Spirituality

Autumn Equinox

Angela PorterLeave a comment

To Autumn  – William Blake

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof, there thou may’st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe;
And all the daughters of the year shall dance,
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers. 

Some Equinox Thoughts

At 04:09BST tomorrow morning, the Sun enters Libra and this event marks the Autumn Equinox, the start of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere.  Equinox literally translates as ‘ equal night’, and the two equinoxes are the times in the year when the hours of light and dark are almost equally balanced – they may not be exactly the same length, but it’s the closest they get to being so!

I always find the Equinoxes and Solstices charged with a buzz, with energy.  A great sense of change is in the air.  Autumn is always a time to harvest that which has ripened, to clear away the chaff and dead leaves.  In doing so the land and the trees have their underlying supportive structure laid bare.  And so it is with life, as it seems to me.  It’s a time to celebrate that which has come to fruition, a time to clear away that which has served its purpose or has not grown, time to reveal what lies beneath the surface for contemplation as the Sun’s strength begins to wane and the night lengthens into day.  Letting go of things is not easy, even when they are complete, but it is necessary to make way for the  new that is to come.  It is also important to take time to reflect on what has been gained, learned and lost as that too brings a harvest of its own, and it is important, I think, to give thanks for this harvest of personal work done and progress made along our own way.  It is also a time to think to the future, to set new goals now that the space in which they may achieved is apparent.

Tomorrow, after a good nights sleep tonight, I will find time to sit in meditation and contemplate my personal harvest, what is complete, and my goals for the coming year, and to give thanks for all these things.

Trains and seasonal stations

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Riding the rails

Sir Nigel Gresley from http://www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk

Yesterday was a bit of a day.  I have a weekly morning appointment that often leaves me feeling very emotional.  I’ve been travelling there and back by train while I’ve been on holiday.  However, next week I return to work and the early morning train journeys will cease as I will have to get to work asap after my appointment.  I went to the Forum Coffee Lounge in Merthyr Tydfil for a pot of tea and some cake – I settled on a flapjack this week.  It has to be said, the Forum has the most gorgeous home-made cakes and traditional puddings, and they are very reasonably priced.

After enjoying the tea and nibble and recording my thoughts in my Luddite-journal,I decided to get a Day Ranger ticket,  and travel around South Wales.  The day was turning out to be a beautiful late summer day, the world lit with a soft golden light that presages Autumn so wonderfully.  I thought it would be nice to just to watch the world go by and for nothing more than the joy of moving from place to place, a chance to get my thoughts and emotions back into order, and to take a day out.  And so I did.  And it was lovely and relaxing.  I wish my train had been a steam train, like Sir Nigel Gresley, an A4 Pacific.  But the haulage by various diesel units was adequate and did the job of allowing me to relax.

I do find train travel relaxing.  I can’t run away from what I need to examine internally or work on creatively while travelling in such a way.  I have my journal with me, I write in it as I need to and work my way through things and find my balance once again.  Steam engines I love, but any locomotive will do in such circumstances.

Changing seasons

Rosebay Willowherb

The world is certainly moving towards Autumn in these here necks of the woods.  The quality of the light is changing, becoming more golden as the Sun’s strength wanes as we move further away from the Summer Solstice towards the Autumn Equinox.  There’s plenty of strength in the Sun to warm the Earth during the day, but the early mornings, late evenings and nights have that wonderful chill that heralds the coming of the magnificence of Autumn.

It really is my favourite time of year.  I adore the glowing warm colours and I start to eagerly look around me for signs of the changes, and yesterday I saw them.

The profusion of red haws on the hawthorn trees like seeds of the fire that will blaze soon.  There were the very occasional flash of  bright yellow leaves on the beech trees.  My ‘flame’ trees (some kind of maple or sycamore I think) were crowned with darker green leaves that had hints of a deep burgundy in them.  Ferns were beginning to turn yellow and then brown after being baked by the Summer Sun.  Fluffy seeds from rosebay willow herb.  Just hints, promises of the beauty of the colours yet to come.

The cycle of the seasons

I’ve always felt a close connection to the cycle of the seasons.  Without knowing why, I’ve always felt a deep ‘attachment’ to the solstices and equinoxes and have had an understanding of how they link to the cycles of human life and experience.

I have my own way of observing these astronomical (and astrological) stations of the year, ways that have developed over the past few years since I started to explore and find ways of expressing my spirituality and beliefs.  It has always seemed natural to me to acknowledge these stations of the year in some way.  As I’ve developed, so have my practices, sometimes I feel guilty about not spending as much time on them, having abbreviated them to the pure essence of what they are about, but I work hard on reminding myself that as we change, grow, develop, so must our practices and the way we do things.  When we learn something new, we do it with great attention to all the details, learning from this, but as our understanding and skill develops, we learn what is truly essential and leave out those parts that are superfluous to ourselves, our individuality.  Of course, they may be incorporated once again later if they are found to be required once again, but I do believe that by cutting away a lot of the faff and fluff you get to the core of the practice and the focus and intent is greater as a result.  The more in tune you are with the process, the less fuss is needed to make the connections that are needed.  But that’s me …simplicity wherever possible.

Morning musings…morning meanderings

Angela PorterLeave a comment

What is this blog about?

I’ve just been doing a bit of Luddite-style journalling – pen and paper that is! And I was musing about why on Earth I’d want to blog when I keep a journal, and this perhaps seems as a doubling up of work.

However, much of my Luddite-journal is very personal and I’d not share with anyone, no matter how close they are to me, and no-one will have access to them until I “have shuffled off this mortal coil”.

I suppose that this blog is a vehicle for me to share with anyone who wishes to read about my fairly random thoughts, research, insights, questions, perhaps even little stories, poems and some of my arty-crafty stuff. In other words things I’d like to share with others, but don’t really have the opportunities to do in my ‘real life’, and I think the relative anonymity the blog affords me may allow me to do so.

Like so many, there are parts of my life that are kept fairly separate, for instance my ‘day job’ and my spirituality and spiritual practices. My spirituality is with me always, but I can’t talk about it, my practices, or express it openly in my job, with those I work with, although I do get away with meditation during my working day when I begin to feel stressed or upset! The people I interact with spirituality are good souls (mostly), but generally have a fairly narrow spiritual view, and I tend to be a searcher looking for more, trying things from different traditions, working out what sits well with me, what works for me, what helps me find words for what I instinctively feel inside of me, finding ways to express to express this inner knowledge and understanding, changing and adapting things, melding and moulding them into something that is uniquely me. I do not, and would never, profess to be an expert, to have the one right answer, I’m just a seeker looking for what is right for me.

Along my way some of my musings, discoveries, thoughts, practices may help others also seeking their way, whether they agree or disagree with what I may write. Indeed, it is often through a disagreement that you can arrive at a better understanding of what is right for you. I sometimes think you can only find out who you truly are by finding out what it is that you are not (and that may be what others have told you to suit their own conscious or unconscious purposes/needs).

Spirituality is just one thing it’s difficult for me to share with others. I find the same is true of my art (to a much lesser degree), writing (about the same degree), and my interests in so many things, including folklore, folk-medicine (ethnopharmacology or ethnobotany), archaeology, history, etymology, self-help, counselling, forensic psychology, cookery, nature, astrology, astronomy…and that’s just a few things!

I’m very much a ‘random’ and sporadic researcher/reader/student of all the things I’m interested in. The cycles of interest wax and wane randomly, depending on whether something has sparked an interest in me. I tend to dive into that interest wholeheartedly for a while – a few weeks or months – and as my interest is beginning to feel quite sated, some other spark comes along and re-ignites another flame of passion and so off I go.

It must be frustrating for those who know me, who must think I’m quite shallow in my interests and passions as I seemingly flit from one thing to another.  I know I’ve often questioned how serious I am and how deeply I get into things, but I know I dig as deeply as I need to into whatever is my current passion (or passions), and that interest/passion never entirely departs, it just becomes somnolent for a while…until I’m ready to continue digging deeper!

A dear friend of mine always said he was determined to turn me into a polymath (see Dictionary.reference.com or Wikipedia) Much more difficult to do in this day and age of so much information and knowledge. Polymaths were far more common in the past – Isaac Newton for instance. I think it’s quite clear, if my prior ramblings in this entry are clear, that I love to learn! If I didn’t have to work to pay the bills and keep a roof above my head (and keep my pusscat in Purina food!) and could afford it I’d be a perpetual student! As it is, I read, I browse the world weird web (with that sack of salt by my side!), listen to others, and soak it all up, processing it in my own internal way.

A cute tale about me being a sponge for knowledge is of a young person I worked with. They were discussing with another person what they’d like to do for a career and asked if they knew what qualifications they’d need. The person listening said that she didn’t know. The young person then suggested ‘Let’s go and ask …, she is the internet after all!’. Praise, maybe, though I would never, ever claim to be such a thing!

I can be a ‘mistress of the art of the Google’ when others fail to find what they wish while trolling around the weird wide web. So, perhaps another use of this blog will be to keep a record of my wanderings as I come across things of interest, or otherwise, in a way my Luddite-journal doesn’t! No doubt a series of wanderings that are unique to me.

It may turn out interesting to see how this blog evolves and develops.

Morning meanderings

I love alliteration – you have been warned!

Anyway, my morning meanderings through the world weird web included a search for moon-phase information to go into my Luddite-Journal, and that led me to an Astrological Diary that I will almost certainly be purchasing to use next year. My only whinge about diaries is that they rarely have a full year planner for the next year, and as one of my evening activities involves taking bookings at year in advance then I really need it! I guess I’ll just have to go looking for something I can stick in the back of the diary to accommodate my needs.

I did find a moon phase table for 2010 that suited my purpose (without me having to type it all out from my ephemeris!) and it’s a shame I couldn’t find one for 2011 at the same website. However, the search did lead me to the diary I found, and will be ordered very soon!

I do have an interest in astrology – but not your newspaper astrology, the ‘proper’ stuff. I’ve found my natal chart and the analysis of it to be most helpful in understanding myself and helping to heal myself from the wounds of the past, and much more than that. When done properly it can really help to understand what is going on in an individual’s life at any time. It is my experience that it can be incredibly specific, detailed and helpful, but only when done well. It’s not something I rely on and live my life by, but I do find it interesting to study. Perhaps it’s because science pooh-poohs it that I find it so fascinating – I can be terribly rebellious in such cases! I may be a scientist by education, but … it just fascinates me! And it is something I feel I ‘should’ spend more time on, but when I start I get so engrossed that nothing else gets done…

Pen vs Paper and States of Mind.

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Pen vs Paper

I find it so much easier to think and/or let my thoughts flow when using a pen and paper! I like to think of myself as fairly computer-literate, I touch type a fair number of words a minute, yet words/ideas/thoughts never seem to flow quite as easily via the keyboard as via the pen.

I wonder how many other people are the same? Is it an age-related thing? Is it something that you can get over?  Is it something that one should want to get over?

I also find art programs don’t suit me either – nothing replaces the feel of pencil/pen/brush on paper for art or the materials being used. Digital art is not for me.

Luddite? Me? I don’t think so.  I mean, I can use computers to create certain kinds of things without first writing them down or planning them out, but there are other things I like to do with words that just don’t seem to work smoothly or easily with a keyboard as compared to a pen.  The prime example of this being the ‘stream of consciousness’ writing that appears in my journal, that helps me sort though an issue, a problem, perhaps through connecting with the subconscious (unconscious?) level of the mind.  Somehow, this  just doesn’t flow quite the same way when I use a keyboard.

My preference for pen and paper when I journal my thoughts is likely to make it an ‘interesting’ challenge for me to keep a blog!

States of Mind

Yesterday I spent a while meandering through the tangled paths of the weird world web looking for reputable information on the conscious, unconscious, subconscious and super-conscious states of mind.

Naturally some of the paths led to fluffy-bunny inhabited places, but more led to places of what seemed like erudite learning, with good references to back up their information.

It seems that the ‘subconscious’ does not exist, not psychologically speaking; it is a term mostly used by New Age aficionados.  The super-conscious seems to be another term bandied around by the same community.

Of course, the term ‘subconscious’ has entered into everyday usage, especially when we grope for a memory or do/say something without thinking, or remember something we didn’t think we’d taken notice of.

It’s all something I need to find out more about, read up on the psychology, try to find my way through all the New-Agey type stuff and see what seems to make sense, and, despite what hard science and total cynics say, and reach a conclusion that sits well with myself. Which isn’t easy as I’m a bit of an odd mix between scientist, artist, creative person and a spiritual person too!

I know science doesn’t have the answers for everything, that it is only one way of viewing how the Universe works, that there are things about the Universe we can’t put into test-tubes or analytical machines and measure or prove scientifically, especially consciousness.

I like to keep an open mind, question claims that are made and experiences I have had, and certainly read what is written with not just a pinch of salt but a huge sack-full of the stuff!  I like to see references to published work, and in those published works other references, especially when, say, someone claims that their book is about Anglo-Saxon beliefs yet they don’t even reference a single academic source!

I certainly like the idea of, and believe there are, mysteries that science can’t fully explain.  It seems like each time science makes a step forward to understanding life, the universe and everything (see the BBC’s h2g2 site or BBC’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or even Douglas Adams for my favourite answer to this eternal question), then it uncovers something else that can’t be understood yet. I wonder if it is like peeling back the layers of an infinite number of onions, each with an infinite number of layers!  And of course those are just the scientific onions, there’s the philosophical ones, the spiritual ones, and no doubt many others too.

I wonder if science and spirituality will ever converge…

What is wyrd?

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Tom Graves – Wyrdsmiths
The Way of Wyrd – Brian Bates
Wyrd in Wikipedia

No, it’s not a cute way of spelling weird, not in my case. Wyrd, as a concept, has been with me a long while … most of my life in fact … before I had a name for it.

What is the point?

Angela PorterLeave a comment

First post, and what to say…

The most burning issue on my mind is what is the point of being here, on the Earth, alive?  Everything seems such a struggle, there are so many hurdles and obstacles, problems and issues.  We’re surrounded by hate and violence and disrespect and seemingly endless desire to rape the planet of its resources and poison the environment we live in, or the environments of those far away who we’ll never know.   We’re each judged by how big/small/fat/thin we are, what we have or don’t have, what we do or don’t do, by the colour of our skin/hair/clothing, by our abilities/disabilities by our beliefs, by where we live.  Children, animals, old people, young people, middle-aged people are abused in all senses of the word for all kinds of spurious reasons.  Have we progressed at all as humankind?  Have we?  Or has all the progress that has been made just been to increase the damage done, to do it all more efficiently and on a bigger scale and more creatively?

Why?  What is the point of it all?  Is there a purpose to life?  Do we need a purpose?

There are oases of peace, quiet, tranquillity, harmony, love but they are few and far between.  Materialism seems to rule all, and even creeps in even to these oases.

I don’t expect answers, I don’t know if there are any, I doubt there are, perhaps there are as many answers as there are souls incarnate on this hunk of rock orbiting the star called Sol, and perhaps may more for all those souls who have ever experienced this existence, and for those yet to come.

And yes, I’m feeling very low today … I woke in the middle of the night feeling very tearful and upset and questioning all of this…and more…why I struggle to undo the lessons learned from the past, the views I have of myself, the way I value (or don’t value) myself when I just seem to get nowhere from my point of view, though others tell me that I have changed, the same but different, the same but greatly improved.  But still I wonder what it is all about, why.

***

Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust – we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.  ~Albert Einstein, in The Saturday Evening Post, 26 October 1929

In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.  ~Charlie Brown

Sometimes questions are more important than answers.  ~Nancy Willard, quoted in The Meaning of Life, compiled by Hugh S. Moorhead

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.  ~Mark Twain

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.  You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.  ~Albert Camus

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.  ~Joseph Campbell

There is no wealth but life.  ~John Ruskin

The philosophy of mine earth can be summed up as this:  Sunshine creates happiness, and I create myself.  Nights are long and life is predominantly good.  Wind is refreshing.  Tea is wisdom.  Do the best you can, and be good to yourself so that you can above all be good to others.  ~Jessi Lane Adams

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.  ~Havelock Ellis

But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.  ~Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.  It is a little star dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.  ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you.  ~Phillips Brook

When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.  ~Thomas Merton