Stillness, Fullness, Nothingness & All Things

"John Swinton, who is frequently considered one of the earliest of the Quaker "mystics", may have been the person whose message greatly impressed Robert Barclay at the first meeting he attended.

This message was expressed in an oxymoron which has been passed down through the centuries:

In stillness there is fullness
In fullness there is nothingness
In nothingness there are all things "

(fn. 2 from p. xiv of Barclay's Apology in Modern English)

Meeting Ground

We meet together
On equal terms
On common ground

We share a common ground of being
And help each other carry the load of our silent burdens

A White Feather

Whilst browsing the BBC website today I came across a section of photographs of those who were involved in the Battle of the Somme. It is the 90th anniversary of the Somme - the bloodiest battle of the First World War.

I was particularly moved by this photograph and its caption:

"John Kirkwood, a gunner in the Royal Field Artillery, joined up after being sent a white feather (implying he was a coward). He was killed at the Somme on 26 July, 1916.
Photo: C Cooper"

This just made me think of the words: "a white feather was plucked from the dove of peace"

and made me want to exhale in a whisper that single word:

"Peace"

Seeking Peace In Places of Rest

I had a good couple of days last weekend. Friday was a ‘team-building’ day with my work colleagues, which involved canoeing down the River Severn, having lunch at a pub, and having a steam train ride. Needless to say, being a non-swimmer with irrational apprehensions about canoeing, I didn’t feel able to participate in the aquatic part of the adventure. On Friday evening 7 of us from work decided to camp overnight at a place called Hampton Loade. I started going camping for the first time last year, so I’ve really got the camping bug. And this was my first camping outing of the year. It was a wonderful evening, with great company and great weather. I’ve just got to go camping again sometime soon! I find it frees you from the routines and ties of daily life, heightens my awareness of being-in-the-world, strips away the layers of complexity we have in life, and points towards a fulfilling sense of simplicity.

We packed up on Saturday morning and went our separate ways. I decided to stay put for a while. I walked up the lane to Hampton Loade Station (a preserved station on the Severn Valley Steam Railway). Hampton Loade is a very special place for me. I am a crazy steam train fanatic – and for the last 25 years I have been coming to Hampton Loade at least once a year to watch the steam trains go by! Over the years I have got to know this place well, it is where I have come to feel at home, and where I can cultivate a sense and spirit of place.

On the platform of Hampton Loade Station looking towards Bridgnorth

"...People on the platforms, waiting for the trains,
I can hear their hearts beatin', like pendulums swingin' on chains..."
from 'Trying to Get to Heaven' by Bob Dylan

I decided to take a ride on the train to the town of Bewdley and back. I had over an hour to wait before my train came, so I had a slow wander around and sat on a bench, soaked up the June sun and the quiet and gently unhurried atmosphere that Hampton Loade exudes. Railway Stations are in-between places – on the margin, in transition, they are both starting points and destinations, perpetual places where journeys begin, end and continue. They are places of temporary rest, where thoughts are often on ‘elsewhere’, rather than the spontaneity of the ‘here and now’.

I got the 11.27 train, hauled by Great Western Railway Locomotive ‘Bradley Manor’

I alighted at Bewdley, had a spot of lunch and decided to walk round the town. There was one place in particular I wanted to find - you guessed it - Bewdley Friends Meeting House! I didn’t know exactly where it was. After some aimless wandering around (something that I do so much that I’ve almost perfected it into an art) I found it!

Being a Saturday the Meeting House was locked.
I had a walk around the small and quiet grounds. I stood in the sun.
I stood in the cooling shade of some trees.

My eyes traced out the names on the headstones.
I sat on a bench for a while. I listened to a Chaffinch singing.
I sought some peace in this place of rest.

Bewdley Friends Meeting House.
Quakers have been meeting here since 1691

“…teach me the love that is evergreen after the fall-leaved grave, after “Beloved” on the grass-gulfed cross is scrubbed off by the sun…”
Dylan Thomas

This is when things start to break down for me. When words and names are gone, how will we remember? How will we be taught unconditional love? How will be assured that that this love will persist after the leaves fall and decay and our season ends, when our lived reality situates, constrains and plants us in a specific time, place, 'culture' and 'tradition'? When nothing physical, material or outward is left, when the mountains and temples have crumbled into the sea, what can we do but turn inwards, in spirit and truth, hoping to be gently held by that which is eternal and immutable? How do I translate and respond to that dull, anxious and nervous ache that I persistently feel in my chest?

"...But here, true to my name
I have nothing to hold onto
an absence so much richer than a presence
offering instead of the skull's leer
an impalpable possibility
for faith's doubting fingertips to explore..."

from 'Easter' by R. S. Thomas

Spout Pool

I wasn’t very hungry this lunchtime, so went and sat on a bench by Spout Pool. I listened to my MP3 Player (Sufjan Stevens, whom I have recently discovered – unbelievably moving music, and amazingly tender banjo playing – I love it). I also opened my post from this morning – a newsletter from the Fairtrade Foundation - including a great recipe for 'Mango & Avocado Salad, with sticky Balsamic Vinegar' - something I really want to try, not least because I've never ever eaten avocado before - I know I haven't lived!). Also, the latest issue of New Internationalist came in the post. What a great magazine - it is run as a worker's co-operative and is well worth the subscription. This issue investigates the effectiveness of programmes to offset carbon as a means to ensure there is Climate Justice – really thought-provoking.

The time has come to wind-up my recent season of quotations from the poetry of A. E. Housman. AEH is such a great poet. I’m a member of the Housman Society and have fond memories of giving poetry readings a couple of years ago at the remains of the Roman City at Wroxeter (Viroconium) in Shropshire.

Spout Pool - spot the Moorhen about to jump into the water.

"...What the water wants is hurricanes, and sailboats to ride on its back.
What the water wants is sun kiss, and land to run into and back..."

This lunchtime my eyes gazed upon the surface of the pool and the water rippled as a Moorhen moved among the water lillies. Some of AEH’s words came to mind - it made me smile in affirmation - I finish with Poem XX from ‘A Shropshire Lad’:

“…Oh fair enough are sky and plain,
But I know fairer far:
Those are as beautiful again
That in the water are;

The pools and rivers wash so clean
The trees and clouds and air,
The like on earth was never seen,
And oh that I were there.

These are the thoughts I often think
As I stand gazing down
In act upon the cressy brink
To strip and dive and drown;

But in the golden-sanded brooks
And azure meres I spy
A silly lad that longs and looks
And wishes he were I…”

wood engraving by Agnes Miller Parker

Thinking "...In Quotations..."

I seem to continually think "...in quotations and speech marks..."

As if I have a hypothetical perspective on life, whereby I rely on others to speak on my behalf ...

My mind is full of:

quotes / anecdotes / puns / lyrics / other junk

the fragments of which I often use completely out of context ...

But sometimes, my interactions and experiences of:

people / places / artefacts / music / poetry / &c. &c.

remind me of / conjour up / bring to the surface

these scraps of quotations and useless pieces of information.

And, for me, they do occasionally coalesce and weave themselves together to point toward some kind of meaning.

Drinking the June Sun

Friends, it’s hot, and I’m thirsty …

“…It’s summer now and it’s hot
and the sweat pours out,
and the air is the same as my body
and I breathe my body inside out…”

from ‘Running the Loping’ by Smog

I’d just like to share a couple of things. If there had been a Meeting for Worship today and perhaps if I had found the inner courage to overcome my own inadequacies I might have felt prompted to share some of the following rather disjointed feelings that have emerged today:

The hot June sun is creating and powering a season of spiritual healing, discovery and growth. But the heat and light also brings about thirst.

I know it is a well trodden and tired analogy, but I find it helpful to think of

sitting
in stillness,
in our circle,
in expectant waiting,
imagining that it like sitting around a Well.
and we are offering one another a drink,
and nobody is turned away
and we are spiritually quenched
and nobody goes thirsty

A couple of fragments from Robert Barclay on the experience of silent worship:

“As it prevails in every individual, it becomes like a flood of refreshment and extends over the whole meeting”

“The faithful person … is like a pump which brings up water by the bucketful when it has been primed with a cup or two. The useless wandering of the imagination is discontinued and the life becomes raised in all. Those who have been helped are aware that such a person has ministered life to them without words.”

“Each one partakes not only of the particular strength and refreshment which comes from the good in themselves, but shares with that of the whole body. Being a living member of the whole body, there is joint fellowship and communion with all.”

The June sun and the thirst to drink water – these are 2 themes that A. E. Housman uses in Poem XXII from his collection ‘More Poems’:

“…Ho, everyone that thirsteth
And hath the price to give,
Come to the stolen waters,
Drink and your soul shall live.

Come to the stolen waters,
And leap the guarded pale,
And pull the flower in season
Before desire shall fail.

It shall not last for ever,
No more than earth and skies;
But he that drinks in season
Shall live before he dies.

June suns, you cannot store them
To warm the winter's cold,
The lad that hopes for heaven
Shall fill his mouth with mould…”

Housman’s call is stark – our time is short, we must act with immediacy and urgency while we can, we must avoid the missed opportunity, before our season ends. But from the despondency of the reality of human mortality and the hoping for heaven, there is the palpable possibility of life before death for others and ourselves. From the well-spring of an inward peace and an immersion in outward practical action there is perhaps the brimming potential of drawing-up a new and transformed lived existence, that can be experienced now, in this life.

“…’Tis late to harken, late to smile,
But better late than never:
I shall have lived a little while
Before I die for ever…”

Poem LVII from 'A Shropshire Lad' by A. E. Housman

So … ‘seize the day!’ and ‘make hay while the sun shines!’

I would do well if I took heed of my own advice!

“…all we need is here on earth
(just about every other day)…”

from ‘Running the Loping’ by Smog

A View from the Bridge

In the midst of all the activity on the Iron Bridge on Thursday evening I still managed to catch a couple of moments of stillness, quiet and reflection. I took a couple of shots of different views around and about. I still wonder what Abraham Darby III would make of a Quaker morris dancing on his bridge!

Ribs of cast iron and sunlight

The view of the bridge from the Tollhouse looking towards
the Tontine Hotel and St. Luke's Church on the hill

An unusual snatched glimpse of the Iron Bridge through roofs
and chimney pots from the Jackfield side of the River Severn

The iron railings, the river, the gorge and the
haze of the summer evening sun


For some reason this photo reminds me of the quote:

“Two men look out of the same prison bars;
one sees the mud and the other the stars”

A Summer Evening on the Iron Bridge

The first day of June, and a summer evening dance-out on the Iron Bridge in Shropshire. The Ironmen & Severn Gilders (who I dance with) were delighted to play host to the Adelaide Morris Men who were on tour in the UK all the way from Australia! It was our fourth time on the bridge since Christmas, but our first evening dance-out this year, and it was so atmospheric - with a warm and bright sun it really felt like summer was finally here.

Dancing on the Iron Bridge -
with the Adelaide Morris Men performing a stick dance

The Adelaide Morris Men doing a hankerchief dance.

... guitars, drums, accordians ...

... tambourines ...

... Saxophones, Melodeons ...
the band accompanying the Ironmen & Severn Gilders

The Adelaide Morris Men dance in the 'Cotswold' Morris tradition

The Severn Gilders dance in the 'North-West' Morris tradition

In flight

Following a wonderful (and tiring) hour of dancing on the Iron Bridge we sojourned to a nearby hostelry - 'Ye Olde Robin Hood Inn' a little further up the Ironbridge Gorge (which is our Morris team's local pub after Monday night practice) - for refreshment, good conversation and some more dancing.

Mmmm ... Holden's Beers - they do a mean pint of 'Bottom Knocker'

The Ironmen doing the 'Fiddler Lock's Willy' stick dance at the Robin Hood pub.
We dance in the 'Welsh Border' Morris tradition. The New Bridge
over the River Severn is in the background

The Adelaide Morris Men performing individual hankerchief jigs

It was great to meet our Australian friends - and share an evening of English traditional dance.