8 am, 14 July. Local woods. A little after the year’s zenith, I am in strong morning sunshine and enjoying its patterns of light and shade. A green portal lures me forward. What will I find on the next part of my journey?
I am am often moved by the effects of light, and drawn to write about them. Each experience is unique. Today, sunlight on tree bark feels warm and playful.
Below, I find a clearly defined shadow shape on the ground, the effect of the sun passing through a fence. This feels playful too, high summer’s friendly face in this place at this time. Contemplation as simple delight.
My walking time is still restricted. Perhaps because of this, familiar outdoor spaces have become exotic and magical to my eyes. My limiting circumstances are paradoxically making me more focused and attentive, enhancing my felt quality of life. I am readier to find joy in simple, passing experiences.
On my contemplative walks, the shapes and colours of trees move me deeply. Grasses and sky have a similar impact. I am very aware of these July days. I am very aware of summer. I am very aware of my place in the world as the year turns in my immediate neighbourhood.
A little further away, I stand on a canal bridge (below) and look back towards the city, which seems distant and small. Water and sky give me space and perspective. I let the elements of water and air nourish me at a time when I am largely grounded.
Close up at the water margin, I find light shining on the water. There is energy and movement here. The power of the sun is present in both a shifting luminosity on the water and the flowering resilience on the bank.
I shift into a meditation on the four classical elements – earth, water, air and fire – and how they work together to make the fifth (life, spirit) possible. Consciously engaged with the four, I can stand as the fifth, resourcing my individual life within a world of impermanence and interbeing.
In the original edition of The Dreampower Tarot (1) The Sleeper is an androgyne figure in a field of corn and poppies. Their face is turned towards the flowers. Their right arm is outstretched, with palm and fingers turning a little towards the ground. Their forefinger hints that we should look to the earth and underworld for healing and inspiration. The whole image evokes deep evening slumber.
In this midsummer period, I’m in a regime of going to bed early, before the light has gone. It reminds me of delicious childhood moments and I feel comforted. During this period I have tended to dream of abstract images and unfathomable events, with background sounds so soft that I can barely hear them.
In these dreams, I have no language and can make no real sense of anything. I’m OK about this, because I’m aware of being aware and safe in awareness without the slightest ability to formulate a sentence like this one. The recognition is primal and wordless. At times, I experience a push towards understanding of a sort, but it is not (yet?) agitated or dominant in consciousness. I seem, in this dreaming (as perhaps once in pre-natal life), to be in realm of divinely simple potential.
When I wake up in the early morning. at this time of year, I find light again, and a different feeling of wonder. Using my resources of language and culture, I am able to make cognitive sense of my world once more. The gift of the dream is that my everyday experience feels, for a while, strange and new. It makes room for the luminosity and magic that I can easily forget in my ‘waking’ hours. The morning light outside my window confirms their presence here. They nourish me, and I am porous to the world.
(1) R. J. Stewart The Dreampower Tarot: The Three Realms of Transformation in the Underworld London: The Aquarian Press, 1993 Illustrated by Stewart Littlejohn
I spend time inside looking out. The sky changes a lot. Its shifts are rapid and dramatic. The trees change too, but over longer periods of time. The high levels of rain this year have encouraged an exceptional verdancy and abundance. Looking out, I can almost forget that I am in a block of newish flats in an old urban area. The person walking on the pavement below seems dwarfed by the splendour of the leaves. The road is very quiet for a late morning. The wheel of the year turns, approaching its summer zenith in this part of the world.
I am settling in to a higher number for my official age. In social gerontology, there are (or have been) three kinds of ‘old’: young-old (50-64), middle-old (65-74) and old-old (75+). I am now old-old and statistically immune from premature death. These classifications don’t quite fit my lived experience, but they are a sort of landmark all the same.
Elaine and I have been together for nine days following her repatriation and subsequent stay in a local hospital. We are learning how to live a new phase of our relationship where she has high needs and is housebound, and I am in a ‘caring’ role in the institutional sense of that term. We are learning as we go along and doing our best to be conscious about our experience as well as practical in an ‘activities of daily living’ sense. I think we are doing OK. We are establishing new patterns of day to day life and Elaine’s capacity is increasing.
Mostly I leave the flat only for shopping and other practical tasks and, because we are so well situated, these don’t take long. On Saturday Elaine and I both felt comfortable and confident with me going out on a one hour recreational walk. I continue with a regular practice and journaling. I still practice within a Druid circle (grove) and I find this healing and re-energising. At the same time my work has been referenced more to five personal commitments rather than to tribal membership, religious devotion or spiritual metaphysics. Recently I have been contemplating my commitments and checking out whether they still work for me. These are:
1. I will work from the stillness of the centre.
2. I will cultivate good will towards self, others, and the wider web of being.
3. I will cultivate positive health and well-being, within whatever constraints may apply.
4. I will cultivate discernment, creativity and wisdom, to the best of my understanding and capacity.
5. I will cultivate a life of abundance in simplicity, living lightly on the earth.
I do see a danger in lists like these: they can become a frozen and pious – an internal rhetorical performance. For me, contemplative inquiry keeps my commitments alive, suggesting revisions if necessary. This is my direction, going forward, in the unfolding chapter of my life.
On 12 May I wrote: “I hope soon to get some sense of how soon Elaine will come home, and what resources we will need for our lives going forward. It’s my 75th birthday on 25 May, and my best present would be to have Elaine home by then.” (1) Today is 25 May, and my wife Elaine is indeed coming home from the Gloucester Royal hospital. It has felt like a long absence for both of us and we are glad to move into a new chapter of our lives.
Yesterday evening I went Alney Island, a Gloucester wetland, for a brief contemplative walk. The footbridge near Gloucester docks has been repaired and after many months the island is easy to reach again. Back on the island, I loved its sense of growth and abundance in the summer evening light. I felt care-free. I had almost forgotten how much experiences like this nourish me.
This is a festive moment in my life: a significant birthday, Elaine’s return, celebrating a moment in the year that makes me glad to be alive. I feel refreshed, heartened and re-energised.
The Song of Amergin, here sung in Old Irish Gaelic, is the oldest known extant song in the Atlantic Archipelago*. The performers here are An Tuagh, whose core focus is the Gaelic-Norse traditions of northern Scotland. They have a YouTube channel, a Facebook page and an Instagram presence. The Song of Amergin is featured in their album Bard and Skald, as is a Beith-Luis-Nun Ogham chant. If you subscribe to the An Tuagh YouTube channel, there are commentaries on both pieces. The one for the Song of Amergin includes both Irish and English texts. However versions vary widely and An Tuagh have copyrighted theirs. I have included an open source English version below, to give some impression of what is being sung.
I am the sea blast I am the tidal wave I am the thunderous surf I am the stag of the seven tines I am the cliff hawk I am the sunlit dewdrop I am the fairest of flowers I am the rampaging boar I am the swift-swimming salmon I am the placid lake I am the summit of art I am the vale echoing voices I am the battle-hardened spearhead I am the God who inflames desire Who gives you fire Who knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen Who announces the ages of the moon Who knows where the sunset settles
I have listened to An Tuagh’s rendition of the Song of Amergin a number of times, sinking into a sense of shared presence with something preciously archaic and other. An Tuagh are the intermediaries, helping me to catch an after echo of that time. I don’t have fully to understand it, but simply respond. I am grateful both to the old culture, and to skillful modern bards.
NOTE: At the beginning of April I discovered Hillfield Gardens – a little outside the centre of Gloucester, yet still in easy walking distance (or an easy bus ride) from where I live. Originally the gardens of a large house, Hillfield Gardens are about 1.6 hectares in extent. They are managed by a Friends Group on behalf of Gloucestershire County Council. For me the gardens are a tranquil space, different in feeling-tone from other local parks. Beyond that I don’t yet have a narrative about the gardens – more a set of discreet impressions. The pictures and words above are an attempt to share these impressions. The third picture is a detail from an 18th century gazebo using architectural details from a 14th century market house in Westgate Street demolished in 1780.
I am walking among trees, feeling refreshed and renewed after a long winter. This feeling is anchored by the return of leaves. I am present in, and to, the presence of new green. It comes every year, at slightly different times. I’m noticing the beginning of a beautiful verdant period. It’s re-appeared a little early this year and I experience this as a great blessing.
Where I live, the early spring has been wet and windy, often with dull skies. Nature has been alive and active throughout this period, but I have remained wintry in important respects. This weekend has changed me. I am aware of new green leaves and a strengthening sun. The latter may be visually dimmed by frequent of heavy cloud, but the leaves reassure me of its power in the rising year. Although we are still far from a full canopy in the woods, the life-force – in modern Druidry often called nwyfre – is strong. It’s a time for celebration.
I’m walking in my local park. It’s a dull day in the first half of March. There have been many such days, and I could do with more sun. I certainly feel lifted when it comes. At the same time the days are longer and Mother Nature is busy with the work of spring: an abundance of willow catkins is testament to this.
I get my strongest impression of the strength and fecundity of willow when close up. The individual catkins are clearer, more prominent. The colours are stronger. There’s the sense of a rich and vibrant ecosystem, powerfully alive.
Still images don’t provide movement and sound, or indicate the presence of the March wind. I have tried to capture this in my short video below, illustrating another aspect of this moment in the year. It brought up fond childhood memories of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows which begins with spring cleaning and includes the gently Pagan chapter The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Willow became important to me in my early study and practice of Druidry. I began a special relationship with a particular willow in Bristol for many years (2), which continued after I left the city and continues sporadically to this day. I also developed a private tradition of following the wheel of the year through a mandala based on 16 trees, all in easy distance of where I lived, with Willow the focus from 17 March to 7 April, hence presiding over the spring equinox (3). Checking in with the willows is a continuing feature of my walks, though I was a little early this year.
(1) Kenneth Grahame The Wind in the Willows London: Dean, in association with Methuen’s Children’s Books, 1991. (Ist ed. 1908. Illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
A familiar sight, in a familiar place. I’ve been living in Gloucester for two years now. This is the first February since 2019 in my personal life that I might call ‘normal’. The Covid-19 pandemic and relocations dominated the February’s of 2020-2023. Hyper-vigilant states aren’t such a feature for me in February 2024. My reduced anxiety has allowed a certain laziness and I have found it welcome.
Contemplating the image above, I greet these winter-skeletal trees as friends, today part of my internalised psychic territory. On this occasion, a 9 February walk, I call the afternoon ‘grey’ because of my initial response to the sky. The label has meaning for me as a first impression though it does over-generalise. Looking more closely, I find the sky turbulent and mixed. White hides the afternoon sun. There are indications of movement and change, and hints of blue. A slender branch yearns upwards to the hidden sun, pursuing fresh life and growth. That sun has moved well beyond midwinter. It may not yet be spring, but the days are longer and at times I experience a real warmth.
Moving on and now looking downwards, I discover a different world. Here there is evidence of both sunlight and shadow on the path. Mud and the puddles from refreshing rain too, with vivid green grass beside on the verges..
But the the most obviously verdant signs of annual regeneration in February 2024 are in the undergrowth beside the path. Here, in the picture below, is a feast of green freshness. New-appearing nettles are strongly present. They may sting to protect themselves yet they also nourish and heal. They have enriched our lives in many ways for a very long time. When I was ill with respiratory problems at times in 2021 and 2022 I valued them as a tea. I was pleased to meet the rising generation on my walk.
My memory of February 2024 will feature the colours grey and green as strong markers of this intermediate season. A blessing our lives, and a blessing on the land!
Contemplative Inquiry 