More snow-wood poetry

shiver, shake

snow flake

skies huge
with snow

land silent
in awe

fields
blanketed

birds absent

deer scatter

on hearing

the chatter

squirrels chatter

hoping

to get

fatter

Snow-wood poetry

hushed landscape,

branches whisper

broad in branch

deep in root

naked in winter

 

3.45 in Colinton

3.30 in Colinton

Heartfelt Felt Heart

Picked up 3 felt hearts in Shelter after Valentine's Day. They are now hanging from the fire guard and i photographed them last night and then played with the images. Here is my heartfelt collage of felt hearts...

How to make your own notebook | Life and style | guardian.co.uk

How to make your own notebook | Life and style | guardian.co.uk

I love the idea of doing this but i do have doubts about it only taking 20-30 minutes! I've only just started looking at the Guardian online properly. I went to the site in search of obituaries for my assignment and somehow got distracted!!!

Lenten Flowers

So many feet have crushed the shoots before they could even bud,
more feet have trodden on purple, gold, and white
smearing the royal colours across the soil
Some feet though have managed to tiptoe reverently by,
eyes seeing, minds thinking,
souls joining in the yearning of the buds
for the warm sun and longer days ahead.

Blessings - soul jigsaw

[This has been written after posting a response to A's blog]

We are blessings and we are blessed

I need to be needed, need to know i make a difference, believing complete perfection is required even while i know the wounds create space for grace to enter in.  Offering healing to A i experienced a deep sense of life's purpose.  These are moments when one feels complete, it does not last long and that is how it must be.

The jigsaw that makes up my soul is still unfinished

i try to find all the edges first 

but am taken right to the core with you. 

Our time together a precious present, 

a gift in time, 

for me. 

Ego stripped away

i summon our sisters' help

and angels come in to stay,

holding the awkward pieces

while grace finds the missing tile

and, as the psalmist pencils in a Selah!, (musical pause)

my soul cracks open once more.

 

2 pm in the Chapel

I sat in the chapel, facing an unlit candle and an icon of Jesus.  The chapel was lovely and warm, much cosier than the library.  I closed my eyes and immediately felt something rushing through my system.  Chemo.  I breathed it in and round my body, i wanted to purge my system of it and the comic moment of David Tennant as Dr Who came to mind.  It's from Series 3 in 2007 and we are introduced to Martha Jones.  The episode is called "Smith and Jones".  At one point Martha and the Doctor have to quickly kill off a Judoon (i think) and they use the radiation available in the radiology department.  The Doctor absorbs all of the radiation left in the room and then has to focus hard to get all the radiation in his body into one place so that he can get rid of it.  He finally gets it down to his foot and throws his irradiated shoe into the bin.  So i imagined the chemo doing what it needs to do and then becoming a tarry pebble which could be spat out.

Having done that i turned my focus to A.  I placed my hands on her shoulders, visioning her sitting in front of me, much as we had rehearsed her first labour at a Birth Preparation Workshop over 10 years ago.  Then i placed one hand on her upper back, the other on her lower back.  From there i placed a hand on the back of her head, the other on her solar plexus.  Finally i placed my hands on her belly and rested my head on her right shoulder.  I held her, breathed with her, sent her love.  Then i drew my hands towards each other, visioning her held in the palm of one hand with the other protectively hovering over her.  I brought my hands up to my heart and gave thanks.

Knotted, plaited yet also unravelled, revealed

Last night i spent some time meditating on the image of wool in response to an idea about handling fear and supporting one another as a dear friend goes through serious illness. Someone had shared about tying string/wool around the wrist and that tiny "thread" of the message got lodged in my soul. Several months ago i had done some work at a dream workshop on a childhood nightmare which seemed to involve an ever-increasing ball of wool chasing me. It was all in black and white and it would recur particularly at times of stress, whether physical illness or emotional struggle. The facilitator invited me to play with drawing/painting the wool gradually unravelling and then perhaps even knitting some wool into a pleasing shape. I picked up a ball of wool at a charity shop, i found a postcard with a pair of knitting needles and some red wol being knitted into LOVE, and then i received a card from a dear friend which showed two characters knitting. These memories came back to me yesterday and i walked with them round the labyrinth in George Square Gardens. As i walked in i repeated my friend's name. As i stood in the centre i asked what i might do. As i walked back out i played with the images of knitting, unravelling and revealing. I decided i would place some form of wool around my wrist and keep it there throughout my friend's treatment. When i searched at home i found 3 materials - wool, April Cornell ribbon, and hemp string. These 3 unlikely companions i then plaited together and tied around my wrist.

Wool knitted creates a beautiful object, a useful thing but it is relatively compact, its length is hidden. Wool unravelled can become messy and it can also stretch a fair distance connecting and binding. There's a lamp-post in Bristo Square that has knitted squares sewn around it. It also has lengths of wool travelling from the post to a nearby tree. Perhaps i can work on this balance between protection and reaching out, between wanting to make something pretty and needing to spread out messily...