Images | Contemplative Inquiry

Recent days have been rich in numinous images. Images that for me mark the divinity within our material reality. Above, the recent full moon: clear light at the centre and a blood moon halo suggesting a link with the earth, later to manifest in an eclipse. The sky is deep violet leaning into indigo. The shaded trees absorb the energy of the sky as well as of the earth. The whole image feels moving and inspiring – an image for contemplation which doesn’t need esoteric analysis. Its simple presence is enough.

The same is true for the images that follow. Immediately below is a day time sky image. The day was frequently stormy, with high winds and hard rain. Dark clouds testify to moments of lightning, loud thunder and tumultuous rain. But the image itself records a period of respite. In a gap between the clouds, blue sky can be seen and the light pours strongly in.

Rain on a window pane is central to the next image. The rain drops are the primary subject. What’s on the other side (a balcony garden) isn’t entirely clear in the picture and doesn’t need to be. I experience a great sense of cleansing and refreshment here – the water of life as it falls from the sky, each drop itself an ocean. I look out from my interior space, two stories above the ground floor, and connect with this bounty.

The two remaining images come from a recent walk on Alney Island – outdoors and on normally marshy ground. The first is a woodland space with its fresh entangled green. The ground still looks drier than it sometimes does, yet I sense health and recovery here. In the second image, I see a re-greened path with benignly rioting verges. Seeing what I see, I follow the green path.

January 4, 2025

THE BALANCED CROSS

Twelve years ago (1) I wrote about the paidirean (pahj-urinn) prayer beads of the Ceile De or Culdee movement (2). In its current iteration this is a modern monastic order based in Scotland with a lay following in other parts of the world. It looks back to the early Celtic church once influential in Ireland, Scotland and north-east England. The post referenced above (1) describes my relationship with the beads at the time.

Now, coming back to this beautiful artifact, I am principally focused on the cross – an equal armed and circled silver cross that hangs from the beads – at heart level when worn as a necklace. This form of cross is an ancient symbol, sacred to many people in many cultures, often understood as a sun wheel, and not specific to Celtic Christianity. It is sometimes called the balanced, or peaceful, cross.

For me, this cross is a more fundamental image than the awen symbol, which I can also wear as a pendant, appropriately sitting at the level of my throat. The silver cross maps a whole imaginal world: four directions or winds – east, south, west, north; four powers – light, life, love, law; four elements- air, fire, water, earth; four guardians – hawk, stag, salmon, bear; four qualities – vision, purpose, wisdom, faith; four times of day – sunrise, midday, sunset, midnight; four seasons – spring and early growth, summer and ripening, autumn and bearing fruit, winter, dying and regeneration. Having a liturgy to this effect, casting a circle and calling for peace as a regular practice, marinate me in a certain way of spiritual life. Wearing this cross confirms and declares it.

In my light energy work, the disc becomes a radiant sphere that holds me. For there is a vertical dimension. Horizontally I hold my hands out palms raised and the energy flows out from heart through outstretched arms and to my hands. Vertically it flows in both directions from my heart to my feet and the earth and also to my brow and above my head. But the source of this radiance is the energy behind the heart and the still emptiness behind the energy. This flow is an open system. Energy also comes back. My energy sphere is porous to the world. I like the illustration on the bag below because it shows an empty circle at the centre. This does not feature on the pendant itself, but to me empathises the divine power at the centre from which I am not separate. It is good to reconnect with an carrier of healing and insight which I appeared to have left behind. I am grateful that it was still here for me when I was ready to reconnect.

(1) See: https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2012/12/30/

(2) See: https://www.ceilede.co.uk

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April 11, 2024

IMAGES FROM A TOWN GARDEN

Tumbledown gatehouse

Unbothered to impress:

You draw my eyes.

A single bloom

Among spiky grasses

Insists on beauty.

Six hundred years

In the life of this carving:

How much has changed?

Across the road,

Restrained elegance.

Here, a bursting life.

The lushness of spring:

Who can resist

Its fleeting appearance?

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.

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July 20, 2022

INNERWORLD HARVESTING

The Innerworld has its own times and seasons. When I attune myself carefully, it speaks to me through images in the DruidCraft Tarot (1). Today (20 July) I encountered the 7 of Pentacles (above), with its image of winter harvest. A Druid, equipped with a golden sickle, takes mistletoe from a tree. Where is the wisdom here? What am I being told?

‘Take note of the obvious’ is an early thought. ‘Be willing to state it’. After ten years of contemplative inquiry, I am still anchored in Druidry. Yes: my practice forms are idiosyncratic and contemplatively inclined. Yes: my inquiry process is personal and self-directing. Yes: I continue to learn from other traditions and sources outside the traditions. But what I do comes out of an immersive OBOD training of many years and would not be the same without it. I continue to belong to the Order and identify with the modern Druid tradition. Being clear about this is a fruit of my inquiry.

The form of words that we know as the St. Patricks’ Prayer, alternatively as the Cry of the Deer, runs: “I arise today through the strength of heaven, light of sun, radiance of moon, splendour of fire, speed of lightning, swiftness of wind, depth of sea, stability of earth and firmness of rock”. In my own usage I think of ‘heaven’ simply as a sky or firmament word, majestically naturalistic. But my greatest sense of support comes from the words ‘stability of earth and firmness of rock’. The 7 of Pentacles Tarot image includes seven pentacle signs carved on to mossy rock. It is a strongly earth-related image. I feel grounded and affirmed by this powerfully Pagan imagery.

There is much more to be learned from the 7 of Pentacles image, but these obvious recognitions, easily taken for granted and thus overlooked, are a good place to start. They have allowed me to identify some fundamental understandings that my inquiry has provided, and to clarify its direction for the future.

(1) Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm The DruidCraft Tarot: Use the Magic of Wicca and Druidry to Guide Your Life London: Connections, 2004 (Illustrated by Will Worthington)

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May 21, 2022

PEONIES IN LATE MAY

As I look at these peonies, I delight in their lushness. But the word ‘poignant’ also comes to mind. Delight is mixed with sadness, and a sense of time slipping away. These are probably the last pictures of these peonies that I will take. They are in the back garden of our old home on the day it was emptied of our remaining possessions. Historically they have ushered in the first fullness of summer. They have confirmed a warm sense of home, year after year, as the wheel turns.

But now I am leaving a place Elaine and I called home for many years, at a time when the future remains uncertain on many levels. The stability of the wheel itself, or at least of its local manifestations, is palpably in question. You have to work perversely hard, now, to maintain an ignorance and denial of the climate crisis. Even here, in a cool temperate island.

I cannot dwell in sadness alone, potentially drawn down into a stuck and demobilised distress. The health and viriditas in my bodymind won’t allow it. I find myself staying open to a delight in what is given, here, in these seasonal images. The invitation to celebrate the bounty of nature in an everyday modest setting is very strong, and I respond. The nudge to make a record is likewise strong. Records and memory matter. They change any living moment to which they are invited. The opportunity to contemplate this image of peonies, knowing the context of the picture-taking, is a resource for future times.

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