Monday 15 August 2022

August (so far) in pictures

 Scots pine and friend


A view of my Scots pine friend (the tree slightly left of centre at the bottom of the picture, with its thumb and forefinger together) and the hill (right) whose crown is the home of the Scots pine it connects to. (See previous post for more about this connection.)

The hills on the far horizon are probably Dartmoor. Usually I can tell what’s Dartmoor because it’s yellowy-brown, whereas the rest of Devon is green. Now everything is yellowy-brown except the trees, and they’re starting to lose their leaves - through drought I think, not through cold and the waning of the light.


Gleaming gold




I was out early on the morning of this picture and the cut corn (?) was gleaming gold in the low sun.


Ellie and Aeryn




Last week a lovely niece of Frog’s came to stay with her 8-month-old Akita, Aeryn. Aeryn is a delightful dog, affectionate, good-natured and well behaved. Unfortunately Ellie, an old lady of twelve years, took exception to her and snarled whenever she came near. Aeryn couldn’t understand why Ellie didn’t love her as everybody else did and followed Ellie around. Only on walks did Ellie tolerate her, and here they are exploring the gravel banks on a local river. Aeryn (left in the first two pictures and right in the third) is still following Ellie around however.



Moon



The moon a few hours short of being full. To my eye it looked orange-ier than this, but this is what my camera saw.

Roots



I took this picture last Friday, on the hottest day of the year so far. I had taken refuge in the shade of this beech tree, having climbed a steep hill to get there. As I got up to leave, after a good half an hour cooling off, admiring the view, doing my affirmations, crying and talking to Frog and God, I became transfixed by the tree’s roots.

There are three beech trees in a row on this hill and you can just see one of the others in the hot white background. Judging by the roots, the ground was once higher and I often wonder whether the three trees were part of a hedgerow.

As usual in my pictures, something is wonky, but as the trees appear to be leaning at different angles I can’t tell what the vertical line is and I’ve left things as they are. 

Friday 5 August 2022

Shooting star

 I first published this post earlier in the week but then I took it down because I thought it was so awful. I’ve now decided to publish it anyway, good or bad. It was what I wrote at the time.

I would also like to thank my very old friend B (old in the sense that I’ve known her a long long time), with whom I spoke on the telephone last night for the first time in decades, for expressing an interest in my mad metaphysical ideas and saying that she read and liked the blog. Perhaps I’ll inflict my novel on her next . . .

 


As you might have gathered by now, if you’ve read this blog before*, it’s my metaphysical beliefs and experiences that are getting me through the months since Frog’s death in January and giving me hope for the future. Among these are:


-We live more than one life.

-We meet again those souls that are important to us.

-There is relevance to everything that happens and we can learn from it.

-On a higher plane that we’re not necessarily aware of, we choose everything that happens to us. We’re not victims.

-We create our own future through our imaginations. If we visualise what we want and ask providence for it with total conviction – whatever its downsides – we will get it. As they say, beware of what you ask for!

-The world is made up of matter, energy and meaning. Meaning – sometimes called spirituality - is therefore part of what we are too. We deny it at our peril.


Having said all that, I’m not perfect (sadly) and sometimes the whole edifice crumbles and I’m back in the workaday world, tired, cross and miserable. I’m disconnected. I’m overwhelmed by my hard sceptical self.

Over the weekend I was in that sort of state. None of my prayers was answered. I was lost and alone. In the middle of Sunday night when I couldn’t sleep, I went and sat outside and had a bit of a rant, asking God why s/he had been so quiet lately.


    ‘And I’ve not seen a shooting star for months,’ I complained, shooting stars being something I’ve always seen as messages from God. ‘If only you could send me some sort of proof.’

    I know of course that you can’t ask for proof or chase meaning. They come when they want to, usually when you’re concentrating on something else. So I knew what I was doing was useless. So then I started to cry. I’ve been doing a lot of that over the last few months. In fact, crying is what I do most when I’m alone. I like crying. I know where I am when I cry.

    Cheryl, my tarot teacher, had always said that emotions were the gateway to the soul. They certainly are for me, and unblocking my emotions is part of what I’m learning at the moment.

    Suddenly, to my left, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the streak of a shooting star and in an instant, without me doing anything, and before I’d even thought about what had just happened, I was back. I was me. I was whole. The world was once again alive and beautiful.


As I made my way to bed, full of thanks and relief, I realised not only that God had a sense of humour but that the hard sceptical me was only part of me. She might take over sometimes but that didn’t mean she was right. Surely, I could find a way to deal with her.

To be continued . . .

  

*Hello to my two new followers, soleil and Gail. You are very welcome.


 Notes on the pictures

The cards pictured above come from Cosmic Tarot by Norbert Lösche. This was the pack with which Cheryl taught me how to read tarot cards over twenty years ago. I still use it. Neither of the people on the cards looks like me and there wasn’t a full moon on Sunday night.

I’ve taken the shooting star picture from Google. Thanks to the unnamed copyright owner.