Yarn Along

Joining Ginny @ Small Things for Yarn Along and Frontier Dreams for Keep Calm, Craft On  today!

Knittingwise

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It's been so very long since I joined up with yarn along. So many projects cast on and off my needles since November! Here is a small selection from last month's photo archives :)

" Little Dorrit"

 Little Dorrit was Nola's Christmas present. Her tunic was knitted up with a ball of wool that I spun on my drop spindle a couple of years ago. It was so much fun watching how the colours worked their random way into the pattern.

Autumnal Vest finished for Tilly and another one to match for Fina, photos to come next week fingers crossed!

Reading wise 
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I have been so enjoying Sister Wendy's latest book on Prayer.
 It was given to me as a birthday present on my kindle and I'm finding myself going back over different parts of the book again and again. 
The book draws me into a lovely meditative state. 
I can almost see the gentle morning sunlight illuminating the stark bare stone Carmelite convent walls as I read. 
It is a book that offers the mind a wonderful still, space to dwell and wonder in. 
I can also hear Sister Wendy's voice clearly in the writing after watching her series of art both on TV years ago and now on DVD with my girls, and that only adds to the charm, as you'll know if you've ever had the pleasure of hearing her yourself :). 
Here is a brief excerpt about "Christ and the Samaritan Woman" 13 - 1311 by Duccio de Buoninsegna ...

 

 "The apostles have gone into the city to satisfy their hunger. They emerge in a compact bunch, supporting one another, protected from the clear light of His presence by the fortress of the world, their own self sufficiency.
Their hands are full, they clasp them to themselves, satisfied hands with the food of this world in their grasp. But the woman stands alone and exposed before Jesus. Her emptiness is seen not only in her hands, but in the most noticeable detail about her, which is the large empty pot on her head.
She does not hide her poor human emptiness: she exposes it, but the exposing is to Jesus. She is a living symbol of our need for Him. She stands still, an image of the stillness we choose at prayer. But Jesus does not reach out His hand to fill hers. He does not come to her. Jesus sits by the well and asks her to give to Him: her need is met with demand - again, a moving symbol of prayer. God gives Himself, not obviously, not in terms tangible or visible, but in holy contradiction. It is in giving that we receive: we, us. Our prayer may seem all nothingness, all giving, giving of time, of energy, of struggle to be present. Jesus may seem to have only asked, not given. But that is how He does give. The woman went away, wholly changed, fed and renewed to her innermost depths. Yet she was given no water, no food. Jesus told her to draw her own water, and He revealed to her the shameful inner truth she carried. Yet this apparently merciless treatment was living water, was life, was communication of God at such intensity that there were no human terms in which the woman could see or judge what had happened to her. But she believed, and the whole city of her personality her whole self, all she was and could become believed with her."

A String of Pearls

"The details make life holy. If you want a little happiness in life don’t forget to look at the little things. It is a poet’s work to see the incidental, pluck it, place an appropriate silence around both sides and see the profound in what passes for a passing moment. It is an artist’s job to as much discover art as create it. Prayer is a way of making the common profound by pausing, tying knots around a moment, turning our life into a string of pearls."

Noah Ben Shea

 

Simple Christmas

We moved in on the Winter Soltice, good vibes! And got the tree up on the evening of the 24th!

Here is someone we waited a long time for. Her name is Sylvie.

At last a real fire!

Veni Veni Emmanuelle!

The Natural Childscape

 Really interesting talk from the author of "Kith" the very best book I have ever read on Childhood.



And this vimeo video is a wonderful elaboration on the theme: http://vimeo.com/68430907

Mister Medlar, Missus Quince and other stories

Our local National Trust park is laden with Sweet Chestnut trees. A couple of weeks ago we went out foraging and came home with bagfuls of the things! We seemed to be the only ones picking up the loot until a few curious children stopped by and started to imitate our strange chestnut hop as Fina calls it. As the prickles on the chestnut shells are too prickly to handle you must place the chestnuts between your feet and push down with your toes till the lovely little chestnuts pop out. This technique works easily on ripe chestnuts. 

They are delicious roasted in a pan over the fire ( make sure you prick them with a knife first to stop them exploding) 

You can also cook them in a roasting pan in the oven!

My very own hippy: Emmy with feathers in her favourite hat!

Now there is a story here. The little red breasted chap above made quite an acquaintance with my aspiring ornithologist Boo.

 After chestnuting the girl's went off into the woods to explore while I sat down on a bench by the lavender gardens with a well needed cup of tea. About 25 minutes later Boo comes running over to me asking me to come quickly. I follow her into the woods slowly and quietly. As I approach Emmy and  Matilda I notice a robin pecking at the ground about an inch or so from her foot. We all sit on the lovely dark, barky earth and watch in awe as the Robin flits about, alights upon a branch only inches from us, cocks his little head to observe us better and proceed to sing us the most beautiful chittering little lullaby. It seems as if he is trying to entertain us or communicate with us in some way. Boo offers a few twittering noises in response ( hoping of course that they translate into some polite bird conversation) and he responds with more interested chatter!

We are not sure what the conversation was about but it was certainly animated and, as far as we could discern,  amiable.

Boo plucked a few small worms from the ground and unearthed a few little seeds while she was at it. The robin's eager eye spotted the meal laid before him immediately and flew to the ground to eat without a care in the world. Mister Robin had a Missus in the woods with him but she was a little shyer than her husband and spent the whole time flittering about in the denser shrubs and bushes. We could hear her nagging at her husband all the with in no small degree of exasperation. Boo translated her: "Dear Mister Medlar, do please come quickly now for our nest is nothing but a bundle of twiglets and these riff raffs will trample my folded linens with their big, clumsy feet."  I thought Miss Potter would be proud of that! Apparently, (according to Miss Boo) Mister Medlar's wife is called Missus Quince :)

We must have stayed in that wood for 40 minutes or so till our bums were numb and are fingers frozen stiff. When we emerged from the soft light of the leafy woods into the park grounds we were all in a bit of a daze. It truly had felt as if we had been in a different realm all together. Boo said that it was the single most amazing experience of her whole life thus far! Quite a statement for a nearly 10 year old!

So far we have since visited Mister Meddler and Missus Quince 3 more times and on each occasion the little male Robin came and chatted with us for as long as we stayed. Boo certainly seems to have a way with animals!

Yes the video's below are named Sparrow1, 2 & 3. Please ignore. Tani (our resident techie) clearly doesn't know a Robin from a radish :) We love him all the same.

Medicine Dreams

The dream is a sacred thing to many tribal cultures. 

It is a vision for life, a finding of the soul. 

Native people of many ancient traditions call it medicine.

The dream is meant to heal the most broken part of ourselves and help heal the most broken part of others we meet along our journey through life.

It is what makes us whole again, uniting us to our soul and the soul of the the earth and the spirit of the one who created both.

In some Native American tribes, a youth, when ready to find his medicine will sit upon a mountain for four days and four nights without eating or drinking.

A young Aborigine in Australia will be taken to a place deep in the outback desert. In that place of solitude he will also find His dream and it will become his strength and it will lead him, safely home.

In the western world we have career advisers.

Our dream has now become deeply connected to our social status and that is reflected in the career path we forge.

How many people would prefer their child to become a gardener over a scientist, a cleaner over an accountant or a carpenter over an executive.

Not everyone, but the prevalent norm is to place our greatest value on status and salary.


This is all reflected in which subjects are taken most seriously in schools. 

Practical vocational qualifications, the arts, humanities and spiritual studies, are generally not considered as important or valuable as the hard sciences or mathematics.

We are encouraged to follow the path which most effectively enhances our sense of value in society. Whether or not the pursuit of such a path is of any inherent value within itself.

The advertisers, the media, politicians and ultimately those who benefit most and pull the most strings, the corporations, have replaced the true dream with a superficial version.

This is a great crime against our human souls and it is going unnoticed because it is happening so slowly.

 

The Media sells us false dreams.

While we run ourselves ragged simply trying to work and look after our families, we become passive to the effects of the media on our consciousnesses.

The media plays up to every one of our base impulses. It encourages us to consume above and beyond our means and needs.

 It also makes us fear the world around us while giving us the message that ultimately we are impotent and powerless to change anything.

But the most scary truth is that we are becoming numb.

We are losing the ability to truly see and hear the voice of our souls.

The voice of the sacred in the everyday.

And it is young people who are most vulnerable to mistake the false dream for the real one.



Maybe this is because the dream replacement seems quite congenial, non confrontational, consumer friendly and relatively safe compared with the true dream.

In the new dream Saint Nicholas becomes Father Christmas, Jesus becomes a blond, blue eyed, life coach, and American Idol and X factor become the initiation ceremonies for our youth.

In contrast, the true dream of our souls may very well lead us away from materiel security, the pursuit of wealth, perpetual beauty and comfort, and the instant pleasures and conveniences that factories across the world supply at both an environmental and human cost.



I took a walk outside the other night, far away from the orange street lamps and the hazy atmosphere. 

 I found a place completely dark except for the stars and the crescent moon.

I sat and heard the stories nature tried to tell me, the ones I am usually to busy to hear.

The rustle of the leaves, awaking me softly to the night, both within and without.

The river sings of our deepest truth.

The truth that is present within all things from seed, to birdsong, to the human heart.

I pray to be more present to the wisdom of  this sacred truth.

I have the feeling that our collective dream still sings somewhere along that river.