Writing
-
“Gratitude is the memory of the heart”, wrote the French bishop, Jean Baptiste Massieu. My heart’s memories of Vaughan Park include... more»
-
The blessing could not have happened any other way than by his departure, by his letting go of the ones whom he loved and whom he would never stop loving but had to release into their own lives so that they could enter into the blessing and live it out on earth. more»
-
Between Palm Sunday Hosannas and Easter Alleluias, Holy Saturday is a day of many overwhelmings... more»
-
-
Manuka flower honey
devotion of bees
sweet wine
rosemary
frankincense
scenting the drowsy air. more» -
Over these days, quiet remembrance and wreath laying ceremonies at war memorials throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world are taking place.
The eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the date when hostilities ceased on the Western Front in the war to end all wars is also remembered. more» -
Easter is past. A bewildering resurrection is interwoven with grief. Christ companioned the ones who loved him and mourned his loss. He walked alongside them, shared breakfast on the beach, and bore witness that grief does not have the last word. Is not the end of the story. more»
-
Beauty blossoms the landscape
of the bare heart
warming it like the breath of creatures
healing like nectar... more» -
At night it was light and from the bed in my grandparent's house, I could look through the open curtains to the ocean and watch the midnight sun. Golden calendula marigolds grew in abundance in the garden, petals adding colour to home-made butter. more»
-
We find ourselves with Mary, the mother of Jesus and the others who loved him, in a place of many overwhelmings this day... more»
-
In the mystery of this week we call Holy, with its darkening shadows...might we somehow contemplate in the stories...the nearness of the wound to the gift? more»
-
-
It is a story of fragile hope then and now, for we live in unpredictable times. It was ever thus... more»
-
At night it was light and from the bed in my grandparent's house, I could look through the open curtains to the ocean and watch the midnight sun. more»
-
The embers of a late Autumn. Morning mists, fruitfulness, golden light, wind in my hair... more»
-
An Epiphany sun shone for an hour or so today. And my eye was drawn to wandering dolphins and orcas in the Firth and a weather-beaten fisherman hauling lobster creels onto his rusty fishing boat. There aren't many lobsters about at the moment. The gourmands, dining in London restaurants, will have to do with monkfish. more»
-
The Highland midge is on manoeuvres. A rare Indian summer in Scotland has brought the tiny biters to life again. Like a biblical plague, swarms of them have been landing on unsuspecting and unprotected skin and leaving a memory. more»
-
The sun is setting on Assynt, in the North West corner of Scotland. Orange light warms a cold April... more»
-
This is Camelot, the Isle of Avalon, a place of disappeared kingdoms, myth, intentional well-being, religious and New Age pilgrimage. more»
-
Travelling is in the DNA of most New Zealanders. Over a million of them live overseas and thousands holiday around the world each year. Families love nothing better than packing up the tent, caravan or camper van and hitting the road to enjoy some R and R. If you've got an iconic V Dub, all the better. more»
-
A visitor from New Zealand comes to call and eggs are cooked on a makeshift stove... more»
-
The heavy cries of the swooping seagulls fell silent and a chill crept into the air as the Moon came between us and the Sun. The deep shadow, which formed first in the North Atlantic, swept up into the Arctic and at the North Pole became no more. As the recent solar eclipse reached totality and the irridescent crown of the corona surrounded the sun, words from Pádraig Ó Tuama's poem, In-between the sun and moon came to mind... more»
-
Hilary finds an antidote to unpredictable weather... more»
-
There is something blissfully solitary about train journeys unless you feel minded to share stories with the traveller seated opposite who is, like you, bored with paperback melodramas, texting the world and fleeting fields. more»
-
Youthful midsummers were filled with heady playtimes, swimming with dolphins and dancing with seals, searching for crabs and other sea creatures in rock pools…our footsteps and shadows sending them into hiding. more»