Category: Uncategorized

The Trees Teach Me

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The trees

Teach me

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Of the endlessness

Of new life

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Dividing

And multiplying

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Again

And again

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Our thoughts

And actions

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Branching

From sick

~

Or healthy

Roots

~

Budding

And blooming

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Until

When?

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Tree and landscape, taken from Stiperstones, November 2021

New Day, New Hope

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Always

Move on

.

From the powers

Of the past

.                                                 

That draw you

Ever backwards

.

The sun rises

On a day of new hope

.

And today’s

Combination

.

Of creatures

Living and being

.

Will never recur

In time’s memory

.

So turn your mind

And your inner eye

.

And always move on

This way.

~

The Wrekin at dawn, October 2021

Nature’s Powerful Presences

Recently I was walkingin on The Lawley in Shropshire, and we paused to admire the Highland cattle in an adjacent field.

They were handsome, strong, charismatic even!

I think Aelbert Cuyp must also have found cattle fascinating in this way, in this painting I recently came across.

They dominate this painting by him, as they do many others by him. There are as much a part of human life as the windmills and the church, the sunlight and the sky.

Human life is moved to the sidelines and into the background. For the time we spend gazing at this beautiful painting, we are absorbed by animals, the creaturely world of the cattle.

Do you ever feel that, looking at cows, at sheep, at birds, at a pet cat or dog? They have a fascinating, separate existence from us – related to our existence, and yet so different!

Sheep on Wilderley Hill, with The Wrekin in the background, Shropshire, October 2021

In Cuyp’s painting, their existence is monumental. They even seem to have something of a sacred meaning for him, as they do in some other cultures. They are there, and it feels as though we are privileged for a while to be in their presence, a presence which is material, dignified and powerful.

Makes you think, the next time you walk past a field of cattle or sheep!

What New Encounter?

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What new encounter

Did you have today?

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Was it something

Marvellous

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Like a flock of plover golden

Against a cloudy sky?

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Or something

Everyday

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Like the way

A child just wonders why?

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How we keep the soul

Fresh and new

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Is a discipline of soul

And mind

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Achievable by habit

Achievable for you.

~

A flock of golden plover, Shropshire, October 2021

So Different, So Connected

Experience is forever new – but it’s also forever connected with what’s gone before. This was inspired by that thought and by an encounter (at a safe distance!) with a tree…

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Experience confronts me

With absolute newness

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I had never seen

That tree in that way before

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And now that moment

Is a door

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To a future

That is life

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As yet unseen

So different

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Yet so connected

With all that I have been.

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A windy day in Shropshire!