Blackbird singing

'Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of the dark black night'

(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)

(Actually, it wasn't a blackbird, it was a crow - but never mind!) 

Where my pig is headed

they tried to persuade me not to cross

the curious hills; finally, shrugging

called me foolish, stubborn.

that’s how it is, I said, I’m going    

where my pig is headed. 

(Found this among my mementoes... not sure how long I've had it but it is many years.  It still has a resonance for to me. Probably sums me up quite well!)

Trust my timing

This has a special meaning for me right now. After Christmas, perhaps because I was just recovering from Covid, I started to feel that I should prepare to move house, to downsize to a flat that would be future-proof, or as much so as any place can be. This came unexpectedly. I'd often thought that 'one day' I'd do this, but then lately I'd been thinking that flats were not a good investment and I'd be better staying put in this house (where I've been for nearly 25 very happy years) and making sure I was fit enough to manage it. The sense strongly came that I should start to declutter, to get rid of all the things I've accumulated that I really didn't need - and once I started it was surprisingly easy.  The hardest bit isn't deciding what should go but, once decided, getting it out of the house to the charity shop or the tip or wherever. I've more or less completed that stage now. I've been praying to be guided to the right place at the right time, and sensing and trying to be obedient to the promptings - viewing a couple of flats when they came up, putting my name on the waiting list for a complex I like, getting the details of my house logged with an estate agent ready to 'go' when I wanted to sell. Various avenues for various reasons proved to be not the right direction.  Then a couple of weeks ago I was contacted by the site manager via the waiting list to say a flat had come up there. I viewed it, it feels right, I've made an offer. I've put my house up for sale, I've had viewings and offers this week.... but until my offer on the flat is confirmed I can't do anything - and I've not yet heard the results of the most recent viewings either. I'm champing at the bit but I can't do a thing to progress it; it's all in the hands of others right now... and firmly in God's hands, I believe. I've really sought to be patient, obedient and discerning. I'm sure God is saying: 'I've heard your prayers, now trust me.' I'm really trying to. 

The Peace of Wild Things

Just loved these peaceful images from Staveley Nature Reserve. Is there anywhere prettier than England in May? Even without obvious wildflowers or blossom, the colours were so soft and beautiful and I've tried to edit the photos accordingly. 

'When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.'    (Wendell Berry) 

Spring

 'Spring is when life’s alive in everything.' 

Christina Rossetti

'It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, 

a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, 

and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what.'    

John Galsworthy

Fallen jewels

I've just heard that one of my friends has died. It was expected; she has been very ill for a while, but that doesn't lessen the blow. I've known her for well over twenty years. We actually didn't see each other that often, didn't socialise as such, but that doesn't matter. She was a true, trusted and wise friend whom I loved a lot. It was a hard-won friendship, in many ways. Intensely private, she didn't give her trust easily and our bond was worked out over a long time. It was a bond, for both of us. We didn't just 'chat' when we met, we really talked. She was a woman of taste: creative, artistic, a gardener, sculptor and ceramicist. She was a wonderful champion of my photography and encouraged me to pursue that. I'm very glad to have known her and her loss will leave a huge hole for me (though, of course, an even bigger one for her husband and three daughters, whose pain I can barely imagine). 

I'm sure I shall go through many emotions in the next few weeks. I can already feel the anger. The disease that killed her was the same cruel disease that took my mother too, although my friend was much younger than my mum. At this stage in life, I suppose we have to come to terms with our friendship group gradually diminishing but that doesn't make it easier or less painful. 

I took this photo today, before I heard the news, and yet it seems perhaps a fitting tribute. The fallen leaves still shine, so much like jewels. I'm sure she would have appreciated that. May she rest in peace. 

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.  

                                                Robert Frost

Autumn musings

'It was a beautiful, bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it.'   

Diana Gabaldon

'How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.'  
John Burroughs

We've had quite a few of those beautiful, bright, blue sky autumn days and they do lift one's spirits. For most of us in the UK, spirits are badly in need of lifting, what with the mess the government is in, the lack of true leadership or even common-sense, the energy crisis, the cost of living crisis, the effects of Brexit, the war in Ukraine, the climate change crisis - to mention just a few things, in no particular order. I can't ever recall a time, even when things have seemed 'bad' before, that things nationally and internationally have been in quite such a storm. (Nearly said s***storm and that's what I mean!) Nevertheless, I'm enormously grateful to be where I am, at this stage of life, with everything that I really need and knowing too that my family are as resilient as they can be to weather these storms. I alternate between feeling angry, sad, ashamed, worried... But no amount of worry makes any difference; there's little most of us 'ordinary people' can do apart from what many of us always do, which is to take responsibility for our own lives; vote sensibly when we get chance! ; notice, care and try to support others where we can and nurture ourselves with food, sleep, exercise and whatever calms one's own particular soul. 

As is obvious from my blogs, my own main 'calming' comes from nature. Just being out in the fresh air, walking and enjoying the rhythmic movement of my own body, noticing all the small things - the birds, trees and other aspects of nature's bounty; the colours; the light and how it affects the scene; the sounds; the scents - all those are gifts. Sometimes I'm able to capture some of those gifts in a photo and then I can share a little of what I experienced with others. If I can write an uplifting blog post or share a beautiful picture, I know that there are a few people, perhaps less able to get out themselves, for whom that picture and those few words might provide interest, a spark of reminiscence or a little hint of pleasure in an otherwise quiet day. That in itself is worth celebrating, I guess, though that is not why I take photos and write my blogs, which is entirely a matter of self-interest and self care. It makes me feel better, brings me joy, provides a focus (if you'll excuse the pun). Similarly there are many who bring me joy, in the same way, through their blogs, their writing or their art and photography. 

Each of our seasons (and I'm glad to live in a country that does have definable seasons) has its own merits. Personally my favourite time of year is spring, when warmth creeps in, light rises, soft greens unfurl, flowers and blossom appear - bluebells and cherry blossom being particular treats for me. Spring also seems full of new beginnings, fresh starts, new energy. My whole being starts to uncurl in step with nature. I wake from sleep, stretch, feel energised. 

Then, I suppose, autumn would be my second favourite time of year, though somehow I feel I never quite make the most of it. It has echoes of a new school year (even so very many years since I started one!) It's a bit of a blank page, rather intimidating somehow. The lifestyle magazines are full of warm colours - reds, oranges, russets and browns - none of which are 'my' colours. There are cosy throws, mulled wine, candles, a sense of closing in, snuggling down. Hygge is the trendy word: a mood of cosiness and 'comfortable conviviality', with feelings of wellness and contentment. Bearing in mind that many of my autumns start (as this one has done) with a not-very-healthy dose of a heavy cold (blame children and grandchildren going back to school!) and it doesn't somehow help me to find that mood. Nor does the fading of the light, our long northern nights. 

I'm not a huge follower of astrology, I have to say, but my star sign is an air sign, whereas autumn always seems to be about earth and fire. (Even in that photo at the top, I thrill as much to the blue sky as the russet leaves.) So the season never seems to be a good fit for me. It does, however, lend itself to musings. As Nietzsche said: 

'Notice that autumn is more the season of the soul than of nature.' 

For me there is some grief in there, a sense of things slipping away. It's not called 'Fall' for nothing. Yes, I know things in nature often have to die before they are reborn; I know all about there being times and seasons for everything and I respect that, yet I still feel sad. I still feel like cutting myself off from the world, even the conviviality that others can create. I want to hibernate. It feels cold, not cosy. I wonder what autumn and winter must have been like for my ancestors who were farmers, out in all weathers, breaking the ice on the water trough so their stock could drink. I wonder how my coal miner forebears could bear the monotony of going to work in the dark, working all day in the dark and then going home in the dark, to sleep in the dark. Must have needed a lot of forbearance. 

Things change; new generations reinterpret things in new ways and yet often have to learn again many of 'the old ways' in order truly to survive and thrive. 

'And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves...' 
Virginia Woolf

'Another fall, another turned page...' 

Wallace Stegner

Cathedrals of industry

I took this double-exposure image on a recent visit to an exhibition in the roof space at Salts Mill. The vast spaces up there always inspire me as much as whatever event I've gone to see. The roof trusses remind me of the arches in cathedrals. This one, made of wood and iron, was leaking a rust stain down the stone wall. I've overlaid it with a rather battered and random piece of metal gridwork I found, screwed to the wall and fashioned as though it were small shelves or a rack, though for what purpose I have no idea.  

It got me thinking that, in their own way, our northern textile mills, these relics of the Industrial Revolution, were truly 'the cathedrals of industry'. I'm glad that some, like Salts Mill, are able to be preserved and appreciated for their scale and the quality of the work that went into the buildings themselves, not to mention the craftmanship of the machinery (like spinning machines and looms) that filled them - and the fine fabrics they ultimately produced in large quantities.

'And no bobbins and spindles and shuttles are left

Where weavers once tended the warp and the weft

To fettle to fabric with fine-spun thin threads

But axes have fallen and silenced the sheds.'       C Richard Miles

'A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.'   Antoine de Saint-Exupery

(For 'rock pile', please read 'textile mill'.) 

'I went and looked at one of these great cathedrals one day, and I was blown away by it. From there I became interested in how cathedrals were built, and from there I became interested in the society that built the medieval cathedral. It occurred to me at some point that the story of the building of a cathedral could be a great popular novel.'    Ken Follett

The story of the building of Sir Titus Salt's great mill and his village of Saltaire is told many times in many books - though I don't know of a novel yet. And what a story it is; what a legacy he left us!

'Beauty is not generic, bland, and clinical. It isn't all things to all people. The Cathedral of Notre Dame in its endlessly intricate detail was beautiful. Modern office buildings are not.'   Michael J. Knowles

One of the aspects of Salts Mill that continually blows my mind is the elaborate detail that adorns it. The Victorians were never interested in utilitarian architecture. These buildings were statements about their founders, in a way that our bland modern office blocks are not. 

'For me, the reason why people go to a mountaintop or go to the edge of the ocean is to look at something larger than themselves. That feeling of awe, of going to a cathedral, it's all about feeling lost in something bigger than oneself. To me, that's the definition of spectacle.'  Diane Paulus

'But the first step inside, and a silent gasp -

it's bigger inside than outside...

and the sound of your steps soars to the high

indescribably glorious roof like a

small bird looking for an escape....

and you feel an intruder into the space of history

waiting for you to find your place.'   Michael Shepherd

Connecting with the Divine

Sunset on the beach, the colours unbelievably vibrant. I took a great many photos and only towards the end did I think of trying a few ICM shots. (ICM stands for Intentional Camera Movement, where you select a slow shutter speed and move the camera whilst the shutter is open, to create a blur.) These days, there is nothing especially unusual about ICM; you see so many of these images. It can give a nice effect when the scene is about colour more than anything, though images often lack a focal point. I was reasonably pleased with this one, though it wouldn't win any prizes. It does, for me, evoke something of actually being there and witnessing the splendour of this natural phenomenon, fast changing and completely awe-inspiring. It actually made me feel quite emotional, watching the beauty unfold. No two sunsets are ever the same and the fleeting colours can be mind-blowing. To me, this image beckons almost like a portal into another dimension. 

'To watch a sunset is to connect with the Divine.'  Gina De Gorna 

Take heart

I was sitting on Shipley Glen, on a bench, enjoying the scenery when I noticed this 'message' in the sky.  That Stevie Wonder song came unbidden into my mind:

'I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.'

Isn't it wonderful when the heavens remind you that you're loved? 

Harvest

'When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking of nothing, cramming the black honey of summer into my mouth.'     Mary Oliver

When life (or a friend, in my case) gives you cooking apples, fresh and tart from the tree, go and look for blackberries. Well, that's what I decided to do anyway. In truth, blackberries seem few this year, I suppose as a result of the dry weather. Or maybe I just wasn't looking in the right places. Those I found were quite small but still sweet-tasting. I collected a little bag full. Once the apples were chopped and stewed, I added the blackberries, cooking them enough to release their purple juice but not lose their shape. The concoction needed a sprinkling of sugar to satisfy my sweet tooth but, oh, it was tasty. 

Perhaps we all have a latent hunter-gatherer still within us. Once I got into the swing of it - and managing to avoid the sharp prickles of the brambles - it was a pleasurable half hour or so. There is something satisfying about getting close to mother earth and her bounty. I'm not a gardener at all, but I'm sure it must be very pleasing to harvest your own home-grown crops. 

And yes, I did 'cram the black honey of summer into my mouth' as well as into the bag. You can't return from a blackberrying expedition without juice-stained fingers and a purple tongue! 

Ocean

'You can either see yourself as a wave in the ocean or you can see yourself as the ocean.' 

(Oprah Winfrey)

'The ocean has a life of its own. Its tides, whirlpools, currents and eddies are 
a testament to its conflicting emotions.' 
(Anthony T. Hincks)

Walking the other day and listening to my own heart (as you do) I felt like the ocean. On the surface all is relatively calm, even sometimes sun-kissed, with a myriad little sparkling diamonds and turquoise, luminous depths. The waves are mostly gentle, lapping the shore. There is a pattern to the tides, not exactly the same each day but still reliable, orderly, dependable. Sometimes I hit against rocks, painfully, spray surging up with the impact - and then that too ebbs away. But I am also aware of undercurrents, rip tides, strong and tugging, trying to pull me down. In places they boil into whirlpools. I fight but perhaps the best strategy is to let myself go with it and bob up somewhere else, lifted on to a different shore.  Some day, I suppose, I will drown, claimed by the depths. Maybe by then I won't mind. 

Heavenly host

I popped into Sandsend's little Victorian church, St Mary's, whilst I was on holiday. It had all these paper angels flying around the nave - rather pretty. It also had a yoga class going on and I think the instructor thought I was taking a photo of all the ladies lying on their mats! I didn't hang around!

I do find I love depictions of angels, in graveyards and in paintings: all those cute, chubby little cherubim, especially that wonderful pair in Raphael's 'Sistine Madonna' painting.  There are angels mentioned many times in the Bible, and some people believe they are here on earth as well as in heaven. I tend to think our angels don't have wings...  It is, however, somehow comforting to me to think that we may each have a guardian angel. There have been times in my life when I felt maybe there was an angel nearby watching out for me. When my daughter first left home for university, one of the ways I coped was to pray and believe that there would be an angel watching over her. I still remember the tingle I felt when I went to visit her and looked out of the window of her room. Although it was a fairly modern accommodation block, it was adjacent to a much older building with fancy carved stonework - and yes, there was a stone angel there, looking over and into her room. 

"For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully.'" Luke 4:10

'See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.' Exodus 23:20

"And suddenly there appeared with the angel a great multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying:: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favour rests!'" Luke 2:13

Retreating

This painting, a watercolour called 'Medieval hall' by Rachel Wood, was hanging above the desk in my room at the retreat house where I stayed in Sleights. (The copyright will be hers, not mine, and I hope there is no objection to me sharing it.) The more I looked at it, the more I appreciated it - the soft, loose strokes and gentle neutral tones appealed to me very much. It's the kind of scene I'd photograph if I came across it. Furthermore the empty, cell-like space increasingly spoke to me. 

The week I was away coincided with a heatwave, not the record temperatures we had a few weeks ago but still too hot for me to feel comfortable by the afternoon. (I don't know how I do it... That's the third holiday I've had in succession that coincided with a heatwave - 2019, 2021 and now 2022! Different weeks too.) Some people would love the sunshine but I like to explore and walk on my holidays and it was too hot to do that.  So the week, for me, turned into a bit of a challenge to my boredom thresholds. The wi-fi at the retreat house is, sadly or perhaps deliberately, abysmal, only properly available in one room  and even then so slow as to be fairly impossible to use successfully. So, perhaps fortuitously, my 'go-to' time-waster wasn't readily available! That still left books to read and I finished one and started another, and managed to restore to some extent my powers of concentration, generally rather badly eroded by too much reliance on tech/computer/iPad. 

The week also provided, for me, a way back into a regular rhythm of shared prayer and worship, since guests are invited to join the community in their chapel for short services of morning and evening prayer. Since Covid came along and we all had to lock-down, my regular church going has broken down. I did try a couple of services once things were going back to normal (or as normal as they are now) but I found problems with hearing properly and difficult issues with wearing a mask and specs at the same time, and things went on too long for comfort and then I was pinged by the NHS app for 'being in close contact with someone who later tested positive for Covid' - and it turned out I'd been surrounded by about-to-be-ill people! Though I didn't myself succumb (as far as I know!) that was pretty off-putting. So I haven't so far been back. I suppose I should make the effort again but it hasn't really felt as though it has impacted my faith or my personal rhythm of quiet prayer time. I was having issues before with all sorts of aspects of 'church', which are not resolved...

Anyway, the gentle, quiet discipline of short times of shared worship proved comforting. The Community use several parts of the Northumbria Community's Celtic devotions and, having used those myself (and indeed spent time with the Northumbria Community in the past) it was familiar, like rediscovering a favourite and comfortable garment. I have resolved to go back to using those verses again at home. When the worship sticks to a liturgy that is incredibly helpful to me (being deaf), though I can never hear people's offered prayers, which feels both slightly annoying and slightly disenfranchising, since I dare not pray aloud myself in case I'm just repeating or cutting across someone else. Never mind, I just pray my own prayers in those bits.

On the Thursday evening before I left on Friday, there was a simple, shared Communion, the first I have taken since before lockdown. So that felt warming and nourishing, soul food. 

Retreating... re-treating... perhaps moving forwards rather than backwards? 

'Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.'  Psalm 118. 

Pebbles

Just a little playing with an image of my pebble collection. I can't truly say why I have a pebble collection... They are stones I've picked up over the years on beaches and brought home (and yes, I know you're not really supposed to do that!) Neatly laid out on a shelf in the sitting room, the hoard is perhaps one of my favourite possessions. There is something about the smoothness of them, their diversity of colour, shape, texture, the way they fit in one's palm - and yet all within relationship to each other. I like the grading from largest to smallest. 

I know my grandgirls appreciate them, especially M. In fact, there is a poignant little story to tell here... Once when the family came over, her father produced the tiny, rounded, orange pebble from his pocket and placed it at the end of the line, saying he'd been carrying it around for ages. It fitted and looked at home there so it was left. The next time the grandgirls came, that very pebble went missing. As they were leaving, I exclaimed about it (without really thinking it through!) M bent down behind the door and then produced it, saying: 'Is this it?' So we replaced it in the line. It was only after they'd gone that I realised the likely truth: that M herself must at one time have found it (she's the kind of child that does amass pockets full of treasures) and she must have given it to her daddy to look after. Perhaps she then forgot about it. Anyway, seeing it on my shelf must have reminded her that it was her treasure, so she reclaimed it, but obviously felt a little guilty, hence the 'finding it' again when I noticed its disappearance. I felt bad afterwards for not thinking ahead, and just keeping quiet when it disappeared from the line-up. I should have realised! But, sweet girl, I do love it and treasure it, all the more so because of that incident. And one day you can claim all of them for your own collection, knowing they were precious to me. They are, as precious as the finest jewels. 

Perhaps we're all a little odd! 

There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion 

That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble 

Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret, 

Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Roots and Wings

Saw this canal boat today on my walk. It reminded me of the saying that I've loved for a long time: 'There are only two lasting bequests we can give our children: one is roots; the other, wings.'  I've been thinking quite a lot about that as I celebrate my 70th birthday and my daughter, shortly, will be 40. I hope I've given her both.

I had a thoughtful walk today, the first for several days as it's been so (record-breakingly) hot. I really needed it too, as my back and hips have been rather painful, which is partly the result of tripping and jarring my muscles a few days ago and partly the penalty of inactivity over several days. I kept noticing people's very loud voices. Was that just me being sensitive or were people shouting or was it a freak of the overcast, warm, humid day? There was a man behind me having a very loud, ongoing conversation with his dog! And when I was on the river bank I could hear folk chatting on the canal bank some way above. The other abiding sense was the scent of petrichor - damp earth, after a slight rain shower, the first for many days (weeks). Not enough rain to make any difference though. Everywhere is really dry and looks dusty and parched. Even the sluggish river had seeds or something all over it, little white spots that, from a distance, gave the impression of a mist rising. The rain had brought out some tiny frogs. It was hard not to step on them on the river path. The herons, on the other hand, looked really miserable - one perched in a tree and the other on the dry part of the weir in the park. I wonder if the low water level means slim pickings of fish for them? 

All these ramblings I set down because I've been thinking for a while that my main blog, 'Salt and Light', has become more of a travelogue, a record of my expeditions, and to some extent written for other people's consumption. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I would like to find a more personal journalling space if I can, something perhaps a little more creative. Such thoughts have been swirling around my brain for a few days and today I came across a book: 'Little Stories of Your Life' by Laura Pashby - Find your voice, share your world and tell your story. So I've downloaded it on my iPad Kindle app and will read it and attempt to broaden out my creativity a little, as well as seeking to capture some of the sweet, smaller moments in the larger swell of my life and expeditions.   

Instructions for living:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

(Mary Oliver - Sometimes)