Archive - 2008 - Words of Keeping

December comes.  It creeps in with the slate-grey dawn past the dark branches to settle with a chill.  It is the month of zenith, a cauldron for the dark, backdrop for Christmas lights and fancies.  It shuffles hungry feet inside and holds sway round the hearth.  It is the month of endings and beginnings, of waiting for the rebirth of sun that now holds our remembrance of the birth of the S  read more »

If this spoon tastes so strongly of metal, does that mean metal is moving from the spoon into my body, that I am sharing metal with the spoon, that the spoon is giving of itself and losing part of itself in the process?  Is it the same with a kiss?  Does your taste become part of me, warmly working its way into my wetness?  Do you lose part of yourself in me, for me?   read more »

The wind is on the go again, the breeze is on the blow. It is shifting time, shifting smells, shifting seasons. Autumn is coming. It’s not hurrying, it’s making the most of the remnant sun, sneaking in on the back of summer. How strange that the fullness of summer, the crops of fruit and grain and memories, should mature into roundness and ripeness, not at the height of summer but at its end, a prize given to another season, the taste of summer long after summer’s gone.  read more »

The hazel and hawthorn trees dapple the foxglove and campion.  The bracken breaks through like a bishop’s crook, the brambles arch and the nettles gather.  They hold silence like a living quality of air, broken by birdsong and bees' hum, and the river stroking stones in the hollow.  There is a magic quality to wild places that restores the soul.  read more »

It’s August and the day hangs grey and wet, there is spittle in the air, there are clouds near the ground.  The sun is not an orb.  His light has been diluted and muted and refracted and captured by all the balls of rain so there is a faint luminescence of grey like an oyster’s dream.  The gulls don’t mind, they still sing their silly song and strut the wet beach.  read more »

Can I get fat on God?  If I eat too greedily of spiritual things will I be obese, or are they all fruit and protein that build up the muscle of my soul?  Can I have too much God, or is my body a balance to ensure that God is not my only food?  Or is that just dualistic thinking, for God is part of all food and partaking and living?  read more »

It’s my birthday today, a celebration of being born, of being clothed in earth-flesh, of being given a place here to make my own, a citizen of time and space, a breather and believer.  I have a body of beauty, a brain of complexity and a spirit of eternity.  I have feet to walk and eyes to see far and near.  I have tongue to taste and skin to feel and ears to hear.  I have permission to b  read more »

This old world can feel the same, day by day, but hidden in pockets is the miracle of newness. There are new flowers in my lawn. Some are where they were last year and share roots of sameness, some have flung themselves further, an adventure of yellow pattern on green lawn.  read more »

Easter Sunday.  Happy rising, Jesus.  Happy rising, world.  Happy new life and source of hope and promise of overcoming darkness.  It is snowing this morning, real snow unlike yesterday when we had storms of sleet that erupted from the air in waves, then vanished to be melted by a tepid sun, only to burst in on us again.  But nothing laid.  This morning we had big feathery flakes like lit  read more »