Nine

There's something about the words Gratitude List that doesn't sit well with me. Just call me awkward. It brings back memories of false expressions of gratitude uttered to keep the adults happy at times when I was a silently rebellious child. But I do see the real value of paying conscious, thoughtful attention to the good. So now and again I compile a list.

Here's mine for 2007.

1. Good health. I've had prolonged periods without it. I never forget what a gift - and a potentially fragile one - good health is.

2. My sister. She put up with her temporarily homeless elder sibling plus cat plus litter tray for twelve weeks at the beginning of the year. During this time I was never once made to feel that we were in the way, or a nuisance, or annoying, though at different times we were probably all three. I wrote her a cheque for rent which she refused to cash - it lay gathering dust on the kitchen dresser. It was a needed respite for me, a time of shared suppers, walks along the beach and good humour. She opened her home with grace and generosity and without knowing at the time for how long. I owe her.

3. Space. When you move from a cramped city flat to a 2-bedroom house on two floors, you spend a good deal of time climbing stairs and wandering from room to room. Having lived minimally for so many years there isn't enough furniture to put in all these rooms, mind you, but the guest bed was installed earlier this month.

4. Being able to walk to work. It takes about twenty-five minutes. A pleasant route, bordering the river for much of the way. After years of overcrowded Tube trains this means a lot.

5. Being able to start again. In every single minute of every day. Nothing to do with physical relocation, this one. The gift of the limitless, shining present moment.

6. Friends. Yes.

7. Sunsets and sunrises. They are spectacularly beautiful, almost psychedelic here. Look at the photo. There must be something special about the meteorological conditions - the quality of the light during the day can stop you in your tracks.

8. This blog. In 2007 I finally grasped that I write what I write here for me. The blog is a unique creative outlet, and one I appreciate. I also got rid of the sitemeter - a real act of liberation.

9. Kindness. The quiet acts of kindness that I have received and witnessed this past twelve months. There have been a multitude.

Wistfulness has crept in today, but I'm out celebrating at a friend's house this evening, the first time for several years that New Year hasn't been spent at home. May it bring you happiness and fulfillment, and hope and better times to the planet. Happy New Year.

World View

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Hereford_Mappa_Mundi_1300.jpg

Before C caught her train to London yesterday we visited the Mappa Mundi. A last minute decision to fit this in, and I'm so glad we did. It was a first for us both.

According to the official guidebook:

It is the largest and best surviving example of a type of cartography which flourished particularly in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. These were works of history, zoology, anthropology and theology, as well as geography, and reflected the contemporary passion for arranging knowledge in comprehensive form .....It summarises the world view and many of the major topics of intellectual interest of the period and may best be regarded as a type of pictorial encyclopaedia, or a map of the medieval mind.

Standing before the Mappa Mundi in the silent room with its subdued lighting leading off the cathedral, it's easy to visualise its two creators (according to the guide this was the likely number), their rounded backs hunched over the vellum, one making the line drawings, one inscribing names. Talking quietly to each other, perhaps, as they worked. You wonder what they believed about the places and stories they were depicting.

The map mixes what we would now call fact and myth indiscriminately, with drawings of actual countries and continents, centaurs, sphinxes, a hermaphrodite, Noah's Ark, a bear, fortresses, cities, rivers and a rhinocerous. And much else besides. All this bound together within a religious rather than geographical framework: Jerusalem is at the centre of the map and Christ sits in judgment over it all at the top, looking down on his creation.

It's a heady, hallucinatory combination and unexpectedly moving. I was struck by the resemblance to a mandala.

***

In the afternoon another friend and I drove to the remains of an Iron Age hill fort a few miles out of town. The bare branches of the beech trees at the summit creaked and sighed in chorus as scudding clouds were swept across the sky by a strong westerly wind. The conservative estimate is that these earthworks have been here for at least two thousand years.

We walked around the perimeter of the fort and then, as the original inhabitants probably did, climbed onto the north-facing earth parapet. There we contemplated far below us the small city with its cathedral, its river and its creeping suburban sprawl. In the distance to our left, Wales and the lead-grey bulk of the Black Mountains, to our right but hidden by trees, the Malverns.

It was almost dark and lights were glowing in nearby houses when we returned home. The kettle was boiled and the remaining mince pies served. I didn't switch on the TV till much later. The contents of the nightly news bulletin yesterday were a vivid reminder that these days the local and the global are sometimes hard to separate ....



More on the Mappa Mundi here and here, and a news report this week on the granting by UNESCO of an entry for the map on its Memory of the World International Register.

Solstice

Light returns. In around twenty four hours from now the Winter Solstice will be exact. Each year I greet its arrival with relief; it may get colder but it won't get darker. This day is the focal point of the holiday for me since my belief system is linked to the rhythms of the natural world - I find it impossible to separate one from the other.

The temperature has been hovering below zero for almost a week, a bitter, damp, Dickensian cold penetrating every single item of clothing and shriveling the bones. On the way home from a holly-and-mistletoe gathering expedition late last Sunday afternoon I strike up a conversation with an elderly angler hunkered down on the riverbank and swathed in a parka. I ask if the river has ever frozen over.

"The last time would be in 1963," he says. "There's been nothing since".

We watch the water flow past, deep and swift after the recent rains, darkening in the fading light.

****

G arrives this weekend to stay for a few days.

We're friends who go back fifteen or so years to when we lived in the same block of flats in West London. We met on the stairs and just hit it off. It was a time of radical upheaval for me and in her company I found that trips to the local arthouse cinema and mugs of Earl Grey tea on a winter afternoon could be effective antidotes to the churning going on inside my head. She left London a few years later and we've stayed in touch.

Walks are on the agenda. DVDs, reading and Scrabble if it's raining really hard.

****

A year ago yesterday I viewed the house I now live in for the first time. Immediately after Christmas I travelled back across country for a second visit. There was a third in early January, followed by the survey. A couple of weeks after that I put in an offer which was accepted. Taking stock twelve months later I can list the following: a reasonably congenial (temporary) job that leaves me time to have a life; health; a home; a garden; a cat; a bicycle; a nucleus of new people to get to know; and enough money in the bank for a while anyway.

Good - if uncertain and precarious - times. I know I'm lucky. And for the future maybe I can simply do the next thing in front of me and then leave the outcome in the hands of Dharma or the Universe or whatever name you want to give it. Maybe that's all I've ever been asked to do.

I hope the next few days are peaceful and grounded ones for you, filled with kindness. While I participate in this addictive, creative exercise called blogging for myself, it wouldn't be the same without your silent presence on the other side of the screen. Whether you're a regular or not, whether you leave a comment or not, I'm very glad you're there.

Merry Christmas.



The western sky really was this colour last Sunday for about one minute. I just happened to have my camera ....

Meme: Seven Random Things

Click to enlarge

I've been tagged by Endment. Her blog is one of the quiet pleasures of cyberspace. If you love poetry and the beauty of wild places, go and visit and give yourself a treat.

This is how you play.

. link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog
. share 7 random or weird things about yourself
. tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs
. let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I've visited the Grand Canyon in winter: November 2000. A chill, grey morning, a few days after the Bush/Gore presidential elections - and nobody knew at that stage which way the result would go. Snow had fallen unexpectedly overnight and there was some doubt whether our bus would even be allowed to enter the National Park. but we made it. There were very few other tourists. The plateau was covered in a thin layer of snow but there seemed to be none in the canyon itself and the North Rim, closed at this time of year, was just visible through the haze, all those miles away.

I hesitate to use the term spiritual experience but this came close. We were only there a few hours. Of all the places I have been, if I had to pick just one for a return visit this would be it, no question. The quality of the silence as we stood in ones and twos on the edge of the canyon was extraordinary.

2. My mother introduced me to astrology as a teenager by showing me the astrological report of my birth chart that she had commissioned when I was born: And this was well before the 1960s. The reading was pretty damn accurate and I've been an amateur practitioner and enthusiast for many years now.

3. I am drawn to water: Although we weren't affected, given the scale of the July floods my house is possibly a tad too close to the river for comfort. But I'm staying put; to live further away from water would just feel wrong.

4. I don't have a car: Yes I know. For a lot of people this is definitely weird. In mitigation I am an extremely nervous driver. I haven't driven for years - and living in big cities as I did for decades you can get away with this. Here though you need wheels to reach where public transport doesn't and, although it feels like a distinctly retrograde step in view of my strong green tendencies, I want to get a car but then use it sparingly. Bicycle and bus are better, for monetary and for planetary reasons.

5. I lived in Paris for almost ten years: I spoke schoolgirl French before I went but the time in France gave me a genuine love of the language and a confidence in using it that hasn't faded in the years since my return. It's not that I speak it perfectly, au contraire, but I've stopped worrying about the errors that I will inevitably make. Communication is what counts.

6. I hanker after a bigger, better camera: With a tripod and a zoom lens for all those wildlife and full moon shots.

7. I can rustle up a very good omelette: Or so they tell me. Aside from that I am a less than wonderful cook but I aim to improve. With that in mind I'm doing the cooking this Christmas.

I hereby tag:

. Leslee at 3rd House Journal
. Kate at Integral Shamanics
. Sonia at Leaves of Grass
. Crafty Green Poet
. Krissie at Message in a Bottle
. Wenda at Daring to Write
. You. I don't want this to be exclusive. It is a game after all, so if you're not on this list and want to play, then go for it. Just leave a note and a link in the comments if you do.

Water, water .....

Days don't get much wetter.

My sister and I had put this Saturday in the diary months ago. We were to meet in Bath, L travelling up from the south coast and me coming south from the Marches. On the way to the station you could see that the river had flooded, covering the watermeadows opposite the cathedral. The driving rain continued as the local train headed south to Newport and as I caught the connection to Bath.

The streets of the town were a maelstrom of shoppers and battling umbrellas and dripping raincoats. L and I headed towards the Christmas Market but couldn't cope. Too many people, too much frustration.

So we did what we should have done in the first place and descended into the Roman Baths of Aquae Sulis, the extraordinary hot springs - part temple to the healing goddess Sulis Minerva, part thermal baths. The Romans merged the existing local deity Sulis with their own Minerva and this spot on the marshy floor of the Avon, where steaming thermal water bubbles from the ground, was sacred.



Forbidding. Sulis Minerva wearing a Gorgon face.




The sacred spring of Sulis Minerva.



Mosaics.



Steam rising. The drainage channel, taking water from the baths towards the nearby river.



The Great Bath. The marks are raindrops on the camera lens.

This was my second visit to the Roman Baths and L's first. Each time I marvel at this steamy elemental world beneath our present one. The price of entry is - in my book - far too high and must deter some visitors, but I would probably pay double if I had to. Bath isn't simply a genteel, well-mannered spa. Nor a university town. Nor a consumer's paradise with excellent shops. At its core it is a holy place, a destination for pilgrims, a site of of hope where an ancient goddess was invoked and petitioned through prayer and animal sacrifices. So very different from Jane Austen and the Regency terraces. And from Santa and Waitrose and W H Smith and French Connection, .

When we resurfaced the rain had stopped. Crowds were emerging from the carol service at the Abbey. A red balloon had escaped and soared and bobbed over the Christmas market.

Becalmed

Waiting for work.

I walk by the river and across the fields. I take photos. I knit. I meet up with friends in town for coffee and a sandwich. I shop for groceries. Latterly I wrap presents and write Christmas cards. My attention span has shrivelled this past year so - sadly perhaps - reading isn't on the agenda. An inward, reflective time nonetheless.

There is at least one job interview in the offing so the period of quiet is unlikely to last. I've needed it; the actual move was in a way the easy part, the emotional and mental assimilation of the new life in new surroundings is taking much longer. My longtime friend and mentor, J, who knows about these things told me to allow three years. OK, I said at the time, not really understanding what he meant.

A few months ago I had my second Saturn Return. As a new cyberfriend, an astrologer, wrote in a recent email.

...Perhaps one of the joys of being past one's Second Saturn Return is a renewed appreciation of the small things in life.

Yes. There is also an - unfamiliar - degree of acceptance, a letting go of a few of the multitude of expectations. A willingness to let life unfold, to let my niche here reveal itself in its own time rather than frantically running around looking for it. I've been reflecting on love as well. The idea of falling in love again is frightening, yet I think I would take the risk if the opportunity arose. Can I let that come to me? Or not. A fantasy perhaps .....

Next year I'd like to be more active in environmental work and maybe take an evening class. Get a car and do some exploring further afield. Today, though, with the approach of winter, I've cut back the roses and the lavender bush and started a compost heap. That's enough.

....

Years ago I was pointed in the direction of the Cavafy poem, Ithaka.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

The complete poem can be found here.