Author Archives: Laura Dobson

Feast of the Transfiguration “Believe me, I knowhow tempting it isto remain inside this blessing,to linger where everythingis dazzling and clear. We could build wallsaround this blessing,put a roof over it.We could bring ina table, chairs,have the most amazing meals.We could make a home.We could stay. But this blessingis built for leaving.This blessingis made forContinue reading “Thought for the day, Wednesday 6th August”

“For myself, solitude is rather like a folded-up forest that I carry with me everywhere and unfurl around myself when I have need… Solitude is not an absence of energy or action, as some believe, but is rather a boon of wild provisions transmitted to us from the soul. In ancient times, purposeful solitude wasContinue reading “Thought for the day, Tuesday 5th August”

I.“We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;How restlessly they speed and gleam and quiver,Streaking the darkness radiantly! yet soonNight closes round, and they are lost for ever:— II.Or like forgotten lyres whose dissonant stringsGive various response to each varying blast,To whose frail frame no second motion bringsOne mood or modulation like the last.Continue reading “Thought for the day, Monday 4th August”

“It is pointless to deny the diversity of the world. Each nation, religion and social group will have its own culture, viewpoint and focus. While at times this diversity may seem to create obstacles to peace and harmony, if we go deeper and embrace the noblest human values, we will see that the very beautyContinue reading “Thought for the day, Sunday 3rd August”

“And did you get whatyou wanted from this life, even so?I did.And what did you want?To call myself beloved, to feel myselfbeloved on the earth.” Late Fragment by Raymond Carver (1938 – 1988), short story writer and poet, written when he was dying from lung cancer, and inscribed on his tombstone, died on this day

Lammas / Lughnasadh “Lammas is the seasonal peak of high summer, and as with all Cross Quarter festivals, it represents a change in the manifest energy. Summer feels as if it will last forever, but now we begin to see the first signs of change and transformation. In the fields the cereal crops have turnedContinue reading “Thought for the day, Friday 1st August”

“Full round apple, peach, pear, blackberry.Each speaks life and deathinto the mouth. Lookat the face of the child eating them. The tastes come from afarand slowly grow nameless on the tongue.Where there were words, discoveries flow,released from within the fruit. What we call apple – dare to say what it is,this sweetness which first condensedContinue reading “Thought for the day, Thursday 31st July”

International Day of Friendship “A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.” Saint Basil (330 – 379)

“You are not the oil, you are not the air — merely the point of combustion, the flash-point where the light is born. You are merely the lens in the beam. You can only receive, give, and possess the light as the lens does. If you seek yourself, you rob the lens of its transparency.Continue reading “Thought for the day, Tuesday 29th July”

“I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child. What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common-sense.” From the 1896 journal of Beatrix Potter (1866 – 1943), writer, artist and Unitarian, born on this day