Sacred Season

I was reading a bedside book which a friend gave me,(Earth Prayers, from around the world) this morning and came across a poem which has an essence of what I was trying to say with the previous blog. So I thought I would share it.
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O sacred season of Autumn, be my teacher
for I wish to learn the virtue of contentment
As I gaze upon your full-colored beauty,
I sense all about you
an at-homeness with your amber riches.

You are the season of retirement,
of full barns and harvested fields.
The cycle of growth has ceased,
and the busy work of giving life
is now completed
I sense in you no regrets:
you’ve lived a full life.

I live in a society that is ever-restless,
always eager for more mountains to climb,
seeking happiness through more and more possessions.
As a child of my culture,
I am seldom truly at peace with what I have.
Teach me to take stock of what I have given and received;
may I know that it’s enough,
that my striving can cease
in the abundance of God’s grace.
May I know the contentment
that allows the totality of my energies
to come full flower.
May I know that like you I am rich beyond measure.


As you, O Autumn, take pleasure in your great bounty,
let me also take delight
in the abundance of the simple things in life
which are the true source of joy.
With the golden glow of peaceful contentment
may I truly appreciate this autumn day

~Edward Hays

A forgotten harvest

Soon my children will be having their harvest festival at school. They will sing songs about the bounty of the earth, tell us to think of those who do not have enough to eat and read poems about Autumn. Parents used to be encouraged to bring food into the school which was collected up and taken to a local old peoples home, but this is no longer the case.
A couple of years ago we collected all the food but the care home didn't want it because it contained fresh veg from some of the parents gardens. I presume this was some sort of health and safety thing, either that or they just didn't know what to do with fresh vegetables.
Any harvest festivals I attend now, seem to consist of lots of tins of baked beans and spaghetti hoops.

It makes me sad that this country just doesn't 'harvest' anymore.
The children sing about the Earths gifts but how many accept (or even understand)them? Harvest is solely for farmers now, and is done from the back of huge machines.
Fewer and fewer people collect apples from the tree's, pick brambles from the wayside, know the fungi to eat or grow their own small harvests.

Something has been lost.
The apples sit and rot under the tree's.

It's not the food, we all have plenty of that, it is the recognition of the Earths seasonal gifts to us all and it is the thankfulness to creation for caring for us in this way.

I wonder how many other 'harvests' we have forgotten?
What else are we forgetting to bring home and be thankful for?
Our health? our friends and loved ones? our gifts in life?

I hope that each of you has a Harvest of your own this Autumn and that it sustains you and you are thankful.


...and if you want some of my apples, I have tons. (this is one basket of three from a single tree, there is only so much apple pie I can make!)

Gory Stories

This past week people have been asking me what I did to my finger and I have taken great delight in telling them.
It has been almost worth the accident just for the fun of watching peoples faces change as I explain what happened. The concerned smiles turn to shudders and winces, and they wonder if they should have asked at all?

But they keep asking...

Humans like a gory story, especially one they can picture doing themselves. Perhaps it's the 'what if?' factor.
They think what if I had done that? how would I have reacted? If I had cut myself?, broken my arm?, crashed the car?, fell off that? would I have fainted?, cried?, stayed calm?... and by thinking these things they get as close as they could to exploring the thing (without suffering the pain) and feel more prepared.
Or maybe its just simple curiosity and the joy of a brief shudder and wince and then a thankfulness that it wasn't them after all.

In any case, you can explore the feelings yourself and have a look at my poor finger, but only if you want too....*hehe
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Ouch!

Apologies to my second life friends if my typing is even slower than normal in the next week or so, but I have had a bit of an accident.
Making dinner tonight and slicing through our lovely home grown beetroot, I forgot the golden rule 'keep you fingers out the way when slicing beetroot'. Consequently I have just come back for the minor injuries clinic with a bandaged finger, having cut halfway through the top of it, nail an all. Doh!
They have bandaged the two middle fingers on my left hand together and I am back to one handed typing.
Boo!

Being creative

Inspired by Malakyte and all the work she has been doing in Triskele, I have come up with an idea (some help from Hobbit)for a 'welcome to the realm' type of quest in Carmarthenshire.

The idea is to give new people something to do when they arrive, even if the realm is quiet, and to help them to find their way around.
It involves a kind of treasure hunt (I know, I know, its not that interactive, but it is easy for beginners to do) at the end of which the player will have gained the 'keys to the realm' and explored most parts of it also.
I have passed the demo's and ideas to Oracle and will wait and see what she thinks.

I wont go into quest details, but what i wanted to share with you all was a couple of things which have helped me with it.
First the video's of the fantastic Torley Linden, especially the one on how to make tiny prims (so I could make the keys)
and second a fab site which makes basic scripts for you...genius!
A huge thank you to Torley and Hilary Mason and people like them, for giving so much free time and idea's to us all.

I will let you know what the realm think of my quest.

Long live Carmarthen?

Sadly things in my RP home don't seem to be getting any better now that everyone has come back from holiday.
In fact they are breaking apart...

The realm changes every time I enter it... not small changes... huge ones, like a whole hill and church vanishing overnight, and I have no idea what the grand plan is...my worry is that those managing the realm don't either.
I had a very bemused visit from the good knight Kendell the other day, he came back from a spell away and couldn't quite believe what had happened. We both tried desperately to RP our way around it, but sadly there is no RP plan in it.
I wish the realm would just shut.. sort itself out.. and then re-open.

I have tried hard this time not to get to involved too early, and I am very glad I did as tensions seem to be running high in the admins.
I find the whole thing very sad however, as the realm has so much promise, it just needs a stronger purpose.

I still hold a glimmer of hope... but time will tell

The best medicine.

You have probably all seen it before, but I thought I would share it just for fun and because it made me laugh.

Silence

When I was at college, there was someone in the year above me who wrote poems. Many of his poems still toss around in my head. I have no idea if he ever published them, or even what his full name was, but I thought I would share one with you.

Silence

A thousand stuttering words
Could never match
The eloquence
of a silence
and the library of context
in which it is heard

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Childish?

I was shopping today in a large supermarket, and watching the other people as they walked around the shop.
I was thinking about my Second Life, full of dragons and dwarves, orcs and fairies, and wondering if any of the people passing me also had this kind of other identity.

We all look like fairly normal, everyday grown-ups, going about our grown up business. Planning dinner parties, packed lunches, picnics and midnight snacks, but some of us play 'childish' games as well.

When we are kids we play games pretty much non-stop, my children spend hours and hours in fantasy worlds of their own making, in make believe, and wild abandon. As we get older we are taught that its not appropriate to run down the street laughing, or dress up as a princess, wonderwoman or a tiger called Twinkletoes, or to make sandcastles and get muddy just for fun.
But do we really lose the urge to do these things?

Many of us seem now to turn to computers to give us the play we want, either on our PlayStation's, Xboxes, Wii's or in Second Life. This seems to be the acceptable face of adult playtime. Tucked away in our studies, or in front of the sitting room TV, private and hidden from disapproving stares.

But when I was a girl, I spent hours and hours playing beside the canal in Edinburgh. Riding my bike, making dens, catching newts in jam jars and staring at leeches with fascinated horror. I didn't really care what people thought of me, I was just so amazed and lost in everything.
I suspect many adults might sometimes like to do that now, but we just don't, because we might look silly and its not 'proper' for adults to behave that way.

Childishness is seen as weak, foolish and stupid.
I would rather look at it as innocent, inquisitive and fun.

When I am an old lady I hope I will still roll up my trousers and wade into rock pools looking for creatures.