Boudica and St Helen ~ two women who hoped to change the world.

Boudica and St Helen ~ two women who hoped to change the world. Separated by about three hundred years, there is little that connects these two women beyond the town of Colchester, or the fact that they were both women fighting to achieve something in what was mostly a man’s world. Boudica (or Boudicca or [...]

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Capturing Dragonflies

Capturing Dragonflies If you catch a dragonfly And dissect it To unravel it secrets, Taking it apart bit by bit Examine under microscope Label its parts Classify it in Latin Then all you are left with Is a pile of wet chitin And some fragments Of dead-rainbow wings. I have captured dragonflies Held them in [...]

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Hopes, dreams, desires but no resolutions

Hopes, dreams, desires but no resolutions   I’m running a little late with my New Year’s Day post, but we do have over 360 days left still. I’ve avoided making resolutions for many years because being a past-master of self-sabotage, I’ve always managed to jinx myself before I’ve even started, so the most I am [...]

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The Scent of Christmas ~ an aromatic meditation

The Scent of Christmas ~ an aromatic meditation   The sense of smell is closely connected to the area of the brain that processes emotional memories; sometimes memories are very deeply buried and certain scents can awaken those memories. I am also aware that not all buried memories are good ones, which is why for [...]

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Fragment of Soul

Fragment of soul   The woods are almost silent to the untrained ear but if you stand still and ignore the hum of distant traffic, the forest sounds become overwhelming. The falling of leaves is like slow rain, pattering against the leaves still clinging to branch tips; a squirrel rummaging in the leaf-litter sounds like [...]

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Watching the fire ~ how to go beyond emotions and passions

Watching the fire ~ how to go beyond Imagine that your strongest feelings, those emotions that you simply cannot control or order, and which drive you to the brink of breakdown are not simply inside your mind. See those feelings as a fire in a desert place, blocking your path onward. It’s a hot fire, [...]

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The Snow Queen’s Shard ~ examining the wound (part two)

The Snow Queen’s Shard ~ examining the wound (part two) “I go inside; it’s not as hard as it sounds. My soul-shell parts to let me come inside and then closes behind me again like silk curtains. Inside here, inside this chamber, nothing is as it seems and nothing is easy to see and describe. [...]

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Lost 9

Lost 9 The sound of the water gurgling over the rocks is lost beneath the thunder of my own heartbeat as I stare in shock at the little building. I’m not sure what I feel; fear and hope fight each other for supremacy over me but their effects are just the same. My knees wobble [...]

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“He jests at scars that never felt a wound” ~ or why compassion for others may be something only learned the hard way

“He jests at scars that never felt a wound” or why compassion for others may be something only learned the hard way. I finally had to bite the bullet this last week and face my nemesis. Well,  one of them. This is my fifth season teaching the summer school and until last week I’ve avoided doing a [...]

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Lost #4

Lost #4 There are no paths. All around me, endless shades of green, with some brown and red and orange as counterpoint, and no opening, no indication that anyone has ever come this way before. I sag against the trunk of the tree I have just climbed, the memory of those distant mountains burned into [...]

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