Early Spring by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plowed hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.

Opens a door in Heaven;

From skies of glass
A Jacob's ladder falls
On greening grass,
And o'er the mountain-walls
Young angels pass.

Imbolc in the Southern Hemisphere

As the first rays of the morning sun creeps through the gap of houses and across my back yard, the ground almost shivers with anticipation of its subtle warmth.  Winter is finally losing its grip upon the land, making way for Imbolc, the season of rebirth.

It is within a collection of Irish medieval myths known as “Tochmarc Emire” that the word “Imbolc” is first mentioned.  Within the story of the wooing of Emer by the Ulster hero Cu Chulainn, Emer sets a series of challenges for the young hero include him going sleepless for a year.  The calendar she refers to is denoted by the “opening of the four seasons”, with one of these seasons being named as Imbolc, marking the beginning of Spring when “the sheep are milked and Spring’s beginning". 

Please Call me by my True Names

From: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh

In Plum Village, where I live in France, we receive many letters from the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It is very painful to read them, but we have to do it, we have to be in contact. We try our best to help, but the suffering is enormous, and sometimes we are discouraged. It is said that half the boat people die in the ocean. Only half arrive at the shores in Southeast Asia, and even then they may not be safe.

In Honour of Kuan Yin

Altar ready for the July Devotional Service

With the next devotional service only a few days away, finally a decision has been made as to what aspect of the Goddess will be honoured next Tuesday night.  The start of this new financial year, as with any time of change, seems to have brought with it a number of huge personal shifts of late.  Not only have people been required to move in order to seek a better standard of living, but even amongst the people I know, a number of beloved ones have passed on.  Added to this the spiralling increase in a lack of tolerance towards our follow brothers and sisters ... regardless of gender, race or religious/spiritual orientation. 

Invocation to the Goddess

Invocation to the Goddess

(Shekhinah Mountainwater)

I am one with thee, Goddess, and thou art one with me.

Thy power is my power.

Thy gifts course through me in poetry and beauty.

Thy breath is my breath.

My thoughts are of thee.

My ears hear thee.

My voice speaks and sings of thee.

My arms reach out to embrace thee.

My hands do thy work.

My heart loves through thee.

My stomach partakes of thee.

My womb and sex reveal thine inmost mystery.

My bowels know thee through death and rebirth.

My legs bend to kneel beside thee.

My feet walk and dance thy path.

Let me be ever filled

With thy glorious, divine life.

Wild Grief

Author Unknown

Your wild grief scares  me
It flows from you like
so many liquids
and pours hard and fast.
I intrude on it,
like stepping in milk that isn’t mine and
treading it into your carpet.
Back and forth I trudge.
Like a great beast
in the final throws of death.
That great gold spear that
pierces your lungs and
up it comes.
All that bile and froth that was hidden.
You are no longer who you were.
And I, unable to reach out with my hands
and take your shoulders and calm you
with all that mass of hair
so tangled and forlorn,
slink away to nurse my own.
It is quiet and faint and
will always dwell
deep in my heart.

Source: Agitation of Hands