In past years, when I was actually tending a sizable (physical) garden, I would spend weeks carefully selecting what I wanted to grow. I would place my orders and eagerly start my seed flats. I would get a jump on the season by turning over the soil, turning under the winter compost. Then I would …
As a clergywoman – even one who no longer ministers in a parish – my life is interwoven with symbols and symbolism…with those things that literally ‘bind together’ (sym-bolen, to throw together.) Vestments are symbols; paraments are symbols; chalices and patens and crosses are symbols. The language of rites and sacraments is metaphor (which is …
I believe I have mentioned more than once that shortly after we return from sabbatical – while we are still in a “journeying lightly” emotional space – we will be engaging in the process Marie Kondo outlines in her book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. With this firmly in mind, I have still …
On Monday, we left the mainland of Scotland in our wake [always remembering, of course, that Scotland is not really a ‘mainland’, but part of an island] and turned our face toward Orkney, following the light north. We sailed through deep swells – and sunshine! Who would have guessed we would go north into warm(er) …
Caitlyn Jenner just graced the cover of Vanity Fair – and it was, indeed, a grace-filled gesture, sharing her transition from a male-bodied Olympic athlete to the woman she knew herself to be. Caitlyn’s decision to reveal her new name and her new person was a very public risk…just as the transition itself was a …
Almost 40 years ago I crossed Salisbury Plain for the first time and saw Stonehenge right there in the middle of a kind of unkempt meadow — which was how it looked at that time. It was utterly breathtaking even then, partially hidden by the exhaust fumes and solid bulk of tour buses in a …
On 30 January 1816, the military transport ship HMS Seahorse went aground off Brownstown Head in Tramore and sank. Of the 402 people on board, 376 drowned. The ship was carrying men returning from the Napoleonic Wars. It was also carrying wives and children who had ‘followed the drum’ during the military campaigns that eventually …
Beltane, the summer quarter, is about fire and sunlight and warmth, about sweat and bare arms and hats that shade our eyes from the intense light. Except when it isn’t. Because whatever we may want, not every day of every Beltane is bright. Not every sky is blue. Not every day is warm enough to …
Beltane can come as a somewhat discomforting quarter in our staid, puritanical 2ist century northern hemisphere cultures. It is the season of fertility in every area of life; all the rituals and traditions associated with it are intended to honor the fertility of the earth and to insure the fertility of crops and herds through …
Imbolc will end on Thursday at sunset and Beltane will begin with moonrise as the calendar passes from April 30 to May 1. This year – perhaps a coincidence, perhaps not – I will be bidding farewell to Imbolc in Wales on April 30 and bidding welcome to Beltane on May 1 in Ireland, making …