Contemplative Inquiry

It is 21 June, the morning of the Summer Solstice where I live. I feel refreshed and enlivened by a morning walk that became a solar celebration. I went out at 6.45 am, just short of two hours after dawn, leaning in to the influence of the sun in the here and now  A time when the sun was high in the sky, but the temperature still a friendly kind of cool.

Neither I nor the camera could look straight into the sun. I observed and experienced the sun through indirect effects. This was a physical, naturalistic, rather than metaphysical connection with the solstice morning. I was an inside rather than outside observer and can show my own presence too through my shadow on the path. I was part of the morning, this dance of light and shade.

In some places I saw sharp distinctions of light and shade and in others subtle ones. In both cases I was aware of a nurturing power, that of the sun in this time and place. I know that the sun can be different  – either relentlessly fierce or seemingly absent. I felt blessed that I could experience an hour of gentle solar celebration on this solstice day.

It’s as if these birches are drawing  me further into their world. A Nemeton has been growing in silent slowness beside our home.  As they continue to grow, I notice a change in me.

These trees have decisively burst out of their official role as ‘landscaping’. They have shown themselves to me as vividly alive in this more than human world. In response I’m feeling a stronger embodied link to the birches, beyond simple recognition.

This sense of connection, which Elaine also feels, has been growing for some time, and I have written about it before (1,2,3). But it’s only recently that I have sensed an invitation from this group of trees to deepen the connection. Now, I can envision an active sacred space – a Druid grove. A place for energetic attunememt with the trees and of contemplation.

(1)

WAXING

(2) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2026/03/25/lady-day-birch-in-full-leaf/

(3) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2025/06/11/the-feeling-of-home/

Everything changes. I took the picture above at 6.05 am, at the start of an early morning walk. The clouds are a soft grey with clear blue sky visible at certain points. By 6.41 the clouds are dark and roiling, moving quickly through the sky. The light spaces are unstable, though there are hints of the rising sun’s power.

Early morning walks, honouring the high summer’s gift of extended light, are a recent innovation for me at this time of my life. I now feel fully recovered from my falls and proficient in the use of my walking stick. My 77th birthday has inspired a more programmatic approach to diet and exercise.  June 2026 so far has been relatively cool and this has been good for my energy and motivation.

I notice that these walks are not especially meditative. I do not stop and look much. I don’t have a full direct sense of interconnectedness and non-separation, though I hold these as a strong conviction. I’m more goal-oriented and that narrows my horizons in the now. I’m still in the now because there’s there’s nowhere else to be. But my subjective experience feels different.

Often, as the summer develops and the Solstice is not far off, I celebrate clear contrasts of light and shade. This year, and this morning in particular, I have found these contrasts softened and more variable. Light and shade are harder to distinguish from each other. They don’t stand out in an obvious way. Yesterday evening, at 9.15 pm a little before sunset, I had the same sense at the end of the day. The interplay of light effects, and the rapid change (not shown in a still image) gave the whole sky a look of creative turbulence. I am happy to embrace this energy.

“In a rectangular channel of space light drops in oblique layers of polished cubes sustaining gods and fragments.

“Monstrous human heads without backs protrude lips satisfied with the taste of pride.

“Seductive goddesses, cat-faced and maiden-breasted, sit eternally stroking smooth knees.”

Jessie Dismorr (1915) Egyptian Gallery London Notes (1)

I am looking at prose poetry (2) as a new form of exploration/expression in my contemplative inquiry. My phone’s AI describes it as “a literary hybrid that uses the sentence and paragraph structure of prose but relies on the compressed, figurative language, rhythm and emotional intensity of verse”.

Now that I am reading prose poetry, I find that the use of prose structure is fairly consistent but that language is more varied than the AI suggests. A liminal and rebel space in literature, this genre (if it is a genre) has morphed and changed over time and in the hands of different practitioners.

I see creative writing as an organic part of my inquiry and not as an incidental decoration. This is why I have engaged with haiku (3) and have been writing them for some time. I shall continue to write haiku, whilst also being attracted to prose poetry as  another, more flexible and expansive, option. Whilst not committing myself to a date, I plan to publish my own prose poetry in this blog.

(1) Jessie Dismorr Egyptian Gallery in Jeremy Noel-Tod The Peguin Book of the Prose Poem: From Baudelaire to Anne Carson Penguin Random House UK (Kindle edition)

(2) Jessie Dismorr – Jessica Stewart Dismorr (1885-1939) is best known as a painter and illustrator. In 1913 she joined the Rebel Art Centre and signed the Vorticist  Manifesto, championing the depiction of the dynamics of the machine and challenging the public’s conservative views of art. She contributed 4 works (now apparently lost) to a Vorticist exhibion in London. She was also a writer and Egyptian Gallery is part of her London  Notes collection.

(3) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2026/04/26/

a fiery sunset

changed by the onset of night

bright morning follows

Yesterday, 22 May, I welcomed summer. It was a hot day by local standards (28C/82.4F at its peak), followed by a slightly cooler evening. As I walked out to embrace the evening and the season, I noticed the hornbeam opposite our building in its full strength and magnificence. It matched the moment perfectly.

The two pictures immediately below show a garden in the middle of an urban square, where the flora also seemed to be welcoming the season. In the third picture, looking beyond the square to the east, the sky was clear, at 7.45 pm on this early summer evening.

Half an hour later, looking west from the Gloucester docks, I noticed the colour of the sky. Sunset would not be until 9pm, nearly an hour later. The power of the waning sun was showing through the clouds.

In my last post (1) I wrote about the experience of late spring. This was less than a week ago, so the differences are subtle. Yet I am clear that a change I was anticipating has now occurred.

Giving names and dates to seasons is a somewhat arbitrary human practice. But it’s also an important one, even in a tec obssessed urban culture. It’s a recognition of nature and its primal power.

(1) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2026/05/18

Standing on my balcony I contemplate the last days of spring. I love the abundance of trees now in full leaf. We are in a cool and at times rainy period, good for growth. My local world feels fresh and alive, in a still spring-like way. I had the same feeling when noticing wild flowers beside the canalside a day or two ago. A kind of lush newness and vitality that I associate with the final stages of spring.

This is expected to change soon into a hotter, drier period. For me, this will mark my transition into the summer of 2026.

As I move through the wheel of the year, year after year, I recognise that my experience of of the four seasons is local and subjective. Fixed bureaucratic and liturgical demarcations are collectively necessary. But they do not always align with either local conditions or my personal experience. Tuning in and identifying where I stand in the year is an important part of my practice.

A single magpie

On a seagull’s vacant lamppost

No sorrow as yet

Recently I was surprised to see a magpie sitting on a  nearby lamppost. There is a hierarchy in the neighbourhood that awards this lamppost to seagulls.  Clearly, the magpie did not know it’s place. Cheeky and cheerful, it dared defiantly to land and make itself at home. Bright eyed, it shamelessly enjoyed itself.

I turned my attention away and I do not know of any repercussions. The last line of the haiku references the a traditional rhyme about seeing magpies.

One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl

Four for a boy

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret

never to be told.

Now, the magpie is long gone. As far as I can tell, we have both benefited from the pleasure of the encounter.