There is rain on the window pane, and bleakness beyond: the closing in of early winter, with more closing in to come. It is not yet the festive season.
But the geraniums are heralds of change. Leaves may turn brown. Petals may be shed. But the insistent continuity of these flowers is a bright blessing in a grey moment, a vivid affirmation of the life force itself.
Contemplating these geraniums marks for me a distinctive point in the wheel of time, and the timeless Now that holds it.
A Scots pine in Hillfield Gardens (1), 28 November, 10.32 am. It stands out both as a tall tree and an evergreen. It asks me to look up and pay attention to it, and beyond it, almost losing sight of its deciduous neighbour. For me, this representative of the ‘eternal green’ has a commanding presence.
The Scots pine is one of the oldest trees native to Britain. It is also one of the trees associated with ogham lore (2), where the Scots pine is linked to the wisdom of overview. According to The Green Man Tree Oracle, ancient shamans of many traditions would literally climb to the top of a central tent pole or tree and “from this vantage point they could see clearly into the spirits’ inner world and come back with knowledge for the tribe or family they served” (2).
For me as for many people, the end of the calendar year is a time for reflection and taking stock. New year resolutions are a possible modern version of this process, but mine never really worked. They were overprescriptive and a way of setting myself up to fail.
‘Overview’ asks for a less driven and more contemplative approach, one more connected with Spirit. This is a good reminder as I start to wonder about how I am going to navigate 2026: divining what my contributions and satisfactions might look like as the Wheel continues to turn.
(1) Re Hillfield Gardens, Gloucester, see https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2024/11/22/
(2) John Matthews and Will Worthington The Green Man Tree Oracle: Ancient Wisdom from the Greenwood London: Connections, 2003
cold and bright an azure sky
frames the slender masts
affirming light in winter.
Alney Island at midday on 9 November. Looking up, I encountered a bleak majesty of now skeletal trees. Muted sunlight found its way through the grey clouds. In contrast, the river at my side retained a full, lush beauty.
As I walked, the tranquility of the scene was compromised at times by anxiety. The island is a wetland. It had been raining. More rain was due. The paths were puddled and muddy. The grass was soft and wet, half hiding twigs, leaves and slippery earth. I am still not fully recovered from my fall and this walk was a deliberate escalation in challenge. When I reached Richard’s Wood I stumbled over a tree root and nearly fell. At the same time I was able to enjoy a rich carpet of leaves at this late period in the leaf fall.
Among the trees I contemplated branches as living sculpture. It was as if I had reached a destination. Generally the branches were still holding on to at least some leaves. There were even new ones, in this fecund space. Eventually, my encounter with the wood completed, I turned round and made my cautious way home.
Where I live, autumn is becoming wintry. But winter has not yet come. Many leaves have fallen yet the trees are not yet bare. Whether standing against a severe sky or leaning in to water, they still witness their own vitality.
Along the canal bank, there are places where the green-gold beauty of autumn in this locality remains present, here on 5 November. I have a strong sense of continuing energy and life.
This feeling is most powerful for me when I hear the wind blowing through the trees and see leaves holding on even as the branches sway. Soon enough, these leaves will fall. Here and now, they are very much part of their trees.
For the first time since I fractured my shoulder in a heavy fall, I have walked beside the Gloucester canal. The period between 2pm and 4.30 on 28 October was particularly auspicious. Cool but clear. Blue sky and sunshine.
On this occasion, as I tentatively walked the paths, I found myself in a living world dominated by yellow and green. A fall was happening, but was not very advanced. I noticed my confidence in walking becoming more consistent and reliable. I felt good. I was at ease in the woodland world.
The walk was part of my coming to terms with an advancing age, in which the possibility of a damaging fall is priced in. I felt a little nostalgic for a distant past. At a time when I was impatiently looking forward to my fourth birthday I fell down a flight of stairs and simply got up again. I was pleased to have a story to tell my parents, but couldn’t understand their alarm when I told it. 1953 is indeed another country.
However most of my attention, on this walk, was on the walk itself. Pragmatically, it needed to be, and I was also increasingly held by the spirit of place and time on this benign late October day. I had a strong sense of here, now and home.
I had a goal of reaching a newly refurbished bridge for pedestrians and cyclists only. This would give me time to turn around and get home before sunset (roughly 4.45 now that the clocks have changed). A slowish two and a half hours is as much as I can manage as yet. From a recovery perspective, I feel on track.
I have now lived in Gloucester long enough to have a territorial sense of the city. When walking from a southerly direction, an elegant square and its garden signal my nearness to home. This signal is physical, emotional and psychic. My cognitive knowledge is secondary.
This signal is soon followed up by another, stronger one, closer to our apartment. Under looming grey clouds stands a tall, mature hornbeam. Once indoors, I will be able to look at it through our balcony windows – majestic even as it sheds its leaves.
The hornbeam is an iconic (I might almost say totemic) marker of ‘home’. Elaine and I do not individually own this tree and nor would we want to. But our city council does, with obligations towards it. That’s probably why it’s still there.
This sense of home and blessing: where does it come from? We are not migratory birds. But we used to be a bit more like them. Nomadic, but often within defined territories, however large, which we could get to know and love without the need for exclusive possession. There are people in the world who still try to live in this way but it is becoming increasingly difficult.
I speculate that part of my bodymind finds this arrangement natural, even though culture here is (mostly) very different. The feeling tone of my walking varies dramatically with different levels of newness and familiarity. In the approach to home, signalled not only by distance but also by landmarks, this is particularly strong. Perhaps this is the residue of a long lost pattern of life.
‘Being’ can be thought of in a number of ways. One is to say that it simply is what it is. I am. The flowers are. No need for complications. I sympathise with this approach.
Yet when nudged to look at a 2021 post of my own (1), I found the following words based on the work of Eckhart Tolle (2). “Human is form. Being is formless. Human and Being are not separate but interwoven.” A part of my work in contemplative inquiry is to find a balance between human and Being.
For me, ‘Being’ is a way to talk about the divine, whilst keeping a distance from theistic language and its traditional associations. Some people use ‘ground of being’ in this sense. Experientially, silence, stillness, emptiness – the space between thoughts, feeling and things – open me up to Being. Feelings of joy and lovingkindness are likely to enter in. I find that deepening into Being enriches the human dimension itself – with all of its relationships, roles and activities in 3D time bound reality. In older language, it brings heaven to earth.
I like this use of language for its plainness and simplicity. Ultimately its assumptions are a matter of faith within a larger framework of unknowing. It simply describes where I stand within my continuing inquiry. I have also enjoyed being reminded of this use of words by my past self. It’s a personal benefit of having this record.
(1) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2021/03/03/spring-clarity/
(2) Eckhart Tolle Oneness with All Life: Awaken to a Life of Purpose and Presence Penguin Random House UK, 2018 (1st. ed. 2008)
Now in the fourth week after my shoulder fracture, I have ventured out on a contemplative walk.
I rested for awhile in the erstwhile physic garden of Llanthony Secunda Priory. It is a friendly space for me. Yet at first I felt very small. An alien energetic sky raced high above me towards an unknown horizon.
I wasn’t used to the outdoors. The garden stretched in front of me, defined by a long straight path. I experienced the world as a place of distance and extension. I felt alarmingly unsheltered, until I stilled myself and looked down.
The sight of Michaelmas daisies altered my state. Seasonal flowers and a living, shining green. Although I didn’t move to touch them, I felt like a toddler reaching out for a mother’s hand. I was held again within the wheel of the year. Autumn, the season of bearing fruit.
I looked out further and received rhe assurance of an old stone wall, and the majesty of mature trees. The trees might be turning. The wall might be part of a ruin. But they were still in place, still present in time, still offering a quiet companionship.
These changes in perspective allowed me to experience the garden afresh, more closely and intimately. It was easier to be in, and easier to connect with. Still unsheltered, but unalarmed, I knew that I belong.
My last post was about working with ancient texts. Here I look at the term ‘gnosis’ in the Gospel of Thomas. I am indebted to the commentary of translator Jean-Yves Leloup. Here he reflects on logion 5, whose text I include in a note below.
“Gnosis is not a system, not another ideology through which we are to interpret and understand the world. On the contrary, it means opening our eyes to what we are already looking at, right in front of us, not searching somewhere else.
” … Things are not hidden in themselves; they are open – the veils hiding them are in the habits of our own vision, so crude, so overloaded with memories and assumptions about reality, distorting what is before us …
“Gnosis is a long-term work of recognition, of purity of attention so as really to see what is in front of us. The consequence of this attention is that we become what we see and what we love … If we look at chaos, we will reflect chaos. If we look at light, we will reflect light.” (1)
I am glad that this commentary provides more than scholarly exegesis. Leloup says in his introduction that he wants to offer “a meditation that arises from the tilled earth of our silence. It is my belief that it is from this ground, rather than from mental agitation, that these words can bear their fruit of light “. In this way Leloup dreams the myth onwards for our time, and passes the baton to his readers. Both a blessing, and a responsibility.
(1) Commentary on Logion 5, The Gospel of Thomas: The Gnostic Wisdom of Jesus Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2005
(Text translated from the Coptic with commentary by Jean-Yves Leloup; foreword by Jacob Needleman. English translation by John Rowe Original French edition published 1986).
The translated logion reads:
“Yeshua said:
Recognize what is in front of you, and what is hidden from you will be revealed.
There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.”
NOTE: See also
CHILD OF THE NOW
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Follow the Moon's Cycle
Meeting nature on nature's terms
A little bit of Mark Rosher in South Gloucestershire, England
A monastic polytheist's and animist’s journal
Selkie Writing…
Images and words set against a backdrop of outsider art.
living with metacrisis and collapse
The pagan path. The Old Ways In New Times
Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
a magickal dialogue between nature and culture
The gentle art of living with less
Thoughts about living, loving and worshiping as an autistic Hearth Druid and Heathen. One woman's journey.
An place to read and share stories about the celtic seasonal festivals
Just another WordPress.com site
Exploring our connection to the wider world
Become more grounded and spacious with yourself and others, through your own body’s wisdom
Good lives on our one planet
News for the residents of Hopeless, Maine
Contemplative Inquiry 