Edited extract from “Blessing for Coming of Age”

May you be unfrightened by your fear.

May you take the time to hear your voice into speech,

befriend silence and listen to the world with compassion.

May you be awake to the wonder of the earth

and see the single flame that lights every living thing.

Go bravely and greet each new horizon with trust and gratitude

and may God bless you on your journey

and let flourish the person you were made to be.

c. Tess Ward, Alternative Pastoral Prayers Canterbury SCM 2012

Just got home from celebrating Imbolc/Candlemas with my circle:  lighting the fire, calling the directions, and sharing the emergings of our lives and of the earth, planting iris bulbs. Then inside in the warmth and candle-light, the most beautiful altar with red green and white (red and white for snow and the rising sun and green for Brigid’s mantle for the life growing beneath the soil) – geranium, some green shoots, some white candles and white pumice stones, drumming into a long deep silence, placing candles on the altar for those who especially need the light tonight, cake and ginger tea, closing the circle.

Prayer for Imbolc/Candlemas – honouring Brigid and Mary

Praise to you O Caring one,

midwife of our newness and growth,

nurturing, generous and milky kind,

yet defiant as the snowdrop in a cold climate,

tend the fresh shoots of our emerging as we set foot this day.

from Celtic Wheel of the Year 2007

I’ve short circuited this this year by going to the Sunshine State for 10 days where the light is very bright and the glow hasn’t worn off yet!  Sadly this is not normal behaviour for me or anyone else I know though I can recommend a January holiday for starting a year.  The truth is, we never know what a year will hold when we approach it with all our hopes and fears. When we have those utterly suprising unlooked for moments of joy or sadness, or even downright tragic, we know all notions of control are delusional – though necessary to get us through the day! Rumi once said, “Today, like every other day, we wake up empty”.  The thoughts and plans quickly pile in to cover that up of course.  Way too scary!

So my new year’s resolution is to deepen my beginner’s practise of sitting with the emptiness.  I’m terribly bad at it but as I sit beside the beds of people who are dying, or listen to friends who are excited about creating something or as I sit with myself, in all our growing and dying, my living well depends upon it. To keep the space open so I can be alive to the Divine flowing within and beyond me and try not get in the way so much. It was there before I began and will be there when I’m gone and I don’t want to miss it.  It gilds everything. The Sufi Mystics have a saying that God says:  “I was a hidden treasure and I longed to be made known”.

Talking of waiting, there is no sign of my book so that must be appearing after Christmas, like my cards!  In my imagination, the hut beckons in December so I was not suprised that it found its way into my Christmas poem this year.  I offer it here, wishing you the peace of the little and the ordinary and the peace of the sacred pause.

A Winter’s Tale

I came here with a flame within.

It lights and leads me on

through dawns of mist and sparkling fields

and webs with hoarfrost hung.

I followed towards the wintry wood

through silver columns of trees,

on pale stones crossed the trickling stream

and glimpsed below, a fish’s gleam.

And when the sun was at its height

I leant against some lichened bark.

I shelled and ate a shiny egg

and drank cool water from my flask.

The ocean’s waves they called me on

with each breath’s rise and fall.

Down old sheep walks, gulls cry and glide

and settle and bob upon the tide.

And as the milky light did fade

and the chalky cliffs they stood and shone

the sun went down behind the sea

but I was far from home.

Which way to go I did not know

for the dusk it gathered with my fears.

The night fell thick, the hours moved slow

and nameless creatures stirred.

And so I stopped in stillness there

to listen to the world about.

Though lost and pathless and gone astray

the owls and darkness bade me stay.

I came here with a flame within

that kindles in quiet and deepest dark

for silence sheds its light to see

and guides us by the stars.

And so I wandered on and up

across black fields and branch and thorn

I faltered and stumbled until I saw

a glow from window and lamp from door.

There in the distance past the trees

in a clearing, an old cabin stood

and as I came close, by the fire-wood pile,

snow was floating and fallen awhile.

Before I knocked and entered there

with moonlight on my back

I smelt the woodsmoke in the air

and breathed with thanks my vapoury prayer.

If you are worn and weary this Christmas night

and stop to listen to my story here

know that between the porch-light and the heavens

the skies are alive and crackle with care.

c. Tess Ward 2011

Sandwiched neatly between the Winter Solstice and Mary’s baby, my new one, “Alternative Pastoral Prayers” is arriving after a 2 year gestation on 23rd December (tho you can pre-order on Amazon if you can’t wait!).  I call it my baby, it’s actually a 326 page mother of a tome in hardback.  The sub-title (get your inhalers) is “Liturgies and Blessings for Health and Healing and all of Life’s Beginnings and Endings”.  So it covers the lot from cradle to grave (including those who didn’t make it to the cradle and those standing by the grave).  I am excited now and will launch her in January

As for December, a wood cabin in the snow beckons as it does every December but  more of that in my next blog.  I will blog at least twice a month. Thank you for visiting.