I am rather exhausted as I am packing boxes to move house. Books on shelves take up more space when in boxes and I feel that once it all goes into my new house I will not be able to move for boxes.
However, the current weather of sunshine and frosty mornings makes me feel better. There is a warmth to the sun and it gets stronger each day. So here is a poem I wrote some years ago.
Ode to a Spring Sun Watching the sun rise over the hill, Bringing another day; Warming the Earth, helping the land, Bringing new life awake. Birds are singing in the trees, Buds are bursting out, Green shoots appear on the brown earth, Feeling the warmth of the sun. Watching the catkins dance in the breeze, Welcoming the sun, Wonderful sun, warming the earth, Bringing new life awake.
There is no specific theme to my blog this week as I hadn’t really thought about writing it. It has been a hectic week mainly spent packing boxes and plastic crates with books and craft items ready to move next Tuesday, or at least do the first part of the move. When you have a lot of books and files you need a lot of boxes and once the shelves are empty where do you put the boxes. That’s one reason I move in two parts.
On Thursday I went with my son to visit my new place and it was a beautiful day. The sun shone and there was some warmth in it too. We explored the grounds around the housing complex and saw the squirrels in the trees and listened to the birds and the burbling of the stream at the bottom of the garden. During the journey we saw lots of red kites in the sky, such beautiful birds and this is red kite country so more to look forward to.
Back home I had the privilege of seeing the heron take fish from my neighbours pond. The heron is often around but this is the first time I saw him with a fish. The primroses are out and some of the dwarf iris and other spring plants are starting to bloom as well. This brings me a great feeling of hope. The natural world is still doing what it does even though the humans are restricted in what they do. The birds are starting to find a partner and there is a lot of display from the pigeons. The fox has also been to visit and walked down the garden in full view. It seemed like an old fox. He probably comes every day but I don’t always get to see him.
I had a large number of plants in pots, some of which I had grown from seed. These have all now found new homes where they will be cherished and have a long life. I hope to have a small garden space somewhere after my move but is still to be negotiated so I let all my wonderful plants go to people who will look after them and understand the importance of wild life. So back to more packing now.
Acceptance can mean a lot of different things to different people. This is what Wikipedia says, ‘Acceptance in human psychology is a person’s assent to the reality of a situation, recognising a process or condition without attempting to change it or protest it. The concept is close in meaning to acquiescence, derived from the Latin acquiēscere. ‘ So is this what it means to me? There are many things in life that I have had to accept whether I wanted to or not, like losing my home and having family members die. You can’t do much about that and have to accept that it has happened. But there are many other things I find hard to accept and I think this holds me back sometimes.
After an accident while out on my cycle when I was 18, my physical health has slowly deteriorated. I have tried hard to deal with the arthritis and the muscle problems of myofascial pain and continue to do as much as I can. This is despite the pain it causes but as I near the grand old age of 80 I am thinking should I start to accept this deterioration and just enjoy my life as much as I can without the pain. I am one of those people who try to be independent and do everything myself but some things are really beyond me.
Currently I am in the process of moving house to somewhere where help will be available at the pull of a cord. This will give me peace of mind as recently I seem to have a tendency to fall over! However, in the current situation I am having to do all the packing myself and I have hundreds of books and files. Writing and researching family and local history as well as doing various kinds of arts and crafts means you have a lot of things to move. But they tell the story of my life and are important to me so I have to accept that I must do this packing and get on with it.
At this time of the pandemic we are all having to accept restrictions which curtail our daily lives. This is extremely hard for some and less so for others but it takes a mental toll as well as a physical toll and the consequences will be for everyone to accept and deal with including those at the top. But there are many things in life that we should not accept, like abuse of any kind and neglect of our planet. We must fight to save those who are neglected and especially care for our planet.
Over the years I have changed my attitude to rituals. However, the British especially have their own little everyday rituals like the way you make a cup of tea or whether the jam or cream goes on the scone first. If we look at what we do each day then we can see just how much of what we do is part of a ritual.
I used to stand on the door step each morning and welcome in the day, asking for blessings from Father Sky, Mother Earth and the four quarters of North, South, East and West. Nowadays I tend to stand on the doorstep and connect without words to the sky, earth and the directions. I find words are not needed. This Imbolc for example, I started to see the bulbs shooting up in the ground and noticed some early spring flowers and new buds on the trees. I acknowledged this as the coming of Spring, of Imbolc and felt I did not really need a formal ritual or ceremony to acknowledge this.
My connection with the natural world around me is so strong and deep that words are not needed. I don’t set up and altar as what I can see outside in my garden is my altar all year. I have never really enjoyed the kind of ritual where a theatrical performance comes first. I have been to some of these and found much of the words said are just parts said without any deep feeling or meaning. To me, if you perform a ritual then what you do and say must have meaning for you and be sincere. So I wonder what your thoughts are on this? Imbolc Blessings to you all.
Walking the Druid Path 