Creativity

 Creativity takes energy

Not a lot spare to be creative yet

But we are in Advent

Not yet Christmas

I'll post again in the New Year

Thank you so much

For being loving

Patient

(and hopefully)

Laughing with me 

Just a little

Autumn Colour

 On Wednesday, my friend Judith and I went to Rosemoor.  I'm not a huge fan of gardens, as this exchange gives away - me - "lots of dead plants, dead things, sticks" Judith - "pruned things Sal, colour"

Hmm, well I enjoyed the sculptures but the highlight for me was the display of pumpkins and squashes.  And seeing Judith relaxed and happy.  Since she won't read this, I treasure time with her, knowing that as she has cancer, it may be a shortened time of friendship.  I've been there before and it is hard. Even the coffee cake didn't have walnuts - she doesn't like them, so a good end to a day.  She was grumpy because I prevented her walking up the higher woodland walk - ususally extremely muddy! I know how determined and stubborn she can be, but sometimes resting on a bench in the sun is a fabulous prescription for a friend who doesn't rest!  Oh and I appreciated it too, celebrating the unreal feeling of having a new job!

Living Water part 2

 Water again.  Friday, using the excuse of a parentally generous National Trust renewal, I went to Lydford Gorge. Thanks to The Sat Nav I got there! It was thrashing down with rain in that persistent, soaking, horizontal Devon pattern, the sort that actually fills me with joy, except that wearing glasses is a pain.

Funnily enough there weren't many cars there.  Just a few determined parents hauling their children out for a healthy walk in the woods.  And the woods were so beautiful.  The photos below don't do them or the water soaked waterfall justice.  What little of the walk that was open was so lovely and soul enriching.

There's something about woods that I love. I'm reading John Lewis Semple's The Wood again, as a bedtime read.  Beautiful, solid, well crafted prose, achingly well observed, so sharp you feel you are walking on the leaf litter with him, sitting at the edge of the woodland pond listening to the moorhens, walking home on the cusp of night hearing the cry of the tawny owl

And after Boris's dismal, depressing, spirit darkening maps last night I took shots of the leaves on the way to church.  The greens and browns were a mind resting option. And the reds fed my heart.

Living Water

There's been a lot of it lately I think.  Rain. I went to my happy place, North Devon to escape for a while this weekend.  And got thoroughly soaked as you can see from the photo below.  But also managed a good 10 miles walk including a walk up to watersmeet from Lynmouth and a return along the river, followed by the obligatory cream tea, walk up the cliff and rerun of September's walk along the coast path (30mph winds) to the valley of the rocks. 

I'm fascinated by water, as you will know, I find it draws me and I would love to swim in the rough pools and torrents as otters do, to tumble and play in the stuff.  I can stare at it, listen to it's magisterial thunder (especially after a week or so of rain) and try to imagine how Jesus voice might sound - "like mighty waters" personally I find that exciting rather than terrifying!

There's a really lovely poem in the book "watching the kingfisher" which sums up my bird and nature watching approach:

"Wait for the Spirit" by Ann Lewin

Wait...

Without expectation

Which might focus

Attention too narrowly,

So that we miss the coming.

Wait with expectancy, alert,

Hearts, minds, hands, ears

Open to receive the gift"

It's brilliant, go watching without being too disappointed if the bird you would like to see doesn't turn up. Focus on the good stuff of now.  I'm preaching last night's sermon to myself!

Here's a small attempt to sum up a whole afternoon's love affair with water.

"Whisky colour water, pools of bath bubbles of palest jade

Rills and runnels, teeming over trapped tree branches

Torrenting downstream, roiling over rocks.

White shirted, brown jacketed, swirling in the pools

I catch sight of the dipper, battling the river eddies.

Downstream, a flash of yellow of dipping flight

Grey wagtail, and the torpedo streamline of a cormorant

Diving through the weeds in expectation of dinner."

World Mental Health Day - a belated post

 Last weekend we celebrated World Mental Health Day.  And my computer needing fixing, it was as lacking in charge as my heart that day.  For whatever reason!

To explain, I have, for quite a few years had a recurring pattern of SAD - seasonal affective distorder. To those who say it's just winter blues, and that everyone feels miserable and/or down in winter is possibly not helpful.  It's what I used to say until I found out that most people don't wake up crying in the morning in winter, as soon as it starts to darken.  Nor do they have to prise themselves out of bed - and I am a chronically early riser, nor do they wake at 3am with what can only be described as the soundtrack of your worst enemy giving you a hard time. Using a bright light doesn't help.  At all.  It was a most unpleasant few years, until friends who loved me noticed the misery, as well they might, and with gentle persistence suggested I talk to my doctor.

So now, after a couple years of on-off attempts, I now take sertraline, which is a modern antidepressant.  Every morning.  Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Without arguing.  I don't like the emotional "flatness" - I quite enjoyed the feeling of sensitivity and highs and lows can be quite fun!

But this is world mental HEALTH day, so, yes, although it is dark and getting cold, and I have all the right triggers, and still get that cobalt dark feeling and I still wake early, and still need to bribe myself out of bed, and can easily get into a pattern of blue tears and thinking.  But the difference is that I am aware of it, have a level playing field, thanks to steadying drugs.  So here are the helpful things I do in case anyone reading should like a little enlightening!  I set breakfast ingredients out - or prep the night before so I can say to myself "you LIKE coconut porridge - yes, I know it sounds daft!  I leave my swimming costume on the bathroom floor on a Friday night so that I literally fall over it when hauling myself out of bed grumbling "why the hell did I book such an early swim? (the answer is early morning outside light - the best therapy out)

I make sure I have a book by the bed - a light read one! I register to walk for a " race at your pace" medal - they cost £10 and it seems a waste of money, but in Autumn shading into Winter I need the incentive, the push and that lovely sense of achievement it brings.  And they are beautiful to look at.

So, with the understanding of the above, I offer today's walk.  But please don't read it that I am a blythe person who drifts through the world seeing lovely things even in a year of pandemic, I don't - I ration the news input but I read a serious book alongside a more fun one most days.

This morning wisps of candyfloss drift over the gunmetal sea.

Turnstones scatter to the steady, wash back of the waves.

It gives me a sense of solidity.

 Someone is roller blading, ski sticks clattering 

Others stand, hatted, jacketed, watching.

My head feels as grey as morning porridge

 Above the horizon's belt of cumulus a  peach line appears

I watch it deepen to a rectangle of tangerine.

Rays batter downwards, as the sun struggles against the cloud bank.

I'd like to watch and see it rise, steadily but the swimming pool calls!

 

 

 

Unveiled Faces?

 Well it has caught up with Donald Trump and I am truly ashamed to realise my reaction to his Covid diagnosis wasn't "poor man" but serve him right! Hmmm, way to go for you Sal I think!  Maybe I should be praying for him!! Someone at work thought it was all a ploy to postpone the presidential election.

I've had that little bible phrase "we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory" stuck in my head all week. Obviously a good one to remember and practice (see above)

At work we have had the regulations tightened up.  Masks are now compulsory in all areas except when we are behind our perspex screens, or, in my case, at the filing cabinet or scanner/printer.  Hello to tickling nose and steamed up glasses. Oh and forgetting you can't drink coffee wearing it. So I suspect that unveiled faces where we can see each others' expressions and in my poor dad's case, read their lips is on my mind.

We all - reflect his glory?  Because he made us?  A work of art - even if it's in progress, paint all over the floor, brushes stuck in jam jars, hand prints on the edges of the frame, clay slipping off the wheel yet again, stone chips flying and edged tools chunking. That's us.  But we reflect him.  Creator, craftsman, worker, potter, artist, writer and wordsmith.

When I write/take photographs/produce a meal - I "feel his pleasure" to crib a famous quote. I know the quote is Moses and his veil because he didn't want people to see the glory fade, but humour me, I have just taken the afternoon off to apply for a job and discovered the closing date is too quick and there are few, precious few jobs out there.  I'm fortunate to be working in a kind and generous place and to have a contract extension until the end of October.

Searching for clues

 Years ago I produced a slim paper cover A4 booklet called "searching for clues" A little bit of poetry for friends to read and ponder.  I was an earnest soul I think but people seemed to like it.  A few more equally slim booklets followed, each Christmas in lieu of fancy gifts.  I seem to have lost that gift of thoughtful, biblical reflection or maybe it was just a season in life.  Now I blog and have learned and am learning the magic art of writing laments.  I've just read church "focus" bulletin and seen a fellow wordsmith has written his own well crafted lament.

So I thought I would have a go.  I notice that Job, Jeremiah, Habbakuk and many others produced the most wretchedly downbeat songs when things got tough and God didn't seem to mind even if he did tell Jeremiah to get a grip - well maybe not in so many words. I've been really struck by Habbakuk's lament - the words are so pictorial and evocative- even though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines etc, but he is describing large scale hardship and harrowing famine. We don't, here, have the same but:

I miss normality - whatever that was, when with uncovered faces we could chat

and laugh and read each others' smiles, not just their eyes.  Even as one whose hands do the talking.

Words embodied, not remote and artifically lighted.

Even as an awkward rook I miss singing - factory men whistle and sing why must we be silenced?

Everything feels awkward - I don't know the rules, don't particularly care either

I know it is important, but was it important enough?

To ruin the economy

To finish the careers of older workers

To blight and stunt the growth of those who are low paid

To feed the bloated online retailers - I share that guilt.

Yesterday there was a rainbow arching rain soaked motorway sky

A covenant promise but a promise that is not necessarily a soft option

For those who wait

 

yes, it's choppy prose but I need to keep writing after a relentless day of shivering with the warehouse door open and scanning sick records.  And in every workplace, "flu" seems to be a Friday/Monday thing!!