July! I've just walked across our drive (over to the compost bins where many worms are making light work of breaking down all the waste from the kitchen that I care to throw at them) and notice that the Sumach suckers which I intend to pot up are now denuded of leaves - but that last time I specifically checked them, the September heat was still so intense out there that I was very happy to get back into the house and some cooling shade.

I guess I am now becoming ever more aware of what all previous generations repeat to those that come after them - and of which we take little notice until this stage in our lives…'time flies by ever more rapidly as one gets older'. There have been some good psychological analyses as to why this is our perception - but the practical effect is to make me realise that every minute of my time each day is ever more precious and not to be wasted.

I realised this morning that I am extremely good at giving advice to others and not taking it myself - a pertinent point in thoughts about use of time! I frequently suggest to writing workshop participants that they 'pencil in' time for personal writing or exercise - but I don't follow my own advice! I don't work outside the home, so I theoretically have much 'free time' in which to do the things that need to be done…but I often find that all that 'free' time means that I am disorganised and casual, not planning my days properly and as a result - wasting time. I need to be firmer with myself and plan my own days more stringently.

There always seems to be something more pressing than 'making time for myself' - but merely putting this point down on paper is making me sit back, take pause and take my own advice; make appointments with myself for those walks through the woods that I was going to take oh so regularly (but never do) - and more regular time slots for personal, journal and creative writing - even if there are three more rooms to vacuum, the shopping to do, batches of food to prepare for the freezer or five more bags of bulbs which absolutely MUST go into the ground before Christmas. I'd be interested to hear how you plan your days when you don't have them already planned for you... and where have I put my diary?!

Always a happy call on my time - making batches of soup for the freezer - this time, Carrot & Sweet Potato.

 

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Mornings With Mary - 1

Once again, a visit to Rebecca at Recuerda mi Corazon, where she hosts Mornings with Mary each Monday. Rebecca's blog is inspiring me greatly at present (two posts here in two days!!) - now I am taking the leap of participating more. This is one way of enjoying  sharing with others some of my own pleasure when I travel (and when I create imagery at home) in discovering the beauty of religious art. I do not practice any one particular faith but am drawn to  intense spirituality of both people and place - it fills that 'hole in my soul' that we all, I think, possess - but which is filled in different ways for different people.

The first images I would like to share are of  two of those of Nossa Senhora de Fátima - 'Our Lady of Fatima'  to be found in churches all over Lisbon in Portugal. This portrayal of Mary is a popular figure in Lisbon, seen in many different places, Fatima being a 'local' site of important pilgrimage, just over an hour from the capital.

Two churches - two portrayals of Mary - but how different they are in the emotions they conjure in me. The first, above, is found in the Basilica da Estrela on the outskirts of Lisbon. Like many Lisboan churches I did not find it to be welcoming - but rather dark and forbidding, and here, Mary is also distanced from those who come to look and venerate. She is separated from the viewer (and from the images of the two children who first saw her in visions) by plate glass; swathed in a lurid yellow light. My first sensation was that of being instructed to perceive this effigy of holiness from afar. Kept at much more than arms length, she had nothing to do with me, but was literally separated by a barrier that I was forbidden to cross. (My second observation was 'who on earth chose that horrible soda-light glow?!)

Compare her with the second image - from the Igreja de São Domingos in the centre of Lisbon. Again, a dark and rather depressing interior, but here, although the placement and iconography is more or less the same, no glass separates the compassionate visage from her onlookers - She is gentle, compassionate, warm and  accessible. I could touch her if I wanted. The glow comes not from a switch thrown by a sacristan - but from individual candles, lit by individual human beings as invocations for intercession or remembrance in times of gratitude or difficulty.  For me, the link between human and Divine is made so much more clearly here - unsurprisingly, I like this portrayal a great deal more.

 

Gold, Frankinsense, Myrrh - and Questions

'Adoration of the Magi' Gentile da Fabriano (d 1428)

From the detached sumptuousness of  Fabriano's Magi to the humane, engaged intellectual visages of Brueghel the Elder's Kings, images of the Christian Epiphany always intrigue me.

  'Adoration of the Three Kings', Pieter Breugel the Elder, 1564)

The Magi always seem to have been a bit of an afterthought here in the UK and I wonder if this is because their festival comes at the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas, when the Protestant work ethic was already kicking in hard during the last four centuries. And also...what to make of them? Were they actual Kings? I suspect the reality is more that they were more likely (possibly Zoroastrian) 'Wise Men' - astronomers, investigators, explorers, seekers after truth(s), questioners, asking 'who is this?' and 'what does this mean'? - Always a recipe for suspicion and a possible run-in with authority. Though they do certainly look pretty on Christmas cards, these guys have been under suspicion in certain quarters for a very long time.

It seems to me that many of the same questions asked 2000 years ago are asked today - with the same variety of answers, different ones appropriate for different individuals. Perhaps it is the questioning, the hard journey, the uneasy answers that are the important things..prompting us to continually make that journey, think hard, dig deep, not turn away from being confronted with other questions as a result of our own exploring?

T.S.Eliot's  'Journey of the Magi' - (who I envisage more closely resembling  those of Breughel than Fabriano) expresses to me quite strikingly this concept of hard journeying and continuing questioning, ...but also the never-ending need that we human beings have to do so - to question and seek for Truths that will shine in the darkness and make sense of the complications of the world for us, while at the same time revealing that some things may never be explained. What thoughts and questions does it bring up for you?


"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
hat this was folly.

 
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation,
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky.
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all the way for
Birth or Death ? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

You may care to explore this poem more deeply by listening to the episode dedicated to it in the excellent, 30 minute BBC 'Adventures in Poetry'

And since hard journeying and constant questioning is not comfortable, but constantly prompts new questions from any answers we may think we have found, here is an image that certainly jolts me out of my own illusions of prettiness and complacency.

  Gottfried Helnwein
Epiphany I (Adoration of the Magi) 1996 (Image from http://www.helnwein.com)

What questions does this modern image leave with you? ( This essay may illuminate your thinking and questioning...) What thoughts, what feelings, what indignations or protests? What truths and actions and further journeying does it present to you?

It seems to me that the journey is never easy...but what makes it worthwhile are the questions - and the continuing desire to seek for answers to some of therm.

May you all experience your own Epiphanies in 2011...and may you be energised by the adventure of your own journeys required to do so.

In Memoriam - in Peace

Lilian Mary Louvaine Latham (nee Silcox)
7th September 1915 - 1st October 1998

My Mother

 

I have never spent any time in a monastery or convent...though I would dearly like to. But for an experience which allows one to have a hint of what it might be like, I thoroughly recommend to you two DVDs which I have watched over the last year - both of which instil a sense of immense peace in their watching.

Firstly, the earlier film 'Into Great Silence', directed by Philip Groning, which spans a year in the monastery of the Grand Chatreuse in France. With virtually no dialogue, it is exquisite. The quality of light is mesmerising, the images like a series of Dutch Old Masters*, it is a film which may be savoured all in one watching as a personal silent retreat. That experience would be very intense, however, and it may also be 'dipped into' to find a small haven of stillness and peace in any busy day. It is beautifully reviewed here by Frederic and Anne Mary Brussat at their wonderfully comprehensive 'Spirituality and Practice' site,

The second film, No Greater Love, directed by Michael Whyte, was made much closer to home, in the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Notting Hill, London. More dialogue this time, giving more of an insight into how the Carmelite nuns who live there view their enclosed lives. Again, it will provide an oasis of contemplation if you leave it in your DVD player. There are also some compelling images in this film...that of the aged nun in her coffin, crowned with roses was one of the most beautiful images I have seen in a very long time.

Try to track down these two films - they are worth seeking and worth waiting for, and well worth returning to over and over again. Like all the best films, each watching reveals something you will have never noticed before.

*oops - didn't know Kazuo Ishiguro had said that about 'No Greater Love'...he was right - they really do

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
[email protected].)

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