“To walk away from the European Union as a member state is a source of real grief. It’s not simply turning our back on one of the greatest projects of peace and reconciliation the world has ever seen…” Michael Sadgrove’s moving, insightful and profound account of the significance of this day not only for him personally (as for so many whose parents/grandparents or who themselves are from other EU nations), but also for us collectively.

He points out how doubly poignant this is, falling as it does within a week of Holocaust Memorial Day. His mother, who died only recently, was a Jew from Germany. I myself am descended from Jewish family who fled the pogroms in Poland and found sanctuary in England.

In the midst of Brexit I feel we’ve lost sight of what the EU thing was about. To my mind, it was part of the ongoing reflective response to an age of terrible World Wars. Part of a pact of nations with one another that we would never let one of our political leaders cause such devastation, persecution and death again. I hope we can retrieve our commitment to big scale teamwork and compassion for people from other places in spite of this sea change.

In the meantime, I am sad today. And I send love to all my friends and relatives who live in other countries and parts of the world. That which unites us is stronger than that which divides us. May it ever more be so, inspite of our current reality ❤️

https://northernwoolgatherer.blogspot.com/2020/01/thoughts-on-brexit-day.html?spref=fb&m=1

In the nick of time, I bump into Gary at the bus stop

Caught in indecision,

my better self on the brink of winning;

I will not get the bus,

I will walk home mindfully.

But my brain is still racing in three different directions at once

and the adjustment will not come easily.

This week, my friends are true companions.

They keep suddenly appearing,

like mindfulness angels!

Yesterday, in a café, like three wise Magi,

crowned with twinkly eyes betraying a readiness to see the funny side,

Alex, Martin and Gary arrived at the next table

as I was meeting colleagues.

As unexpected as if they’d ridden in on camels.

Today, Gary stands tall, relaxed;

ready to pause.

We reflect on how difficult meditation and mindfulness is these days

and how important it is

to become acquainted with your own mind.

He surveys the street with a shrewd gaze,

diagnoses a hidden epidemic;

an outbreak of mindlessness.

By nighttime I will discover I carefully filed my receipt in the expenses area of my purse,

but forgot to pick up the pens I’d just bought.

They must be sitting there, on the checkout still,

or did I somehow drop them on the floor and not into my bag?

This is what constant divided attention does for you;

So many lost things.

We go our separate ways

Encouraged

I realise I’ve been marching heavily.

Now I will stop pelting it hell for leather

and return to walking lightly,

with kindness

on this fragile earth.

I am neither strolling

nor marching

nor racing ahead

I am walking

at a walking pace

How else should I walk, after all?

Gary’s right; it’s been good to me so far, this jar.

In my travelling, I really wanted to be present in each place and with each person. I didn’t want to get to the end and regret not having really paid attention to the beauty around me. Or even to any ugliness. I wanted to fully experience everywhere and everyone.

Since I’ve returned, I have realised that I’d like to carry this attentiveness with me wherever I go. Wherever I am I am here, now. I am with the person I’m with, or on my own.

On Sunday we had some friends round for a meal and had some time to reflect together. To my delight, a couple of them gave us a mindfulness jar as a gift:

It has 52 cards in it, each with a mindful practice on it. One for each week of the year. What a delight!

This week’s practice was to go for a mindful walk for 15 minutes or more each day. So, after a very cerebral meeting with some colleagues, I went for my first one. Here are the views I would not have seen had I not been. It was so refreshing!

And, knowing I was going to be practising some mindful things, here was the sky from my bedroom window this morning. This show quietly goes on, but so easily I miss it each morning, because I’m already thinking of all the things I have to do. I don’t want to miss it anymore.

May your vision be clear and your life full of love in 2020. Here’s to the ongoing journey. I wonder where yours will take you…?

A few years ago, I came across the poet John O’Donohue for the first time. This quote I saw so grabbed me that I immediately looked for the rest of the poem-prayer. Every year I find myself thinking it’s a good one to start a new year with:

“May I have the courage today

To live the life that I would love

To postpone my dream no longer

But do at last what I came here for

And waste my heart on fear no more.”

from A morning offering by John O’Donohue

A couple of perspectives from my travelling:

1. A major part of the joy of travelling is coming home. This Christmas I particularly feel for people who are forced to travel and have no prospect of returning home, particularly asylum seekers who are exiled from their own country and barely welcomed in ours, where the language, culture and climate are so different, where they have to relearn how to do everything you need to do to survive. They face these challenges in a situation where they have no status, and are not allowed to work to earn money and provide for themselves. I can only begin to imagine how demeaning that feels.

The crazy thing is that they are usually very skilled people, who really want to contribute and who are real grafters as well. I also feel for people on the streets who have no home to return to at all.

Of course the Christmas story involves a family travelling. They were returning to Joseph’s ancestral home. But what that was like for a pregnant Mary I don’t know. And shortly afterwards they had to flee to Egypt; a much longer journey to a country where the language, culture and many other things would have been different. Food for thought…

2. Weirdly, although many of us struggle with the short days and dark nights and mornings at this time of year in our time zone, when I was in Australia, I remember I reached a point when my body was longing for the days to get shorter (at the very point when they were in fact getting longer over there). I was longing for dark and cold! And I have loved coming back to the dark and cold. I wonder whether viewing this season as one for hibernation (as a few of my friends have been doing) is a more positive and natural way of living in it. Demanding less of ourselves each day. It’s a thought.

Anyway, I hope whatever your circumstances that you and yours have a happy Christmas. And wherever there is darkness, may light come.

After her traumatic visit to the vets yesterday for a booster injection, Xena (Warrior Princess) has learned how to use the cat flap! Finally! Both going out and coming in! We are overwhelmed. And relieved. And not a little proud, too, actually! 😅

My only concern; will she ever bother sitting on our laps again??