Hot water,
hot shower,
warming my skin,
warming my soul
that is holding
my body.
I am bathed
in warmth,
I absorb it
from the water,
together we enjoy
the happiness of heat
on a cold and ordinary
day.
20th April 2023
Here are more spring thoughts as it is such a wonderful season of change and new life, and who cannot be moved by it, feeling the joy as the outside world opens up ready for us to respond.
On the cusp
A new start for spring. That means for awakening and unfolding and new colours and shapes and thoughts and sunlight shining and rain clouds storming and animals coming alive with passion and foolishness in all their mating rituals.
We are at the beginning of spring now so we are on the cusp. The nights can bring frost and the days warm sunshine. We are like deserts, like mountains. The crocuses have gone, and primroses, violets and celandines take their place while the bluebells are just opening. It is quite glorious. The lawn is newly mowed and is a carpet of bouncy green to walk upon. It invites your feet and your heart into its open space. The trees are still bare but the buds are bursting. A bird is singing.
This is the time to take internal skis or surf boards and launch off on the swells that are all around. It is time for trimming, tying and mending so our feet and our heart are ready. New dreams are waiting to be born, new friends to be found, new pathways explored, new ways of living lived out. It is time to open the cupboards and bring out the good and sweep out the stale and the old. And it is a communal dance, gathering together under friendly skies, working together in the gathering days.
This is from Where the Birds Sing: Wild Places for the Soul.
For more information see http://janeupchurch.co.uk/where-the-birds-sing/
Spring
I could fill a whole book
with spring.
Everywhere I look
life is bursting out,
such flowers, such scents,
and new-born leaves
so delicate and perfect.
I cheer as I see them,
stopping to look, to touch,
to smell.
Beauty calls forth beauty
and I blossom with them,
both of us offering
a hymn of praise
with our smiles.
This is from A Leaf between my Toes: Finding Wonder
For more information see http://janeupchurch.co.uk/a-leaf-between-my-toes/
Breaking on the stones
It is the night
before Easter,
the night
of the waiting day.
We are in the body
of the dark sky,
its breath
is cool on our skin.
We are walking
on the earth,
walking on the bones of it,
through the dark dunes,
through the quiet of them
towards the angry surf.
The sea is breaking on the stones,
breaking on the stones
over and over.
The roar of its fall
fills the shell of the sky,
fills the ear of our bodies.
We stand in its call
until we can hold
the force of it,
until it finds an echo
in our silence.
Awake!
Awake, awake, blow wide the curtains of the mind and scoop up scattered thoughts.
Awake, awake, beat furrows in the murkiness and mud and prepare the seed for harvest.
Awake from our houses and fences and safety, awake from our darkness and sleeping and winter, awake now for spring is here. It is bursting through the air from dark clouds, it is budding from the soil in new paint, it is shouting from the trees in green song, it is cutting back the night in fresh dawns.
Awake, awake, there is music if we listen. There’s a fanfare in the hail, there’s a drumbeat in the rain, there’s a trumpet in the wind, there’s a bugle in the sun. Spring is come. The ragged grass and moss are cut, the mud mounds cast by worms are squashed, the branches on the ground are cleared and we are getting ready. We can smell it in the air, we can feel it on our skin, we can hear it in our feet, spring has come and we are ready!
Stripping the silence
The air
held thought like sheep’s wool
on a wire, soft on a
barb, blowing white and blowsy
on a dark thorn.
Gathering it felt like
stripping the silence for my own need
to not be alone,
floating in the bones behind the universe
like a toy balloon used to
bumping and hurrying
along
-the breath of the stars,
the pause of the hours,
the threshold between now
and other, and dreams,
and the scurrying beetles
of thought.