There is no diminshment in me, in spite of it all.
Somehow I am always fed with light, which beams deep in the dark recesses that I find myself from time to time on this journey .
It nourishes me with insight , information and guidance .
Warms me with the healing voice of a loved one and with the discovery of a new inspiration , strengthens my resolve in adversity .
Straightens my spine with the passion for integrity , for nothing less will do .
Cradled here, on the cusp of change , it is so easy to get lost in the babble of many voices and opinions , but spirit somehow gets through and tells me what I need to know, then flings out an arm in the great embrace of humour and says hey I told you so anyway …so now you know.
Like the poems here and as the short film shows , there is the depth of meaning in words, words that can be read and heard as prophecy , that at times have to be untangled and undone because they never should have been said and heard in the first place .
Words that have no meaning because no feeling is carried behind them, so they are merely tools to manipulate and confuse, words resonate .
That is the carriage of responsiblity of language and communication, that needs to be taken in any form…words carry the spell
So use them wisely
~
Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep have fallen on you
Ye are many – they are few. Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Second coming ~
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
I wrote this for my sister, who passed away in New Zealand last weekend, she had lived there for more than twenty years , she had only just been diagnosed with cancer after being ill for several months……….it was a great shock, I thought she may have had more time..I am so glad I got to speak to her the week before .. this will be part of a large collection of writings to be shown and shared at her very large and celebratory wake this Saturday, she loved a good party..I will be raising a glass to her .
..she was 63.
~
Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world.
The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same.
Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word will fade,
But do not be disheartened,
The source they come from is eternal, growing,
Branching out, giving new life and new joy.
Why do you weep?
The source is within you
And this whole world is springing up from it.”
– Jelaluddin Rumi
Catriona…
I have circled around doing this , not sure how to begin and what to say.
Do I write it like a letter as if I saying goodbye ?
No, because I don’t believe it is goodbye , I will see you again , I am just hoping next time around I am the older sister and I get to boss you about .
And I really hope I am half as good looking as well.
You are, in my mind, a fire, that still burns brightly and I know each persons perception of you will be so different from mine .
Simply because of the relationship you had with them ..
I knew you as a sister and when I heard you had gone, I felt that shifting in my heart , a dislocation .
I had lost a sibling and I still cant quite take it in .
As I clutched the phone to me , after hearing the news, my thoughts flew across the miles to be with Jerry and Shona , Sandy and your little grand daughter Natasha …
Memories came flooding in and strange compulsions as well, as though you were prompting me to remember you through music , so I found myself watching the corries singing the Mingulay boat song
( which you used to sing to me ) and thinking about Dad ..I had already had him strongly in my thoughts , I went on the internet to you tube like some home sick Scot , suddenly nostalgic for mountains and pipe tunes .
I know now it was just that way of tapping into how it all was back then, that river of memories that I needed carried me through, slowly starting to accept that you had left us.
Time was dissolving and I could see you so clearly playing that slightly beaten up old black guitar, in the back of Dads big old diesel Mercedes, as we swung up the roads to Skye , I must have made you play the Mingulay boat song and Puff the Magic Dragon about a hundred times .
Skye was so wonderful then , we were lucky to have had those days there when all the characters’ were around , people like Desperate Dan and Big Murdoch , and Colonel Jock . And many more
I could see you laughing , and years later sharing your memories of those days with cousin Margaret .
I also remember your sword dance and how you would only perform it accompanied by the best piper , not sure how that came to be, it must have been one of the many parties at Kirk house and of course the famous dance rehearsals for some big highland do, where you would find yourself teaching strip the willow to Dads close friends, one being Roddy Macleod, then chief surgeon at the Victoria hospital in Glasgow, quite an impressive career title, to whom you said , quote, “ You know for an intelligent man you are awfully stupid “ this was probably when the poor man did not get the steps for about the twentieth time..
I also see those huge brown eyes of yours in a portrait by Willie Gallagher ( yes its in the cupboard Jerry I just checked )
Those same eyes Shona has .
I see Jerry pulling up in his wee sports car to collect you.. At Kirk house and you both looking so good.
I see all the people arriving for the bonfire party we had there .
I see you on Dads arm at your wedding and he is beaming with pride .. And you look so beautiful.
I see you full of life and heart, enjoying the people you love around you , forcing ( teaching ?) the poor unsuspecting kiwi neighbours to first foot on New years eve .
I see the courage you had to leave Scotland , while expecting your first child, to go and live 12, 000 miles from home.
I see you in my minds eye always this way , enjoying people , making sure they were enjoying life and in return they enjoyed and loved you.
I know they will be there with your family to say their farewells to you , I would love to be there with them to raise a glass , but its not possible , so I will say Slainte from over here and think of you and them .
You touched so many lives Catriona, you made a difference , its what we are all here to do , in the end its not about material things ..its about relationships and the quality of the love shared.
People will remember that about you, I am more than sure of that .
I have only touched on a few of my memories of you , there are many more, and more I still have to remember.
I miss you …..
and love you ……I look forward to the next time we meet .. Good journey home my sister .
Gu bràth ma mo cridhe
Hill you ho, boys
Let her go, boys
Bring her head round
Now all Together
Hill you bo, boys
Let her go, boys
Sailing homeward, To Mingulay
What care we though white the Minch is
What care we for wind or weather ? .
Let her go boys
Ev’ry inch is
Wearing homeward To Mingulay
Hill you ho, boys
Let her go, boys
Bring her head round
Now all Together
Hill you bo, boys
Let her go, boys
Sailing homeward, To Mingulay
Wives are waiting on the bank or
Looking seaward from the heather
Pull her round boys And we’ll anchor
Ere the sun sets at Mingulay
Hill you ho, boys
Let her go, boys
Bring her head round
Now all Together
Hill you bo, boys
Let her go, boys
Sailing homeward, To Mingulay
Hard to get a version of this that is viewable all over, I love the Corries version but this lass does a good job as well…
the surface talk that is needed to function, is light and superficial, attempted tenderness, kindness, humour ,
I do better some days than others, as I watch the shadow of her age creep into her face and bones, like a slow sun setting.
I attempt to create in colour and light, language , to heal , to try to understand .
It feels to me like I am in the eye of the storm,
the centre of a whirling maelstrom, filled with the planets orchestrations, as they shift into another octave, in her song of truth..
My tentative awareness reaches beyond and beyond …
The deeper words , are of reassurance to my heart,
to keep it open ..in spite of it all .
They say that to meditate from and on the heart, is to bypass the chattering mind,
and that will dispel fear..
I let go, into the heartlight .
I listen to the small voice, deep within.
All the fear that is seeded in our minds, each and every day, bear witness yes ,
but , do not plant those seeds, or water them with the ,
what ifs and the maybe, the endless speculations ,
for the monkey mind , the chattering mind, will treasure those , hoard them and throw them back at you in joyful sabotage.
If your little corner of the world is safe, be deeply grateful, as you see it turned inside out for others.
Hold light for them, walk in their skin,
but do not allow despair over the threshold of your heart , do not open the door to its insistent knocking.
I enfold the suffering in my heart,
Imagining expansiveness, infinity and within that, the infinity of solutions and the beauty of exquisite potentials , shining like the millions of stars , singing in the deepest blue.
In my thoughts and imaginings,
I picture this,
One stead fast rescue worker, weary in mind but not heart , finds and rescues another human from the wreckage , he has already saved many lives.
Another, tenderly feeds a dog abandoned and starving .
Pragmatic, practical and loving acts continue on, within the maelstrom.
Selfless and loving acts, of deep compassion occur over and over, every day.
Love in action , not in word only.
Love in deed and thought and energy.
Boundlessly grateful, as I am, here and now, to be sitting in the comfort of my life, planning a simple day in which there will be food and warmth.
I send out my thoughts, encoded with love and compassion ,
I see, in my mind’s eye, solutions found, brave acts, against insurmountable odds take place, true courage in the heart is found and acted upon.
I refuse to fuel the fear. I light up the web of love, with my small bright flame.
