Contemplative Inquiry

This blog is about contemplative inquiry

Tag: Spring

January 23, 2026

GENEALOGY OF BRIDE

The year has moved on from its midwinter moment. I am just beginning to feel the pull of Imbolc (Candlemas in the Christian year). This feast marks the returning light and early signs of spring.  I recently saw a local picture  showing a newborn  lamb.

In the Gaelic traditions  Imbolc/Candlemas (1 February) is dedicated to Brigid/Bride. The lines below are from the Scottish Highlands and Islands. They seek protection and are not specifially seasonal.

“The genealogy of the holy maiden Bride

Radiant flame of gold, noble foster- mother of Christ.

Bride the daughter of Dugall the brown,

Son of Aodh, son of Art, son of Conn,

Son of Crearar, son of Cis, son of Carmac, son of Carruin.

Every day and every night

That I say the genealogy of Bride,

I shall not be killed, I shall not be harried,

I shall not be put in a cell, I shall not be wounded,

Neither shall Christ leave me in forgetfulness.

No fire, nor sun, nor moon shall burn me,

No lake, no water nor sea shall drown me,

No arrow of fay nor dart of fairy shall wound me,

And I under the protection of my Holy Mary,

And my gentle foster-mother is my beloved Bride.”

Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations collected by Alexander Carmichael. 1994 edition by Floris Books, Edinburgh, edited by C. J Moore.

The work is an anthology of poems and prayers from the Gaelic oral tradition in Scotland. They come from all over the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Alexander Carmichael compiled the collection in the second half of the nineteenth century, thereby creating a lasting record of a culture and way of life which has now largely disappeared.

See also: https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2023/01/23

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April 27, 2025

TOWARDS BELTANE 2025: BLUE SKY HEALING

Thursday 24 April was a landmark afternoon for my wife Elaine and me. We were able to walk, sit and have coffee in Gloucester Docks. Such ordinary and taken for granted pleasures – until April last year, when Elaine broke her hip. Later, as her bones slowly recovered, her underlying heart problems were triggered at the turn of the year, setting back her overall recovery. 

We are in a different place now. Elaine’s physical recovery, and her recovery of agency, are creating a new reality. The picture above is generally tranquil, yet includes the energy of a seagull in flight. The sun is getting warmer. We can relax a little, and celebrate, enjoying the promise of a new season, in the run-up to Beltane 2025.

Now, contemplating the image of a still boat against the background of Alney Island in its spring abundance, I feel grateful for the moment and grateful for our lives.

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April 17, 2025

A NEW LENS

Yesterday I bought a new phone. I find this process stressful and have been putting it off for a long time. But now I have the phone, I can celebrate a new camera. These pictures were taken between 5.30 and 7 pm yesterday evening, when the sun didn’t set until after 8.

My celebration of the camera, here, was also a celebration of clear light and a more abundant greening. The spaces are familiar, but their specific manifestation and my specific experience were, as always, new. My feelings were those of simple gratitude, pleasure and appreciation.

Above, I enjoyed the varied colours and forms of leaves, and the effects of sunlight on them. Below, I noticed the abundance of leaves and catkins on a birch tree.

Towards the water margin, I saw tangled green fecundity on the ground, and the freshness of full rich spring, at the same time utterly magical and yet so familiar, so taken-for-granted that it is easily passed without noticing.

Still closer to the water, and looking out over it, is another familiar scene, this time with contrasts of light and shade and emphasising the energy of rippling water.

Finally, big sky and the power of blue. I was especially drawn to the apparent division of the water. It looks like a tidal effect in the canal, but I am not sure of the cause. Within my contemplation, I am happy with the mystery.

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March 31, 2025

SPRING FORWARD

I’m on my first canal walk in a while. The picture above shows a small inlet into the bankside woods. It is Sunday 30 March, the first day of British Summer Time. I am encountering a long sunlit evening and feeling energised by the experience. I am drawing power from the clarity and strength of the light.

Sunset will be around 7.30 pm. The pictures above and below were taken a little before 6. I am glad to see blackthorn, a wood said to be used for wizard’s staffs, proclaiming the magic of spring.

A little later, I  focus my attention on a  vivid yet tranquil blue sky, presiding over the canal scene below. I have the same powerful sense of of clarity and strength in the light, and of drawing energy from it.

Later on, at about 6.45 pm, I find a softer, gentler quality of light as I walk homewards through the woods. Looking down, I see it on my path.

Looking up, I see soft light on slender branches and the foliage below them. It feels like celebration.

My final image is of sunlight reflected in Gloucester Docks, both on a warehouse window and on the water. The sun is low now and beginning to set. Rather than pointing at it, as it descends, I point  away from it to honour and record its power in another way. This marks the completion of a rejuvenating and regenerative spring forward walk.

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March 20, 2025

SPRING EQUINOX 2025

Blessings of the season! The picture above was taken at 6.46 am, a little over half an hour after sunrise here in Gloucester. It is 20 March, the day of the Spring Equinox, which will be at 9.01 am this year. It is traditionally a time of celebration, a point of balance as we move into the light half of the year and the promise it brings. After a tough, and largely housebound year, I dare to hope that Elaine and I will be able to widen our horizons as her healing continues.

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March 11, 2025

EARLY SPRING: AFFIRMING LIFE

I am connecting with spring and its urgent affirmation of life – its green shine and fecundity. It is the sunrise season, the season of early growth. For me, where I live, the immediate pre-equinox period often generates a strong feeling of dynamism and emergent potential. I am in sync with the awakening earth.

Elaine’s return from hospital and the enhanced clinical support she is receiving are helping me to live this season more fully. In our joint lives we are both feeling more agency in shaping a new phase in our life together.

In this moment I feel refreshed and optimistic within my Druid contemplative path. I have adjusted my formal practice so that I have two practice sessions in the day, both of them roughly twenty minutes long. The first, at the beginning of the day and standing, is affirmative and dynamic. It includes body and energy work and a theme of healing and rejuvenation. The second, at the end of the day and sitting, is contemplative. It includes breathwork, a mantra meditation using beads, and prayer. In the modern Druid manner it includes a commitment to the collectively imperilled qualities of love, peace and justice. This shift is having a renewing and reinvigorating effect on me, as befits the season: another way of gratefully affirming the gift of a human life.

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March 9, 2025

BLOSSOMING

Celebrating a moment as sunlight floods the room. I am happy to point my phone camera more or less at the sun. It is not the done thing and the result may be odd. But it does reflect my experience of the moment itself.

My wife Elaine has just come home from a week in hospital. It was a necessary week, and she is the better for it. Nonetheless we both have a slight sadness that it coincided with the best and brightest weather of 2025 so far, while our attention was otherwise engaged.

This moment is one of celebration of her return to an apartment wearing its warmest and brightest face. It is a contemplative moment, extending in time until it morphs into gentle action. We go outside. Elaine basks in the sun, recuperating and healing.

I am energised and curious. I move closer to the blossoms I saw through the window and take a picture. I am grateful to be reunited with Elaine and freed from my own worst fears. I am grateful for a spring that is now offering both brightness and warmth. I am glad of this day.

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February 26, 2025

WINTER’S END

4.30 pm, 25 February 2025. Sunrays are caught in willow branches. The sun is a little stronger today than it was in full winter. The willows have begun a tentative greening. But there is much shadow in this picture. The day has begun its decline.

The world retains a winter feel for me. I aware of the change in my local park, but I do not altogether trust this spring. In the moment of taking this picture, I see a world in shadow, softly darkened. This is partly because of where I have chosen to stand. It is the image I seem to want.

In the brighter picture below, I show daffodils growing among dead leaves. Daffodils are iconic harbingers of spring, yet not my sole focus. Both pictures were taken intuitively and without any mentally registered intent. It seems as if something in me wanted to make a statement.

I know and accept that I am in the winter of my life. In the wheel of my own life, I can’t quite see how my winter will move into spring, certainly in any personal sense. Dissolving into interbeing is easier to imagine.

My customised Druid liturgy names winter as the season of dying and regeneration. It has associations with law and faith. I understand law in a karmic or ‘natural law’ sense. But it can also be an acknowledgement of the nature we see around us. Faith, in part, concerns the willingness to accept dying and regeneration without knowing what they are like. In my last post, I discussed (1) ‘being nobody’. My current reflections take this suggestion a step further. Evidently, I still have much to learn.

(1) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2025/02/21/being-nobody

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February 2, 2025

SOLAR GAIN

This morning, 2 February, sunlight streamed into our flat. Soon we realised that warmth was coming in along with the light. There was no need for artifical heating.

This may not yet be spring, by most people’s reckoning. But the day has had a spring- like quality. Elaine and I both felt lifted. For me, it was as if a weight had come off my shoulders: a weight to which I had become acclimatised. I had stopped even noticing it until it was so gloriously removed.

We made two trips out during the day. In the later morning we stayed near home. Elaine walked using her rollater and  spent welcome time sitting in the sun. The same sun also shone on our adopted birches. Though it’s not shown in the picture below, the catkins are greener now.

In the afternoon, using the wheelchair, we visited Gloucester docks and sat there until not long before 4 pm. The heat was beginning to drain away by the time we left, and shadows were lengthening. Yet the two pictures below show, respectively, the dazzle of sunlight on water, and a canal barge lifting its solar panels to the sun.

A great day for a festival of lights, and a welcome opportunity for exuberance.

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April 1, 2024

GREEN RESURRECTION

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.

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