“So tell us, spring breeze, what can you
see growing at your location?”
Rich petals arrive in big cars
And weave through security’s dance;
Past police forks arresting the weeds
Who sprout from each narrow alley;
To pollinate what may become
This pretty fluttering graph of
Roots digging deep in water-pockets.
Rhiannon, April 2009
I am a gardener, I think a lot about seeds, about plants, and that makes me think about the soul and its life too. Seeds, a cheery stone for instance, contains everything that is needed for the plant to come into life. There is an embryo root that longs to grow down into the moist, sweet smelling soil, and there is an embryo shoot that longs to grow up towards the light and the greening of the sun. We are like this. We long for light, sun air, to grow into ourselves, and we also long for the dark earth – need this to feed and anchor us in the world.
But think for a moment about a cherry stone. On the one hand, it contains everything that is needed for growth and yet it is also a parched place, a desert. A plant is full of water, perhaps 80-90% water, but the seed contains little. A seed can remain like this for many months or years, or centuries even, before the right conditions prevail and it can germinate. This dormancy is necessary, protective, preventing the seed from exposure when the conditions are adverse. Our souls can also lie dormant, locked in a place of great need, dry and lonely, and it can be a long wait until the moment is right for germination.
With seeds, the hard outer skin (the testa) has to be weakened, damaged even by periods of intense cold or by passing through the gut of an animal or bird, or be scorched by fire, and only then can moisture start to seep in and awaken the embryo. And we may have to undergo intense experiences, deprivations and sufferings, until we are weakened or opened, and then like a cherry stone that is cracked, the longed for moisture can enter. The Sufis talk of increasing our need. Our craving has to be immense, great enough that we cry out like a baby and call forth ‘milk’ from heaven. Illness calling forth the doctor, says Rumi.
So seed and soul contain all that is needed for growth to occur, but this process is no certain matter. A seed might be planted too deep and exhaust its food supplies before it can break the earth’s surface and generate its own food. So with the soul; there is no certitude, there is risk and effort, we often don’t know how far we will need to travel or in what direction. The only thing that often make us take that journey out of the cherry stone is the terrible desert within, our painful and insistent need, and perhaps also the distant memory of what awaits us – pink cherry blossom against a blue sky.
Rebecca Hubbard – Spring 2008
I am again a small boy
following the tram-tracks out of town
past the terminus to where a farm-house sits
wallowing in the welcome sun.
In front, a small field
a shrine to generations of a family farm.
In the field a swirl of young children
playing games with wild abandon
their cries echoing from dry-stone walls
a barrier between their past and this play.
They are the children of Guernica.
They saw their parents die in the stricken streets
bombed by blackbirds of death
excreting barbarity on a quiet town
before day began.
I watch from the wall as they run.
They do not show me sorrow – they could be children anywhere.
They have merged their past with forgetfulness
only retrieved when night swallows day,
allows their dreams to walk, and scream.
Picasso saw them in his painter’s eye –
and their mothers in the shaken town
as they gazed upward,
shading their eyes from a white sun
the sun that shines here, and now,
on us.
Geoffrey Bould, April 2009
Weave your threads of silence over me
Only songbirds sing a melody
It’s lovely to be quiet:
To have some peace and quiet….
People bustle in and come and go
Somehow disturbance doesn’t show
It’s lovely to be quiet
To have some peace and quiet
The peace is over all
We wait to hear your call
The peace is over all
Paradise will come to us one day
Hear the music Martin plays with Ray….
How lovely to be quiet
Let’s sing of peace and quiet
Golden silence spreads around
We all start to center down
Let’s enjoy life for a while –
Think of things that make you smile!
Raymond Penrose wrote the words to music and titles by Martin Davies
Every few months we hold ‘All Age Worship’. At each of these participants young and old are given a choice of 3 or 4 activities, which may well have a co-operative side to them. They are normally arranged around a theme, such as ‘light’ or ‘new life’. Here are some photos of the art from our most recent one, which was on the theme of ‘new life’, some in progress and some finished.
Co-operative collage work
Making ‘Cheesy Biscuits’
Many hands working on beeswax sculptures
Crayon based artwork inspired by tulips
Beeswax sculpture, finished
