Author: maskednative.com

There is a gazebo at the end of the garden. It overlooks the estuary. When the tide is in, sea water pools around seaweed covered rocks. The sound is peaceful, meditative. I drink an early morning coffee, listen to the birds singing morning songs, watch a spider spin his fragile life between timber beams above my head. Even in the harshest of winters, the rise and fall of tides, sun-light on water, movement of sky, cloud, moon and stars, allows an awareness of nature behind the mask of perceived reality. I offer my words and pictures in celebration and gratitude to God, for allowing me a glimpse behind the mask. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Bio: Teri Flynn was born in Wales of Welsh and Irish Parents. Educated in England, she moved to Co.Waterford, Ireland in 1997 where her Poetry has since appeared in “The Turning Tide” – an anthology of new writing from Co.Waterford. “Southward” The Journal of the Munster Literature Centre and “Imagine” The Tallow Writers Group quarterly review. Her poetry appears in “Sticky Orchard”, a group effort with Alan Garvey, Jim O’Donnell and Anthony O’Neill and grant assisted by Waterford County Council’s Arts Grant Scheme. “Listening To The Grass Grow” with Jim O’Donnell and Anthony O’Neill was published by Edward Power at Rectory press and most recently, in ‘Murmurings’, Remembering Anthony O’Neil, with Jim O’Donnell and Alan Garvey. Her poem Queen Of The Sea was included in the Chesapeake Exhibition at RUH, Bath, 2011. Figurehead Carver, Andy Peters. Photographic display of Ship’s Figurehead Carvings by Richard Sibley – http://www.tallshipsgallery.com A themed display of her oil paintings and poems entitled Cynefin, were on display in Waterford during The Imagine Festival in 2017. Cynefin-pronounced kuh-nev-in is a Welsh word meaning habitat or place. A place where a being feels it ought to live, where nature around you feels right and welcoming.

Morning

November 23, 2022

(Reworked from an earlier post around 2015)

Curtains still drawn.

Lamp light glow on the oak refectory table.

Colours fading on the blue and gold tray

with the image of Van Gogh’s

Almond Tree Blosom, diminishing.

My turquoise mug with the same timeless

design placed alongside the cafetière of

freshly brewed coffee.

Books on shelves, favourite things nearby,

objects of stillness with no question of

why or where, simply rooted where I place them.

What would they be if I weren’t here to

love them even more in this almost light,

shared with the first bird calling the morning

to begin again.

Victory

March 7, 2022
Light is stronger than darkness

Goodness is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate.
Light is stronger than darkness. Life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours through Him who loved us

Quote -Desmond Tutu

Signs

January 22, 2022

How long did the dream hold you.

It seemed real, but you were balancing

Everything on a tightrope.

What you needed was a bridge.

You’re still not sure how or when it started,

Perhaps that time when you gazed into

The stillness of a summer evening,

or heard the dawn chorus for the first time,

or when you knew that plants and trees were

communicating something to you and you felt

the presence of God that brought a peace beyond words,

for words cannot tell where words do not dwell.

Only then were you balanced

on the tightrope that had become a bridge and

the world pulsed with the love song of creation.

Angels sang of the wonders, trees told the story,

birds spread the message, rivers and oceans 

danced to the music of the spheres.

Water was filled with it. Tides carried it and

you remembered that what you had once perceived as

creations fragile balance, was bigger and stronger

than anything you could imagine.

The signs  of the Creator were everywhere.

Image taken from an original watercolour by Teri

Happiness

January 4, 2022

Isn’t that what life is about, happiness, just being happy. Such a hard thing to prophesy to others and yet, such a simple thing to achieve, to have happy thoughts, to dwell on the happiness that we have all experienced in our lives.

I know there have been times of sorrow, despair, depression and despondency, but to give in is to lose ourselves.

I’m on a soapbox of “I have lost faith and trust in all that I thought was right and real and honest. It’s not. Not anymore

Now is the time to look to the simplicity and wonder that we held in childhood, when the world was, as Del Boy famously said, our lobster.

Smile, laugh and be happy, otherwise, it’s all over.

Making Choices

January 2, 2022

Sophia Said, go out to play. Follow your imagination and the day was filled with expectation

A Chosen Path

I walk / jog along soaked and muddied paths in Johnstown Castle Gardens. Moorhens dive and disappear in the lake, re-appearing further along as if by magic. It’s raining hard and even though my trainers are not waterproof, I walk right through the middle of flooded paths, like a child out to play. It’s only water after all. I can get dry later, so will my jeans, trainers, jacket. hat and gloves, all soaked, but I am alive, exhilarated and fully intent on making the best of what God has in store for me. Perhaps I will invest in a new pair of walking shoes / boots and waterproof coat, when to wear them would still be my choice to make.

After waling around two of the three lakes, I need coffee. The cafeteria is bright and warm, people sit at tables drinking and eating while I, bedraggled and gloriously wet, think of pushing boundaries of comfort zones. Happy new Year to you all.

Sky Boat

November 10, 2021

Sky Boat

Hold fast to the tiller, to Gods of wind and waves, through storms and dreams,

through heartbeat of wings that arc and swoop and cry for land. Now is the time for faith, strength and courage.

We are not what we once were. The rushing waves break open our hearts, revealing the lies we told ourselves.

Swim, little fish, swim now to the edge and rest where the sky meets the horizon and see, in-between.

Image from a copy of my original oil painting from ‘Cynefin’ collection, a selection of paintings and prose, exhibited in Waterford, Ireland 2017.

Prayer

July 25, 2021
A Prayer In The Gazebo

A prayer for the well-being and peace of my Mother, and her Mother, and her Mother, and her Mother, and all the Mothers we are descended from.

A prayer for my Daughter, and your daughter, and her daughter, and their daughters, for their peace and well-being, for the spirit and soul of the Feminine, without which we are lost.

A prayer for my Sons, and your sons, and their sons, and their sons, for their peace and well-being, for the spirit and soul of the Masculine, without which they are lost.

A prayer for our world, for everything in it, for the peace and well-being of all its peoples and all its animals,  birds, plants, trees,  rocks, mountains, rivers and seas and all the fish therein.

May we live in peace, love and harmony with gratitude to the Creator of our universe, and all its suns and moons, stars and planets

and for all those gone before us, all those with us and all those yet to come, may all be blessed in this prayer.

(‘Prayer’ by Teri Flynn)

Barefoot In The Sacred

February 13, 2021

Step outside the garden door,

fill your eyes with morning light,

your whole body with dawn fresh breath.

Sink your bare feet into the green cushion 

of dewy wet grass, 

your toes tingling with surprise.

In the heart of everything before you,

be still.

You are in the presence of The Sacred.

Pine Wood

July 23, 2020

 

Leaving the path

I walk into the woods.

Sit on a fallen branch 

within a circle of

pine trees, twigs, sticks, 

rotting wood, 

pine needles and 

fallen leaves,

layer upon layer,

composted.

A decay that 

nourishes these 

silent giants 

whose spongy 

trunks soar to

reach the light

high above.

There is shelter

from the wind,

but beneath 

the evergreen canopy,

the silence is total,

like death, yet 

it calls me

to listen,

to strive

for the

light.