"Lady"

Jane Cattell (photo: Gigi, album)

"We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You  playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do."

 (Marianne Williamson)

I did finish my poem for Jane and was moved to find it included in the Order of Service for her funeral last Wednesday. Even thought the occasion was obviously a sad farewell to a much loved wife, mother, grandmother, sister and friend, the service and the gathering afterwards were particularly heart-warming and inclusive. It was abundantly obvious that "gathering" was one of the countless things that Jane excelled at. So many friends from all over and from across the years, some of them not really knowing any of the others that well, all gathered in by Jane's talent for friendship and nurturing. A gorgeous tribute to one who loved to entertain and whose essence really was "the life and soul". It doesn't dilute the spirit of a person to become many things to many different people: what a wonderful endorsement of the gift of life.
Jane's legacy is also so evident in the composure and closeness of her family. Her baby granddaughter looks uncannily like a miniature Jane, all flaxen hair, big brown eyes, expressive mouth and an early burgeoning love of shiny shoes and handbags. At eighteen months, she's already enchanting and obliviously determined to find out what's going on.
Jane's eulogy, crafted by her family, recalled Jane's longstanding love of rock group Status Quo. Beneath the perfectly tousled hair, pretty prints and crystal vowels beat the heart of a rock-chick.. I can so readily identify with this, although for me it's always been Springsteen. I wanted to include Debussy's "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair" with this post, which is achingly sad but also full of light. Then I realised I must include the skinny-jeaned wide boys. For me, one of their finest moments was when Status Quo opened  the Live Aid concert at the special request of another demure but ultimately ballsy blonde lady, called Diana. And so, sitting surprisingly comfortably together, they're both included here; because when one's toasting a Lady, more is more.

"Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."
(Nora Ephron)

"Lady"
There are those who move between the days
with insistent grace and insouciant style,
gathering momentum
into a Hermes handbag;
and from year to year,
a timepiece of classic constancy,
all honey-glazed hair and generosity of smile;
ticking seamlessly from friend to parent to partner
and all the moments in-between.
There are those who fall
with inexorable subtlety,
an opiated ballet;
languid of limb and tirelessly elegant.
Length of years counts for little
in the passage of an enigma;
I wish I had known you better,
but like the dainty drawer fragrances you gave me,
glimpses of lavender amid my bargain colours,
your presence has been sleek
yet lingers like newness on gossamer,
defying gravity and grief.

 

                                                           Gigi

"We must never confuse elegance with snobbery.

Fashion fades, style is eternal.

The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion."

(Yves Saint-Laurent)

From "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair"  by Claude Debussy...

   

...to Status Quo  at "Live Aid", 1985, and "Caroline"

 

The National Amyloidosis Centre: 

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/medicine/amyloidosis/

 

 x Thank you to Brian and Jane's family for making me feel so welcome x

The drop and the ocean

 "Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."

(Rumi)  

 

 

I don't like what snails invariably want do to my garden, but I am quite fascinated by and respectful of them. I've learned that they re-trace their steps across, through, up and under obstacles and natural or manmade boundaries to return to their most fruitful habitat. You could relocate them in a wilderness five minutes walk from your backyard, but if they feel they're meant to be contentedly chomping their way through your lettuces, they'll do their darnedest to return. If this takes them several days over rocky ground or a busy road, so be it: for such tiny, fragile little messers, they are fearlessly determined, with a do-or-die attitude.
Although the snail is probably the slowest creature on earth, the species has survived for millions of years. Unable to hear at all, they rely on touch and an exceptionally sense of smell to follow their own path back to snail-happiness.

I suppose they're actually little mollusc travellers, their caravans on their backs. The same self-secreted track they follow "home" also enables them to repair wounds and regenerate cells. Elements of snail-trail have been used in some "wonder" anti-wrinkle creams; I shall be keeping to my Nivea, thank you.

I do believe that we humans carry "home" on the inside: and that God, Spirit and the universe if you will are within us all. If we open ourselves to our capabilities and have faith in ourselves and the love of a higher power, we can find our way over any rocky ground to realise our home. It may be the very house we were born in or hundreds of thousands of steps away from family and what should seem familiar to us. Each path will be different in the detail if not obviously in direction.

Faced with calamity in my working life again, my immediate reaction has been dismay and a weary "Why?" Yet truthfully, I haven't been content with what I've been doing and know I'm capable of doing more. Better the devil, drudgery or simply apathy you know? A comfort zone is often little more than a closed but otherwise unprotected box. And those nearest to us frequently have surprisingly strong, closed opinions when we change direction in life: it threatens the sense of familiarity and mutual status quo.

In particular, when we take a damaged soul under our wing, they can seem suddenly ruthless in their desperation to prevent us from altering our path; not yet willing to contemplate their own. For all their frailties and fractures, they can almost become bullying, although they have first-hand knowledge of the inexorable damage done by constant denial of purpose and the crushing of someone's spirit. Just like stepping on a hapless snail, however accidentally; with his disproportion tenacity and remarkable sense of direction destroyed by a single misplaced heavy step, he will die where you tread.
I've been reading a lot of Rumi, the 12th century Persian poet and mystic. I've found it comforting to absorb his themes of salvation through both romantic love and the love of God. Passion and divinity are intertwining vines in Rumi; his soul is both his conscience and his compass throughout life.

Today, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī would be seen to be a Sunni Muslim, yet his writings are embraced as ecumenical in nature. He felt religion was a very personal experience and that the urge to reconnect with Spirit should be the pinnacle of life towards which everything moves. Ever conscious of it's divine origin, Rumi was passionate about preserving the dignity of life and honouring the truth of our paths and others: "The nation of Love has a different religion of all religions - for lovers, God alone is their religion."  His writing transcends ethnic and national borders: within the past five years, he's been described as the most popular poet in the United States.
Taking favourite lines from all over Rumi's teachings and poems, from different periods of his life, I've brought them together in my own personal affirmation; I find it as beautiful as any poem and as uplifting as prayer. Career paths and other trusted structures and channels through life may suddenly twist and turn menacingly or simply appear to fall away. Breathe deeply: your home is within you and the SATNAV in your ear may not be tinnitus or the onset of a psychotic disorder; it might just be your guardian angel.

 

 

 

 

 

"You are the drop, and the ocean.

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.

 Are you jealous of the ocean’s generosity?
Why would you refuse to give this joy to anyone?

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy.

Sorrow prepares you for joy.
The moon stays bright when it doesn't avoid the night.

Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure. 

Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.

I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God.   Only from the heart can you touch the sky.
If you want to be more alive, love is the truest health.
Remember, the way you make love is the way God will be with you.
Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood.
Reason is powerless in the expression of love.
Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.
Judge the moth by the beauty of the candle.
Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river; each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.
The fault is in the one who blames. Spirit sees nothing to criticize.
Spend less time with nightingales and peacocks.
One is all talk, the other only colour.
Look carefully around you and recognize
the luminosity of souls.
Sit beside those who draw you to that. 
You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling, they're given wings.
Try something different. Surrender.
Give up to grace.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
The ocean takes care of each wave 'til it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.
Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.
Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.
No one can take your place in existence,
or in absence.  
Never will a lover's body be found buried in the earth.
To love is to be God.
Ask all from yourself.
The garden of the world has no limits, except in your mind.
Do not be lonely for you carry the whole universe within you.
But Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.
And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens with love like that.
It lights up the sky.”

 

 

 "Home"  Gabrielle Aplin

 

  

 "Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”

(Rumi)  

 

 

"What a piece of work is a man"

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

(Will Shakespeare)

Yesterday was of course St George's feast day, but also the birthday of William Shakespeare, playwright and love-poet extraordinaire We can't know for sure that Will was born on 23rd April: he was definitely baptised on 26th April 1564 and the ceremony would traditionally have taken place three or four days after birth. We know that he died on 23rd April 1616, and folklore holds that he died on his birthday, aged just fitly two years.
Will lived a great deal in that half century; he was a prolific writer and had something of a reputation as a philanderer as well. His work was well received and respected in his own lifetime, but it was in the nineteenth century that his popularity rose to lofty heights. His works have now been translated and performed in every major living language across the world and he's generally accepted as the greatest ever English writer. It seems highly fitting that the birthday of the nation's bard should fall on the same day as the feast of the patron saint.
If your only experience of Shakespeare is of cramming unappetising and dry chunks at school, uninspired by a bored supply teacher attempting drama by pitching their nasal drone slightly higher, do give him another go. My fondness for Shakespeare has grown and evolved since any formal English literature studies ended and as my adult life has unfolded. Amid any speculation about Will's personal life, his sexuality and promiscuity, his political leanings and religious beliefs (his mother, Mary Arden, was certainly a devout Catholic), there's much more to the excellent wordsmith than initially greets the schoolkid's reluctant eye.
Themes of passion and sensuality, loyalty and guilt, ambition and mercy, prejudice and reconciliation all shout, whisper or sing through his works. His wisdom is apparently borne of his own very human foibles; his wit holds the wry humour of one who recognises his foolishness. Aside from the beauty of some of the sonnets, there's a timeless relevance to "Romeo & Juliet", "Othello", "Richard III", "The Merchant of Venice", "Macbeth".... I was twelve years old when I first read "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and it still feels as magical to me today:"Look in the almanac; find out moonshine."

"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god."

"No more be grieved at that which thou hast done: 

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud." 

"Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,

How to divide the conquest of thy sight." 

"He jests at scars, that never felt a wound." 

"What is your substance, whereof are you made, 

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?" 

"Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, 

Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,

Some in their garments though new-fangled ill; 

Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse." 

"Thy love is better than high birth to me." 

"All the world's a stage, 

And all the men and women merely players; 

They have their exits and their entrances; 

And one man in his time plays many parts." 

"The course of true love never did run smooth.” 

"Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires." 

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." 

"Expectation is the root of all heartache." 

"Love is not love 

Which alters when it alteration finds, 

Or bends with the remover to remove." 

"Nothing is so common as the desire to be remarkable." 

"Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger." 

"Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers." 

"If there is a good will, there is great way." 

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 

Rough-hew them how we will." 

"No sooner met but they looked; 

No sooner looked but they loved; 

No sooner loved but they sighed; 

No sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; 

No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; 

And in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage." 

"The quality of mercy is not strain'd, 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; 

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." 

"There is a tide in the affairs of men 

Which, taken at the flood, 

Leads on to fortune 

ommitted; 

All the voyage of their lives

Are bound in shallows and in miseries." 

"How far that little candle throws his beams! 

So shines a good deed in a weary world." 

"Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck; 

And yet methinks I have Astronomy." 

"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves." 

"God has given you one face, and you make yourself another." 

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; 

The valiant never taste of death but once." 

"Better three hours too soon than a minute too late."

"But Oh, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes." 

"We know what we are, but know not what we may be." 

"Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice." 

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me." 

"My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy." 

"Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself." 

"Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered." 

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be." 

"I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed." 

"This above all; to thine own self be true." 

"Who will believe my verse in time to come, 

If it were filled with your most high deserts?"

"Everyday I Write the Book" Elvis Costello (acoustic)

"No legacy is so rich as honesty." 

(Will Shakespeare)

For all Goodness, on a Friday

"The cross was two pieces of dead wood; and a helpless, unresisting Man was nailed to it; yet it was mightier than the world, and triumphed, and will ever triumph over it."

(Augustus William Hare)

"Another time

Jesus smeared God like mud 

on the eyes of a man born blind 

and pushed him toward the pool of Siloam. 

The blind man splashed his eyes 

and stared into the rippling reflection 

of the face he had only felt. 

First he did a handstand, then a cartwheel, 

and rounded off his joy 

with a series of somersaults. 

He ran to his neighbors, 

singing the news. 

They said: 

“You look like the blind beggar 

but we cannot be sure.” 

The trouble was never

that he was blind 

and could not work out 

but that they could see 

and did not look in." 

(From "The Son Who Must Die", John Shea)

"Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west, 

This day, when my soul's form bends to the East. 

There I should see a Sun by rising set, 

And by that setting endless day beget." 

(From "Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward", 

John Donne)

"It is accomplished." 

(Gospel of St John, 19:30)

"Were You There?" Johnny Cash & The Carter Family

"What is now proved was once only imagined."

(William Blake)

The Mother

A great deal has been written about the circle of life and dependency; how with age the parent becomes the child and the child the parent. I wrote this poem a couple of years ago, when my mother was still alive but increasingly frail. My sister and I were worried that she wasn't the woman she had been, her fragility was unfamiliar and even alien to us. But no lapse of memory or loss of capability dilutes parenthood. I realised you can never truly lose that sense of having been carried or nurtured; of having been mothered, or fathered. We really are all somebody's baby, no matter how old. It makes some sense that when you look into a very aged face you may glimpse the infant within us all.

I was very upset when I wrote this poem, but now I find it comforting. I know I disappointed my mother in many ways; now I understand that every obstacle I overcome, every sadness I comprehend and every joy I appreciate is as much a tribute to my mother and father as my first steps.

"Mother"

There's a weakness within,

almost malignantly foetal;

it rips us at the middle.

Mother I am so much yours, 

more than flesh and blood;

my thumb-print is on the photo

you signed to my father as "sweetheart".

I kick at your sides even now,

your labour is long overdue;

now my kisses unsettle your hairspray,

but you birth me everyday.

                                                Gigi

"I am the meaning of the poem"

"Nature is the direct expression of the divine imagination."

(John O'Donohue)

“I believe in the sun when it’s not shining, 

I believe in love when I feel it not, 

I believe in God even when he is silent.”

(Celtic proverb)

One fine thing about being confined to the house and not being able to work is that you get to read and listen to old loves that you keep meaning to sit down with again when you've got the shopping, painted the garden pots, touched up the varnish on the front door, sorted your life out.

I've been thinking a lot about the elements over the past few days: it's not difficult to see why man was in awe of the seasons long before flood barriers, the meteorological office or even sunblock were invented. The indigenous populations of the ancient world tended towards animist beliefs, imbuing any living creatures, objects and natural forces with "anima": soul or spirit. Animism is not a religion as such, but is certainly one of the oldest belief systems in the world; essentially, it's a way of viewing all of nature.

Today, many anthropologists studying religion have asserted that "modern" faiths are in continuity with the "magical thinking" of even our most primitive ancestors. Animism certainly assumes a relationship between the seen and the unseen worlds; an interaction between the human and the divine. Sometimes I feel education dulls the Christian perception of the spiritual within the everyday: surely the natural world enfolds the supernatural power and wonder of creation.

The late Irish poet and former Catholic priest, John O'Donohue, wrote extensively and beautifully about exploring the hidden universe that we all carry within, reflected in what we create in the outside world. He fully accepted that to be natural can be holy, that we're today's custodians of ancient, sacred thresholds.

His writing is seamlessly embroidered with ancient Celtic wisdom and lyricism. Not quite as comfortably, more than a millennium ago, the pagan lore and ritual of the Celts would become encompassed by the fervour and contemplation of early Christian mysticism. Significantly, the striking beauty of the traditional Celtic cross is said to have been introduced by St Patrick during his mission to convert the "pagan" Irish. Delivering the gospel to sun-worshipers, he combined Christ's cross with the circle as the sun: many also see it as a halo effect.

When Mum died, I was determined that her headstone should be a Celtic cross: her faith was that of her Scottish mother and her Irish father; only basically schooled, it was instinctive for her to believe in a higher power and a greater good. And to shamelessly ask St Anthony to find her the odd tenner that hadn't been lost yet.

Yesterday, I remembered that I'd copied down the poem "The Song of Amergin" in one of my scribble-books. Originally "Amhairghin", Gaelic for "birth of song", Amergin was a great poet and one of the legendary Celtic leaders who battled the Fairy Peoples for possession of Ireland. 

 "The Song of Amergin" invokes the power of the land itself but I feel it also unfolds the omnipotence of God at the heart of Christianity. Amergin may well have been "bigging himself up" by claiming the power of the elements; just as readily, he voices the strength and godliness that can be within each of us. The poem reminds me of "St Patrick's Breastplate"; it soothes as much as it empowers. 

Similarly, I found a list of CDs that I either haven't got round to buying or simply can't find on Amazon; "The Turning of the Tide" by Donegal-born singer Aoife is one of the latter. She sings in her native Irish with a real purity. Her version of an old Irish hymn, "My Love, My God", is one which I wanted to have played at my wedding, if such a day should ever dawn! Although the words are probably only a few centuries old, set to a much older melody, the hymn has the passion and sensuality of the Celtic Christian tradition. It's a lovesong to faith and also to God.

"The Song of Amergin"

(att. Amergin Glúingel) 

I am the wind on the sea, 

I am the ocean wave; 

I am the sound of the billows; 

I am the seven-horned stag; 

I am the hawk on the cliff; 

I am the dewdrop in sunlight; 

I am the fairest of flowers; 

I am the raging boar; 

I am the salmon in the deep pool; 

I am the lake on the plain; 

I am the meaning of the poem; 

I am the point of the spear; 

I am the God that makes fire in the head: 

Who levels the mountain? 

Who speaks the age of the moon? 

Who has been where the sun sleeps? 

Who, if not I? 

"Mo Ghrá'sa, Mo Dhia (My Love, My God)" Aoife Ní Fhearraigh

"Mo ghrá-sa, mo Dhia, mo ghárda, mo liaigh" 

(My love, my God, my guardian, my saviour)

"The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb." 

(John O'Donohue)

"May the nourishment of the earth be yours, 

may the clarity of light be yours, 

may the fluency of the ocean be yours, 

may the protection of the ancestors be yours." 

(John O'Donohue)

"Be gentle with yourself"

"Be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be - keep peace with your soul."

 

What did you write in your Christmas cards this year? What you write every year? Something about "all good wishes and we really must meet up in 2013"? In the midst of what we ironically call the "festive rush", precious sentiments and heartfelt wishes are rattled off like the proverbial Christmas shopping list.
In 1965, a prose poem called "The Desiderata", Latin for "Desired Things", became widely known as a devotional text, after being found by the death-bed of Adlai Stevenson II. Stevenson was a United States presidential candidate and a United Nations ambassador. He had planned to reproduce The Desiderata in his Christmas cards that year. He may have heard the text previously, when it was included in a compilation of devotionals in 1959 by the Reverend Kates, rector of St Paul's Church, Baltimore.
Written by American author and attorney Max Ehrmann in 1927, the text was largely unknown in his lifetime; he died in 1945. He would later be celebrated for his work; aside from The Desiderata, he often wrote on spiritual themes. The poem has been widely reproduced in poster form over the years, also featuring on many spoken-word recordings: people have often wrongly assumed that the text must be so old as to be beyond any copyright. In 1967, Leonard Nimoy, "Mr Spock" himself, recited the poem on his "Star Trek" themed album; he titled the track "Spock's Thoughts".
If I could send a Christmas card to anyone who has read this little blog since February, these are the words I would reproduce: these are the finest sentiments I could wish for you, whatever the season. Perhaps most poignantly at this time of year, amidst the hustle of shopping and decorating, gifting and anticipating, the awesome preening and the whole exhausting business of having fun, we need to remember "what peace there may be in silence".Every line of this poem resonates with me, I find it achingly beautiful: I hope you will receive it with the kind intent with which it is wished for each one of you.
Max Ehrmann is buried in his hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana. In 2010, he was honoured there with a life-sized statue bronze, which features him sat on a bench down-town, with his trusty pen and notebook. The Desiderata is engraved on a plaque next to the sculpture. What a gift, at any time of year, to have given voice (and subsequently thousands of voices) to the tender wisdom that the soul is capable of and was intended for.

*Passer-by, stranger or friend: I pray that you've had a kind Christmas and that you look forward to a brave New Year*

"The Desiderata"

(Max Ehrmann)

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.

With all its shams, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

"Silent Night"  Stevie Nicks

"Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."



With a beneficient eye

"Treat the earth well;

it was not given to you by your parents,

it was loaned to you by your children." 

(Native American proverb)

I'm indebted to the lovely Anne, who has enabled me to slip a post in before Christmas which includes a gorgeous Native American blessing, my favourite version of one of the most beautiful tunes ever and an excuse to mention Jimmy Stewart. Yes, that Jimmy Stewart.
Anne is apparently a little bit Cherokee and a little bit Iroquois as well as being a lot of Oirish. She's a ginger too; I like to think that her particular genetic blend means she likes the wearing of the feathers when she's in a good mood but will surely spit some when she's rattled. She enjoyed the post on here about the feast of Thanksgiving and has sent me a beautiful Iroquois prayer and the "Sacred Instructions", holy commandments really, which the Native American people believe were handed down from the Great Spirit at the time of the Creation. I'm very drawn to the Native American heritage and beliefs which have a richness as well as a simplicity; I've added a couple of my own favourite sayings here, I hope Anne won't mind.

Her mother's ancestors lived in West Virginia, home of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Shenandoah River and it's valley, Appalachian bluegrass music. Yet another place I've long romanticised in my head and feel in my heart that I will still find a way to. The name "Shenandoah" is of unspecified Native American origin. It may have evolved from the Iroquois word for "Big Meadow", but probably the most popular belief is that it derives from a Native American expression for "Beautiful Daughters of the Stars", referring to the flow and tides of the Shenandoah River itself. 
The song "Oh Shenandoah" became popular with slaves and also with sailors as a sea shanty in the mid 1800s. Some folk believe the lyrics tell the story of a European trader in love with the daughter of an Indian Chief; others, of a Confederate soldier dreaming of his country home: Virginia was a key region during the American Civil War. I favour the theory that the singer is expressing his love for the moods of the great river itself: "Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughters". There are so many lovely versions of the song, but Van Morrison's with the Chieftains is especially epic and really tugs at my heartstrings.
The song features throughout my favourite Western, also called "Shenandoah", starring Jimmy Stewart as the widowed patriarch of a large Virginian family. Inspite of my mistrust and dislike of guns, I have a soft spot for some of the valiant, big-country, old cowboy films; and my old cowboy of choice would be Jimmy Stewart. The film is wonderfully evocative, essentially anti-war, pro-family and pro-faith. Native American faith finds Spirit in all things, all creatures and the elements. The Great Spirit, God, is viewed as the eternal animating force of the universe; therefore, there is divinity within everyone and everything in the universe. Thanks and praise have traditionally been offered to the crops harvested and the wildlife hunted for food and the unseen spirit world is ever-present.
Thank you for the prayer Anne; have a blessed and peaceful Christmas.

"Iroquois Prayer"

"We return thanks to our mother, the earth, for sustaining us.

We return thanks to the rivers and streams, which supply us with water. 

We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicines for our care. 

We return thanks to the corn, and to her sisters the beans and squashes, which give us life. 

We return thanks to the wind, which has moved the the air to banish all ills. 

We return thanks to the moon and the stars, which have given us their light when the sun sleeps. 

We return thanks to the sun, that looks upon the earth with a beneficent eye. 

Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit, in whom is embodied all goodness, who directs all things for the good of his children."

Sacred Instructions

Take care of Mother Earth and of all the other colours of man. 

Respect Mother Earth through all creation. 

Honour and support all life. 

 Be grateful for your life, and your survival.  

Love long and well, and express that love. 

Be humble. Humility is the gift of wisdom and understanding. 

Be kind with one's self as with others. 

Be honest with one's self and with others. 

Be responsible for these sacred instructions and share them with other nations.

"Certain things catch your eye,

But pursue only those

that capture your heart"

(Cherokee proverb)

"The sun would have no rainbows if the eyes had no tears"

(Cherokee)

"If you must beg, knock only at large gates"

(Native American)

"Lose your temper and lose a friend, lie and you lose yourself"

(Apache proverb)

"Oh Shenandoah"  Van Morrison and The Chieftains

"The dead live on, in the hearts of those they live behind"

(Apache saying)

"May your mocassins make happy tracks in many snows,

and may the rainbow always be at your shoulder" 

(Cherokee blessing) 

"Yup"