“What can I say? What can I say that I have not said before? So I’ll say it again. The leaf has a song in it. Stone is the face of patience. Inside the river there is an unfinishable story and you are somewhere in it and it will never end until all ends. Take your busy heart to the art museum and the chamber of commerce but take it also to the forest. The song you heard singing in the leaf when you were a child is singing still. I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four, and the leaf is singing still.”
“The book of all books is in your own heart, in which are written and engraven the deepest lessons of divine instrution; learn therefore to be deeply attentive to the presence of God in your hearts – the God who is always speaking, always instructing, always illuminating the heart that is attentive.”
William Law, Anglican priest and theologian, 1686 – 1761, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection
St. Kevin and the Blackbird (after Seamus Heaney) by Christine Valters-Paintner
“Imagine being like Kevin. Your grasping fist softens, fingers uncurl and palms open, rest upward, and the blackbird weaves twigs and straw and bits of string in the bowl of your hand, you feel the delicate weight of speckled blue orbs descend, and her feathered warmth settling in.
How many days can you stay, open, waiting for the shell to fissure and crack, awaiting the slow emergence of tiny gaping mouths and slick wings that need time to strengthen?
Are you willing to wait and watch? Not to withdraw your affections too soon? Can you fall in love with the exquisite ache in your arms knowing the hatching it holds?
Can you stay not knowing how broad those wings will become, or how they will fly awkwardly at first, then soar above you
until you have become the sky and all that remains is your tiny shadow swooping across the earth.”
“Whenever we wanted to run away and find something else, my teacher would tell us, “Wherever you go, you will just find yourself.” We will just meet the difficulties, the loneliness, the sadness, and the suffering we already know. Nothing is as affective as sitting there, returning to ourselves, and finding the elements of happiness and liberation right here in our own body and mind.”
“I believe that you shouldn’t do anything in life until you’re ready. Half of life’s heartaches come from decisions made in a hurry. One should make haste slowly.”
“Believe me, the so-called primitive races who worshipped animals as gods were not so daft as people choose to pretend. At least they were humble. Why should not God have come to the earth as an earth-worm? There are a great many more worms than men, and they do a great deal more good.”
T. H. White, writer (1906 – 1964), born on this day
“In ancient times, knowledge of the tides and seasons was vital, sacred knowledge that kept the tribe in harmony with the laws of nature. The mysteries of sun, moon, and stars that collectively describe the intricate dance of the day, the month, and the year were so important that a whole new class of society sprang up: the sacred clan who, under a variety of names, maintained watchful vigil over these movements that governed the sowing and reaping of crops, the movement of animals, the run of fish. These people were those who had an aptitude for minute and careful observation. They also had an infinite patience that we now find hard to comprehend.
They would watch and record the patterns and cycles every day, every month, every year, over a whole lifetime. Their work was continued by their offspring into many generations, until eventually the vast workings of the cosmos formed meaningful shapes and patterns. Over the centuries, their observations would result in the erection of stone circles and megaliths, each stone sited according to their observations. It was said of St. Columba that he could understand the harmonious dance of the moon and sun, read the tides of the sea, and enumerate the stars of heaven. This alone is proof that as late as the sixth century, the foundation lore of the sacred clan was being passed down.
Today, though we possess tide tables, calendars, and ephemerides with which to track the seas, the days, and the movements of the heavens, the sacred knowledge of their mysteries is own own special heritage.”
From The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year by Caitlin Matthews
Second place in the IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Star trails: Stone Star Circles, Startrails above Stonehenge, by Till Credner, Germany. Astronomy is one of the oldest (if not the oldest) of the sciences, and as such has connection to various cultures over millennia. This image in a way conveys this relationship by being contextualised in Stonehenge. There is much research into what astronomers call archeoastronomy sites, and how they connect to the sky (for example, seasons, phases of the moon and much more). Civilizations across time and from all over the world have their own views and interpretations of what they see in the sky, and this has been tied not only to culture but also to the people’s day-to-day and seasonal activities. The “concentric circles” which are often referred to as “star trails”, are the result of the apparent motion of the sky, which is in reality due to the rotation of the Earth on its axis. The small dot appearing towards the top center of the image is Polaris – The North or Pole Star. Polaris is only visible to observers in the Northern latitudes. The height of the Pole Star can be used to infer the observer’s actual latitude. Stonehenge is located at around 51° North. This image is taken from one of the most notable ancient sites in the world, brings us back in time, and makes us wonder about the stories told by the people that lived in that place many millennia ago.
“Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world. There is certainly no single remedy for this condition and I am offering no panacea. But it seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.”
Rachel Carson (1907 – 1964), biologist and conservationist, born on this day
Chorlton Unitarians 