Tag: nature

Categories
poem Triune God

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Apologise to those who also get my Substack posts as I’ve already shared this on there but I like it so thought I’d share it in both places for those who don’t follow me on both.

Also I’m starting a new writing group this Wednesday afternoon where the focus is poetry and so felt sharing a poem all over the place might be a good idea 🙂

About 7.30 am this morning two little egrets and a heron back on the pond in my local regular dog walking park.

I Didn’t Want To Go To Church This Morning

This morning I decided I didn't want to go to church, 
I didn't want to sit in the pew I always sit
talk to those lovely people who sit near me every week. 
I didn't want to listen to the preacher preach their sermon,
even though I know we are blessed with gifted exponents of the Word.
I didn't want to sing the hymns that would fill the church this morning
or smile benevolently when the elderly organist sounded if he was playing in his mittens.
This morning I didn't want to read the remembered liturgy. 

I had a chat to God about it as I walk small dog round the park,
as I thought they needed to know my plan and hear it from my heart.
I paused in our conversation to marvel at the heron and egrets on the pond.
They said it was ok if I didn't want to go today.
They said that it was ok to go with what my heart felt best for me today. 
They said they were glad I was enjoying their creation. 
Then together we wandered round the park some more, 
check in with those I see each morning, 
who also checked I was fine. 

So this morning instead of going to church I've settled down,
a dog on either side of me,
to write some poems and 
enjoy the winter sun shine into my living room
and allow the day to unfurl as the God of the Universe decides for me today.

Interestingly this is today’s Bible verse on Daily Bible Verse. I feel like by bringing them into the conversation I’ve committed what I do to the Lord so …. wonder what today will unfold into?

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Categories
faith Trees

The Sycamore Tree

Large tree beside a river in an autumn park
A mature tree frames a peaceful river winding through an autumn-colored park. Generated by me and AI

Back in 2023 a well photographed tree on Hadrian’s Wall got cut down. Across the UK there was uproar! But now there are headlines to say the stump is growing saplings and some of those saplings are being planted in communities across the UK thanks to the National Trust. Here’s the article – ‘Flourishing’ Sycamore Gap Tree Has Ring of New Shoots Already 3-Feet Tall

A few weeks ago our vicar did a sermon in which she compared sycamores, and especially the helicopter seeds, as how faith can be. These tenacious seeds spiral and fly all over the place and land in the most random of places. We’ve got a sycamore tree at the back of our houses and often have to pull young growth out of our back wall. There is a sapling growing randomly in the council’s flowerbed which, because we don’t have regular council people employed to pull it out is growing quite nicely. There is also a random one in our local park which marks the little crossing over one of the ditches that take the pond water out to the sea.

Random sycamores all over the place, and this is what I took from what our vicar was preaching. Our faith is random. It blows where it will. It can appear where we don’t expect it.

So back to the one that got chopped down and is now regrowing. What if that too is like faith? What if it was never meant to be alone there? What if it was never meant to be photographed by so many? The article says that it is sprouting so well because the soil isn’t so compacted because people aren’t coming to see it.

So regarding church – how often, I wonder, does church become a memorial? A “this is how we do it”? A “this is how it always is”? And faith is contained within it. Actually the curate we had preaching this Sunday just gone was talking about the Book of Acts and of how God often sent persecution to get the church to move “out to the ends of the world”. Like the iconic sycamore tree it had to be cut down to move out.

I wonder how often we try to keep things as they are, as what we know, as what we like, and I wonder how often we don’t want to move out of what we know and just see where our faith might be replanted?

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Some random trees in my local park photographed by myself last winter. Also thought everyone needs a photo with dogs in it 🙂

Categories
fig tree Seasons

Fruitful – When?

Aberlleiniog Castle, Anglesey. Photographed by myself October 2024

I am not going to attempt to unpack the story about Jesus cursing the fig tree [Mark 11:11-25] though too often it has been used to say that we should be fruitful in all seasons. Well just is daft.

The trees in this picture are coming to the end of their fruitful season. There berries are being eaten by birds and other wildlife, their seeds falling to the ground either to be stored by squirrels or to maybe grow into new trees. They will soon lie fallow with no leaves and nothing much going on that we can see. Though as we all know a lot goes on with both ourselves and wildlife when it looks as if we’re sleeping. Then the spring will come and leaves will slowly appear and soon the trees will be covered in leaves and flowers or catkins or something that attracts the pollinators. They are still not fruitful. It is a very short period in a tree’s life cycle when it is fruitful.

So if The Creator of The Universe made the natural world like that why on earth do we, in our busy 21st Century minds, think we should be fruitful 24-7-365? Surely The Creator intends for us to have fruitful periods and fallow periods, periods of rest and periods of growth? Isn’t that what being “natural” looks like? And I don’t know about you but I would like to look as natural as possible.

But to be natural we need to be like the trees and plants and animals and be in touch with our bodies and what they are asking of us. And because we are human beings too we need to be in touch with our hearts and be able to hear what they are saying without all the dross of “shoulds” and “oughts” of upbringing and culture.

So let us all be brave and be restful when we should be, bursting with new growth when we should be, and then, I think when it is time of us to be fruitful we can be totally committed to being fruitful because we’ve done the rest and the new growth we were meant to do beforehand.

Categories
content safe place

Contented Little Hermit Crab

From openverse – hermit crab

My QEC practitioner did a podcast for our group about being a contented little hermit, exploring how for most of us the more we QEC the more we enjoy being on our own. Yes we still like people. We still like to connect but it doesn’t rule our lives.

Anyway this got me thinking about shells.

How often as a quiet, maybe shy, maybe introverted, maybe a deep thinker, were you told how pleased everyone was when you “came out of your shell” as though being in your shell was a bad thing?

Why is it a bad thing? No one would tell this hermit crab or any other shellfish to “come out of its shell”. That’s is home, its safe place.

We had visitors this week and at times there were things that I found hard work in the conversations. I found that I am now in the habit of ANSing myself [calming my autonomic nervous system and staying in regulation and balance] rather than reacting. But I also realised that I was no longer biting my tongue so I didn’t say anything. I was going into my shell, my safe place.

Inside my safe place I could be quiet, let the conversation flow around me, not have any desire to react to what was being said. I had space to breathe, to really listen to what was not being said too – the energy, so that when I did respond it was, on the whole, light, breezy and safe.

So for anyone who is getting a hard time about not “coming out of their shell” often enough ignore those people. They are jealous that you have a safe place to be to view the world when they aren’t brave enough to slide inside their shell.

Our shells are our safe places, are places to catch breath, are place to connect with ourselves and with God, which is where we should be on a regular basis.

Go on! Be bold and connect with your inner contented little hermit crab.

https://giphy.com/embed/xUA7bh63SnoXTl66Na

via GIPHY

Categories
freedom Inspiration writing

Aspirational Writing Group

Yesterday was my regular writing group that I run. I was a bit disappointed because only two ladies came – though this had led to me deciding to change venues and return to running the groups around my own table. My business name is Barefoot At The Kitchen Table so running it at home is probably where it is meant to be.

So I decided to make the most of the area around the centre I’ve been using and the lovely weather and sent my ladies outside to gather ideas for a poem along the lines of how I write poems. Note my PDF on this.

They went outside to get some notes and then I worried that they would get bored. Above are photos of my ladies engrossed in their writing and note taking. They came in reluctantly. They had enjoyed their 10-15 mins that they had had outside listening and looking. Mindfulness?? Maybe!

They both said how much they had needed this and then thank me. It gave me such joy to know that I had been instrumental in helping them have a lovely afternoon. It also reminded me why I run these groups. It isn’t to make loads of money but it is to encourage others to enjoy writing as I do and connect with each other and themselves.

Here is what I wrote from the afternoon too – dedicated to my two lovely writing ladies, Dot and Vivien. And also to those who usually come but didn’t make it.

Clinging, creeping ivy wraps round fence and post and thoughts

Trying to drag all down with the help of self-conscious chatter.

Yet the dappled leaves illuminate the lady writers

Unhindered they scratch and scribble away.

Lost in the moment as they soar

Creating freedom in their written words.

Categories
Feel the seasons solstice

Winter Solstice

This post first appeared on https://godspacelight.com/2021/12/21/winter-solstice/

view of sunrise across a field photographed by Diane Woodrow
Sunrise photographed by myself on a morning dog walk

I wrote an article during our “lockdown Christmas” last year about my feelings regarding winter and slowing down. I also wrote an article in 2017 about the Winter Solstice and how the sun stands still for the few days from solstice to Christmas day. So it looks as if I have a bit of an affinity with this time of year.

I do love the roll into winter. I love the ways the days get rapidly shorter and I have to rethink my dog walking times because by 4pm it isn’t fun to walk around the park. Though I also love that if I can get out before 7.30am I can watch the sun rise over the trees in the park. This is a time when I just pray out loud giving glory to God. Christine talked about the Wow factor of Advent and for me every sunrise is a “Wow!” factor.

This morning I was blown away by starting my walk only lit by street-lighting, but then seeing the clouds start to get tinged with light and come into definition. Even though the sun still hadn’t fully risen by the time I got home the world had come into definition. That to me is so awesome. It truly is “new every morning” and I can then remember “Great is his faithfulness” [Lamentations 3:23] So no matter what my mood when I start my walk I come to a place of being with God and giving my morning over before I return home.

I noticed this last year and again this year, people are putting their outdoor Christmas lights on earlier and earlier. I know some of it has been said that because with the pandemic, and other things, life is bleak so people need lights, but the posts by Liz of Pocket Fuel have made me think. In the daily emails for the first week of December she explored how we seem to no longer embrace the darkness as our ancestors would have and how from that we miss out on things – like trusting God in the darkness.

It got me thinking about our ancestors, and I’m talking pre-Industrial revolution, would use the winter season was a time for gathering the family, of sharing the tales that made up their culture. This is when the stories were retold about heroes, monsters, family history, how the earth came into being, etc. But now we have made the winter, especially this run up to Christmas so busy, whether that is rushing round buying, partying, Church services. It is all busy, busy, busy, when in fact our bodies are crying out for us to slow down and the next generation needs to hear our stories, our history, our faith tales.

I am lucky in that in my freelancing work I have being healed of the need to see planning and money as the driving force and have moved more into trusting God to provide so I am more able to roll with the seasons and the daylight hours. But I still have had to think through how not to get sucked into being busy in church, feeling guilty for not saying Yes to everything, for making a quieter way. It isn’t easy. It is countercultural. It takes focus but I was trying.

So as I allow this season and this shortest day to enfold me I listen to my heart – because it is my heart that connects me with God – and then ask my heart what it is thinking and feeling. I breath and pray and then feel safe. And I also want to learn all this so I can take the slowness of the darker season into the spring and summer.