May 2013 – Masked Native

Letting go

May 26, 2013

Gathering

Ireland opens it’s doors and hearts to friends and family across the world. Calling all descendants, to come home, to celebrate in villages, towns and cities. A year-long celebration of Irish ancestry, restoring the spirit of it’s people. It made me think of gathering in a wider sense, of how thinly I have spread myself between family, home, creative interests and general day-to-day tasks.

I resolve to pull myself together, see what and where I can make changes. Focus, concentrate on fewer things, difficult enough under present circumstances, but those precious moments of stillness are gathering momentum, and I must gather all those mini-me’s out there, to return to the centre, undiluted.

Spreading ever more thinly

I let go –

and all things urgent,

evanescent –

in this one moment of eternity

Blessing

May 8, 2013

A small voice said,

let go,

and with all my senses aware,

I almost fell. Completely.

Then pulling back,

fearful of losing myself in the deep, still,

interior of being,

and then to perceive the blessing of being found.

The Hawthorn Hedge

May 3, 2013

Flower beds,

climbing beans,

cabbages, crisp and clean,

the narrow ditch

where nettles sting.

Snail tracks glisten

like silver threads on

the pile of stones at the garden end.

On hands and knees I hold my breath,

gaze through the gap

in the hawthorn hedge,

to the meadow,

where white horses tread.

And everywhere I look,

is new.

(You never forget that view.)

When I was very young, nature engaged in my make-believe games in complete and total co-operation. In my Grandmother’s garden, every day brought a new discovery, stored in my memory box of sights, sounds, tastes, touch and smell, emotions almost beyond a language of descriptive adjectives. Someone said that birds, and animals perceive the world in a different way to humans, this is possibly true, up to a point. But what if, as adults, the ability to listen with our senses diminished along with our outgrown childish toys. The world is more than it seems, it speaks the language of the heart that we are all connected to. I trust my heart to engage with nature in total and complete gratitude.