Polar Light of Sombre Sun
⦿
In polar light of sombre sun
Are flickering shadows seen
As Words emerge
Whose dancing light
Is greater than the place they’ve been
⦿
A Lion’s mouth sounds forth it’s call
As red is joined to white
And in that voice
Is freedom’s choice
Made total in the night
⦿
Does lighted wood create its life
Or simply give it song?
Within the form
No longer born
Uniquely kissed, no right or wrong
⦿
A mighty breath, drawn in and held
assumes the power of good
And hands its life
Beyond all strife
To She whose body is the wood
⦿
©Stephen Tanham 2016
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Whimsically penned.
So, I see this tall girl in the coffee shop. Actually, she’s the waitress, about to pour my coffee. She wears a short black skirt, black waitressy blouse, nipped at the waist. She has dark hair, shiny, only partly contained by a voluminous Edwardianesque bun. And suddenly I am held spellbound. I dispute biology as an explanation for this moment. This is spiritual.
She is the most striking of beauties, this young Lancashire girl. No make-up, yet easily the better of any movie star. She has dark brows, thick, expressive in their tilt, green-blue eyes, a wide mouth, full Pre Raphaelite lips held tight for now as she pours. She will be quick to smile, I suspect, but for now restrained. She is the hired help, new I think, a minimum wage slaver, old enough to kill for Queen and country, but not old enough to earn a so called living wage.
It is…
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Éilis’ magnificent story…
In the beginning the keys were known. Their place and purpose was common knowledge. They were discussed in passing as we might talk about the weather, the planning of meals, or the news. The keys made life what it was: they unlocked the people’s joys and sorrows, they opened new spaces within which to begin, become and belong. They gave them access to adventure, growth, grieving and love, finding and leaving, succeeding and failing, wanting and being enough.
The keys kept the song of the world in tune, according each the measure of who they were, each knowing the reasons for the bars in the way, each aware of the immense value of the rests and how the melody could not proceed where silence was not allowed.
And then, gradually, the keys were forgotten, lost. No one could say what or where they were. No children were taught their purpose…
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Bear and Wolf and Dog and Fox are all closely related.
It is tempting to imagine a common ancestor; bigger than Wolf but smaller than Bear.
But the official line has something much less rapacious originally slink down from the trees.
To replace what? The Dinosaurs whose more agile Brethren had taken to the air.
I wonder what Linnaeus would make of the Mister Fox procession, as it snakes its way through the alleys and walkways of the Saturday night revelers, inviting all in its wake.
“We saw Foxes!” says my companion.
Well, yes and no…
We saw something less and something more than Foxes…
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The Tree of Life Window on Caldey Island
History and Mystery on Caldey Island – Part One
Caldey Island lies a half hour boat ride from the beautiful Pembrokeshire resort of Tenby. Tenby is bustling and vibrant. Caldey is a quiet and contemplative, and feels like a very different world.
Bernie and I had visited Caldey many years ago. Back then there were some unanswered questions in my mind, following our short visit; so, this time, I wanted to take a better camera and record some of the things that had fascinated me.
As the above photo shows, just leaving Tenby can be a challenging affair. The Pembrokeshire coast has a wide tidal range and very low tides can mean the whole boarding pier being pushed into or (as above) pulled out of the cold ocean to gain access to the beach or the waiting boat! This is not a luxury crossing…
Once at sea, the splendour of Tenby’s Georgian skyline becomes apparent.
The short crossing ends with a view of a wonderful, golden beach to welcome visitors to Caldey.
Disembarkation can be just as challenging, for, as we shall see later, both ends of the sea journey can involve some ‘roughing it’.
Once on Caldey Island, the routes available to the visitor are well signed. The majority of visitors are there to see the beautiful Cistercian Monastery, but there are other attractions, including the poignant Glade of Calvary.
From the quay, a short walk of half a kilometre reveals the first view of the Cistercian building. The complex of buildings was constructed in the decade from 1906 onwards by a group of pioneering Anglican Benedictines who bought the island island and, in a brave attempt to establish their dedication to the church, set about building the present structures. A bold Italianate style was used, topped by the imposing red towers, roofs and turrets.
In recognition of their efforts, the pioneering Benedictines were received into the Catholic Church in 1913, but, tragically, increasing financial difficulties forced them to sell the entire island, including the Abbey, in 1925.
The present Order of Cistercians, who live by a stricter and more contemplative variant of the Benedictine Rule, descend from a ‘rescuing’ group of monks from Scourmont Abbey, in Belgium. In 1929, they were sent to ‘seed’ the island as a ‘daughter house’; and to work for its full restoration, though from a slightly different tradition.
In a remarkable gesture, this group of Belgian monks honoured the original sacred tradition of Caldey Island, which was Celtic Christianity, by adopting St Samson, an early abbot of the original sixth century settlement, as their patron saint.
The threads that link back to that Celtic world are everywhere to be seen on Caldey. Some of them are obvious, but many are hidden, suggesting a complex weave of ancient and modern that make up the spiritual foundations of this enigmatic island. These threads will be followed in subsequent posts…
(to be continued)
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And Bernie and I were Cumbria…
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Flames light the night and the beat of the drum calls…
Guardians await the coming of the Silver Fox…
Foxes prowl the night…
…and the revellers become aware… and they follow.
Music fills the night…
Trees blossom with fireflowers…
and strange creatures, half seen in the shadows.
The Silver Fox lights the torches…
Many flock to the banner…
Dragons dance in the flames…
…and a giant Crow challenges the Silver Fox.
…but he is no match for the feral fire.
and he flees into the shadows.
A shaft of flame from the staff of the Silver Fox lights the braziers…
and the Foxes dance, triumphant.
Esto Audax…Esto Ferox.
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A recent trip to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford brought us face to face with history, covering many centuries and many cultures. One of the things that struck me was the quantity of objects that were associated with the sacred. It is perfectly understandable that this should be so as those things that are considered to be sacred, or be representative of the sacred, would doubtless have had a special value, both artistically and emotionally, and would thus have been more likely to be preserved for posterity than a cooking pot or hair comb, for instance and even more so than a simple jewel of mere financial value.
The details of religious belief have differed widely throughout human history and across the world, but the underlying idea of sacredness in itself is common to all. There is a veneration of something we see as being greater than our human…
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And if we’ve whetted your appetite for this kind of spiritual adventure…
“In a time before memory…when the land was yet young and Albion unborn, I dreamed the stars of a time yet to be. I dreamed your becoming.
…I see you.
I called and you have come.
The time is now.”
Join us as we journey back beyond recorded history to a time known only in dreams and a place that still casts its shadow in stone upon our landscape.
It is a time of peace and bright learning, a time when wisdom flourishes in the sacred colleges and a young Seer is nearing the end of her training.
They came with sword and spear, raveners of the land, seeking to pervert and destroy the Keepers of Wisdom. Torches in the night… and a world forever changed…
Dates: Weekend of 21-23 April 2017
Location: Great Hucklow, Derbyshire Dales. England.
Don’t miss it! Places are limited and filling fast.
Accommodation is provided…
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That poignant moment when a year’s worth of effort comes to a graceful end… In the Outer, at least.
Photo by Barbara Walsh
The Sunday morning guided meditation took the Companions back to the place where they had begun to seek answers to their own riddles. To begin the day in silent communion with a sense of something vast and sacred is no bad way to start the day.
Some of us had been out to greet the dawn privately, in spite of a late and convivial evening with incognito Foxes in the Queen Anne next door. That too is a communion with something greater than we… though for some of us, it was the deep breath before plunging back into the fray and preparing the Temple for a very special moment.
Once a year we reaffirm the bond and dedication of the triad who serve the School with a ritual. This year, three others were also the focus of an affirmation and celebration of the journey they have…
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Some Leaf and Flame wisdom…
Lady Grene
…your neck was saved by a Lady’s garter! Why, Gawain, you really are too much I believe little more than half of all that you have told me and I suspect, as you know only too well, that what is left of the tale is little more than pure fabrication…
Foliate Gawain (un-hitching Lady Grene’s arm and suddenly becoming serious)
No…My Lady…No you’re right, of course, that’s not how it was at all… there was a forest…. enchanted it was… and deep, deep within it… there was a white cloaked figure… and there was a riddle too…which was set in return for a life… ‘twas a riddle which none could solve…and then a dark, veiled figure…appeared… and she solved the riddle in return for…
During this exchange Arthur, Guinevere and Lord Grene have fanned out in the Enneagram space, Lord Grene is near the nine point…
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A Harvest of Earthlings
In response to Sue Vincent’s
Thursday photo prompt – The Tower… #writephoto
‘She called to me first!” he whispers into the quiet air as his deftly trained fingers used the most subtle of movements to spin the final sector of the third quadrax lock.
Ordinarily, such a noise would mean death, on a stealth mission of this nature, but he knows, without knowing how he knows, that the two eunuchs on guard around the ancient tower are busy with something else.
He knows so much… So much had been transmitted in the constant dreams that plagued his sleep with despairing delight when she appeared to him each night, urging him on, showing him the skills he needed to open the locks of the ruined Tower. Always, as her image faded with the Silamnos’ sunrise, he would hear her plead, “Save me…”
Now he was going to be the one who saved her…
Of the ship’s crew of six, he was the only one left – well, maybe Box was still alive, out there somewhere, but they hadn’t seen each other for a week.
After she appeared on the viewing screen, standing in the desert just in front of the USX Antania’s landing site, no-one had spoken. Box had tried to get to him before he hit the switch to allow audio input from the desert, outside, but his enchanted fingers had been faster, and her song filled the cabin. After that, nobody cared much about anything but saving her…
In his dreams she is always looking at his hands, the guitarist’s hands, his prized possessions.
Box had stood, there, then; with him on the bridge, swaying with the beauty of her voice as the diaphanous purple and silver robes had flowed around her kneeling body in the desert breeze, while she sang, “Save me!’ And then the goons had caught up with her, and dragged her by the wrists back to her prison tower; hints of skin tones from heaven becoming visible as she fought and twisted in the hot dust, spinning and singing.
“Save me!”
He had lived with that cry ever since. In the beginning, he had awakened each night to a phantom of her face hovering over him while he slept. Always, she would be looking down at his hands, his guitarist’s hands… Then, one night, seeing him awake, the ghost began to show him, in mime, how those hands could open the quadrax locks at the tower’s base. After that, there had been no need for sleep as the fever took him and he practiced the infinitesimal dexterity that would be needed, should he ever get to the base of the tower, undetected.
There comes the sound of a slow thump-whomp-thump from somewhere above, but he takes advantage of the hiatus in security to fling himself across the old stone passageway, landing, coiled, against the stone base that holds the last of the quadrax units. He reaches out to apply the merest caress to the upper quadrant of the cold, steel orb. Immediately the black metal responds to his practiced touch, separating its molecules and revolving in a now familiar way. He lets the revolving ceramic coat slide out of his touch and lowers the guitarist’s fingers to the thickest part of the quadrax, stroking downwards and to the right, flicking the second quadrant into life with the slightest touch of his middle finger.
Another move, with the inflexion to the left and only one segment awaits from the sixteen death-charges, any one of which could have vapourised him where he knelt…but none had…he was good; very good. Around him the greasy and heat-faded stains on the stone spoke of those who weren’t…
Thump-whomp-thump. The sound is clearly of something being dragged. His fingers linger on the final death segment, but then he throws caution to the desert winds and flicks the quadrax with the skill of a last, lingering chord, held in vibrato and played at one of the crew’s improptu rock gigs.
The door at the base of the Tower slides open, with a soft hiss. Whomp-Thump-Whomp. The sound is now too close for safety. He looks up in horror and sees the two giant eunuchs manhandling a body-bag down the final arc of the spiral stairway.
“Save me!” she cries, from far above the heads of the eunuch guards.
He does not think, he races through the opened portal, standing on the body in the bag without glancing at what should be a pair of startled guards. As he completes the first circuit of the stone spiral, he steals a look back to see a shock of Box’s red hair sticking out from the bag he’s just stood on.
Whump-Thump-Whump-hissssss.
The portal slides shut. The guards hadn’t even bothered to look up at where he now stands, elevated and breathless…
“Save me…” laughs the evil, honeyed voice, high above him; dragging his feet in an hypnotic dance around and around and up the dark stairwell…
Sun in Gemini 
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