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.

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.

Castles In The Sky

February 10, 2021

When I was a child, I climbed walls, just to see what was on the other side, it didn’t matter how high, your friends always climbed with you. We could throw a ball against a wall, or mark it with chalk as the goal posts for a game. Sometimes we just sat on the wall and told each other jokes and stories about the mystery of secrets in the wind.

A wall was just a wall made of bricks. Brick coloured bricks. Brick shaped bricks. Bricks that smelled like bricks. Real bricks.

When I was grown, I built lots of walls. They were like jig-saw pieces with holes where the bits were missing. I made square pegs to fit into round holes in the wall but when I realised that none of them were real, that they only existed behind the walls of my mind and no matter how high I tried to climb, they were only made of paper.

So I built a smaller wall, to sit on while I dreamt about castles in the sky and secrets in the wind.

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.

 

Donegal

January 7, 2020

Folding mist,

blurred edge of land and sky.

Roads twisting, turning, falling, rising, 

each curve a poem.

Where are you leading me, I asked?

Just keep walking came the reply.

 

Wavelets bright as stars in a night sky

flashed around a large, grey rock,

grounded in shallow water.

What holds you so still I asked?

Contemplation, came the reply. 

 

The bright river flowed swift and sure, 

singing to low-lying fields swamped 

in quiet pools, to stones on the river-bed and

under the hump-back bridge in answer to

the distant call of the wild Atlantic Ocean, 

its song familiar somewhere in my heart.

A scattering of cottages dotted hillsides, 

wandering sheep grazed, their wool

snatched on brambles and littered on 

muddy ground like dirty snow.

Curiosity brought them running to the gate,

allowing my brief human touch before retreating,

like goats, scrambling over hillocks and in-between

thorny bushes to watch from a safe distance.

 

Where do you belong, they asked?

The answer came in a light-filled puddle ,

with my reflection, held, in water, rocks and stones,

mountains, fields, sheep and roads that bind and lead.