MOON
This August moon
Full and Risen
Transforms an urban scene.
(Picture taken at 9.45 pm Friday 8 August.)
Contemplative Inquiry
This blog is about contemplative inquiry
Tag: Nature mysticism
August 7, 2025
HARVESTING INSIGHT
Noticing a single corn stalk under our neighbouring birch trees, I wonder whether the seed simply blew in or was planted by an unknown hand. If the latter, what was their intention? I realise that I will never know.
I do know how much I enjoy its presence in this space at this time. I experience it as a miracle inviting gratitude and it has marked the seasonal moment for me, this first harvest of a now declining year.
With increasing clarity I understand that I do not work well with personified and individualised images of the divine. Something seems subtly off, as if I am failing to sound my own authentic note in the Great Song of the world.
I believe that we are given different gifts in our encounters with the Cosmos, leading to legitimately different understandings. When I lean in to the notion of divine personality – even when using the term ‘Spirit’ in that sense – I am not fully living my own truth. I subtly disempower myself and weaken my connection.
For in my universe, when I rest in my own clarity, there is no separation between nature (including culture) and spirit. In the awkward activity of identification and labelling, I answer to terms like animist, panentheist and nondualist.
These words are approximations, with the power to be distracting and slightly depressing. I can find words that point to my experience well enough. But the explanatory words, the more formal and generalised terms, feel clumsy. There’s a necessary level of unknowing that these isms don’t recognise.
When consciously living in spirit, I am neither alone, as a single human person, nor am I with another being. I am simply in a different dimension of embodied awareness, supported and empowered by the bubbling source from which I spring. For me, Nature is more than the ‘nature’ of dualist spiritualities and of the scientific humanism that grew out of them.
As I harvest the learning, or relearning, of this lesson, I renew my commitment to practice and path, once again revising the beginning and end of the modern Druid’s prayer (1). I move from from ‘Grant, Spirit your protection, and in protection, strength … ‘ to ‘In spirit I find protection, and in protection, strength …’. I end with ‘and in the love of all existences, the love of this radiant Cosmos’ rather than ‘the love of God/Goddess/Spirit and all goodness’. These small changes formalise and anchor my understanding. For me, they are an important affirmation, illuminating my path.
(1) Traditionally, this prayer runs:
Grant O God/Goddess/Spirit, your protection,
And in protection, strength,
And in strength, understanding,
And in understanding, knowledge,
And in knowledge, the knowledge of justice
And in the knowledge of justice, the love of it
And in the love of it, the love of all existences
And in the love of all existences, the love of God/Goddess/Spirit and all goodness”.
NB Providing the options of God/Goddess/Spirit is I think an OBOD (Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids) innovation. The original version, from the late 18th century, simply said ‘God’. Some modern Druids say ‘God and Goddess’.
August 2, 2025
RICHARD’S WOOD
Richard’s Wood, Alney Island, was planted in 1983. It commemorates the 500th anniversary of the Charter given to the people of Gloucester by King Richard III. He was their Duke before he became King. People here have never quite seen him as the stage villain portrayed by William Shakespeare. Or, if so, as only one Royal stage villain among others.
Three years ago I wrote an Alney Island post where I ended by criticising how Richard’s Wood has been developed and managed (1). I don’t think I was wrong, but this time I felt very different, less willing to judge.
It was a hot day. I wanted to be outside. Being under cover in a wood not hard to negotiate was ideal. I strolled into enchantment. I surrendered to the trees and the way in which, together, they covered and held me.
In this state of attention, I don’t think much about botanical facts or lore. I respond to shape, texture, smell, subtle sounds, colour, light, light, shade and wonder at Nature’s variety.
I spent longer in the wood than I expected. I relished every moment I was there. I am now a friend of this space and expect to visit more often.
(1) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2022/09/06/after-rain/
July 26, 2025
FIRE ON WATER
8pm, 25 July. Alchemy on the canal. The evening sun, low and potent in the sky, strikes the flowing water. At points the union of the two creates a molten liquid light, clearly defined in the still image above.
By contrast, the short video below reveals light and water together in movement. Flow, and patterns in the flow, draw my attention. They show me an energised harmony, becoming more than the sum of their parts.
I notice also that when I play the video without sound, I find it contemplative and reflective. When I play it with sound, the birds immerse me in living nature. I value both experiences.
I usually feel a transition into late summer about now, a little before Lammas/Lughnasadh. The days here are still long, though now clearly not as long as they have been. It’s a warm time, often the warmest of the year. Blackberries have appeared on their bushes, a foretaste of autumnal fruit bearing.
I am reminded, too, of the Fferyllt, the Druid alchemist in OBOD tradition. She is a woman of power and a devotee of Brigid. In the Druidcraft Tarot (1) she is represented by Trump XIV, standing for fluency between worlds, creativity, harmony, peace, alchemy and magic. My canal side encounter with fire on water nudged my imagination towards this figure, who somehow completed it.
(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.
July 17, 2025
NOTICING TWILIGHT
I see change in a familiar scene. Looking out from our apartment I contemplate a gentle twilight. It is modified by artificial light. During the recent heatwave I somehow had little consciousness of this moment in the day. But now, with lower temperatures and rain, my world is a tiny bit different. I discover myself in a twilit scene, and a twilight frame of mind, a little after sunset.
Although this sunset is only ten minutes earlier than the sunsets of the Solstice period, I feel, deep within me, the turning of the Wheel. It’s as if I am leaning in to the spirit of late summer, and the first of the harvest festivals that define the waning year. We are not there yet, though Lammas is but a fortnight away. I am simply becoming aware of a coming seasonal shift.
I am also aware of wanting to savour the sense of a change without wanting to hurry it on. Above, an image of trees, houses, hills and sky anchors me into a specific place and time. It’s a ‘now’ experience rather than an anticipation. Below, an image of birch leaves back-lit by electric light holds me in an appreciation of the pattern they make. I am held by the power of a simple pleasure.
July 3, 2025
SUMMER SUN AND MOON
I took the picture above at 8.35 pm on 2 July, a little less than an hour before sunset. The dial still hasn’t moved much since the Solstice. The days are still long and warm. The sky this evening is blue and clear. Sunlight plays in the trees. It is good to be here, now, and alive to this moment.
The moon, below, has reached its first quarter. The Anglo-Saxons called the July moon the Hay Moon. Celts called it, variously, the Claiming Moon, Mead Moon or Herb Moon. North American traditions speak of the Buck Moon and the Thunder Moon.
For me, contemplating this moon at its first quarter, it seems like empty potential and not ready for a name. There’s a sense of mystery here. I stand with that mystery as my world moves towards a high summer sunset.
June 27, 2025
A WILLOW OFFERS SHADE
It’s a warm afternoon. The sun is strong. The park is parched. I could do with some moments of shelter. I walk towards a welcome willow tree.
I feel different under the tree’s lush canopy, as if in a benignly altered world. Its sturdy trunk upholds this precious space, embracing both light and shade. Although this space is small, I experience, here, more variety than in the expanse of park immediately surrounding it.
For awhile I cling to the cool softness of this world within the tree, feeling as well as seeing what the branches and leaves of a weeping willow can do. A taste of Nature’s magic. Then I return to the world of the park.
June 23, 2025
BIRDS ON A BOARD
Birds together on a board
Sitting as silent companions
On their water margin retreat.
June 2, 2025
PLANT POWER IN A CATHEDRAL CLOSE
The garden in Gloucester Cathedral’s close is currently a magnificent riot. I was on a walk there with Elaine and we particularly noticed two powerful seeming plants that we couldn’t identify. We simply sat with them, unnamed, and bathed in their energy. It was a glorious 1 June, the first day of our official meteorological summer, and one to savour and enjoy. Only later did we do any research.
We are fairly sure that the plant above is yellow archangel and the plant below, looking like a giant thistle, is cardoon (canara cardunculus) aka prickly artichoke. Friendly feedback from readers on these identifications is welcome. If we are right both plants have long been recognised as sources of power and healing.
In our older traditions, yellow archangel was a symbol of harmony between flora and fauna. A custodian of wildlife, it fostered a bond that transcends mere survival. Herbalists still use this plant to relieve gout, sciatica and other pains of the joints and sinews. It has also been used to draw out splinters and thorns, clean and heal persistent sores, and to dissolve tumours. Yellow archangel can be used as food, in salads, soups and teas. In the wheel of our year, yellow archangel flowers fully after the bluebells die away.
Cardoon is also a plant of power. Traditionally associated with Mars, it has the virtues of strength, protection and abundance. It is has been credited with the power to ward off evil spirits. It is also connected to ideas of nourishment, the riches of nature and, latterly, sustainable gardening. The plant can grow to 2.5 metres in height. Its thick stalks are used as a vegetable. Its full flowering is in late summer and autumn, with thistle-like purple flowers.
These plants, in this garden, are a celebration of values as well as of nature and healing. I see our world through the lens of Modern Druidry and Paganism. The custodians of this space will have a Christian lens. I am happy to note that in this context they seem to be much the same. When in this space, I feel that I am in a beautiful and energising oasis in the city.
