Peace Vigil and March in Manchester, Saturday 23rd September

There will be a peace march on Saturday 23rd September 2006 in Manchester, from 1pm, organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Stop the War Coalition.

Prior to the march there will be a silent peace vigil at 12 noon outside the Manchester Friends' Meeting House in Mount Street. All are welcome.

This will be my first peace march and only my 2nd peace vigil.

I feel it will be an opportunity to collectively share, affirm and bear witness to the testimony of peace and non-violence.

Visit to Telford Mosque

Last Thursday the Telford & Wrekin Interfaith Group (TWIG) had a guided tour of our local Mosque. It was a wonderful experience to have the opportunity to enter the Mosque and listen to the Imam speak to us about the Muslim faith and their practices, and to be able to ask questions. We were then shown around a Muslim after-school club that had recently been set up. It was an uplifting experience to be made to feel so welcome - I palpably felt the warmth and peace that exuded from being able to affirm and bear witness to each others truths. Thank you TWIG and the Telford Mosque.

The next TWIG event will be "Prayer For World Peace", on Thursday October 26th at 7.30pm at Meeting Point House in Telford Town Centre. All are welcome.

A Prayer for Peace

Thursday 21st September was the UN International Day of Peace

A Friend passed this on to me. It is a prayer for the earth, adapted from the Native American Chinook tradition. Thanks Mary!

We call upon the earth, our planet home, with its profound depths and soaring heights, its vitality and abundance of life and together we ask
Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon the mountains, the valleys and the bush, the summits of intense silence, and together we ask
Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon the waters that rim the earth, that flow in our rivers, that fall upon our lands and together we ask
Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon the land which grows our food, the nurturing soil, the fertile fields, the lands we have laid waste and together we ask
Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon the mighty trees and the saplings, reaching strongly to the sky with earth in their roots and heaven in their branches, and together we ask them to
Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon the creatures of the air, the lands and the seas, all those who share our earthly home, and together we ask
Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon all those who have gone before us on this earth, our ancestors and our friends, who dreamed the best for future generations, and upon whose lives our lives are built, and with thanks together we ask
Teach us, and show us the Way.

We hold in our mind future generations, to whom we will bequeath the sum of our actions and intentions, and together we ask
Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon all that we hold most sacred, the presence and power of the Great Spirit of love and truth which flows through the entire Universe, and together we ask
Teach us, and show us the Way.

(May these words benefit us, and all those whom our lives touch.)

Ironmen & Severn Gilders 30th Birthday Weekend

To mark 30 years since the Ironmen & Severn Gilders revived the morris dancing tradition in this part of Shropshire, we organised a special weekend of dance on September 16th & 17th, and 8 different teams from across the country came and joined us. We had a cracking good time, with dancing in Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth and on the Iron Bridge. It was a very special weekend. Here are some photos to give you a flavour of the atmosphere of the weekend:

'Wheal Sophia' dancing in Shrewsbury Square

Windsor Morris dancing in Shrewsbury

'Boojum Rapper' sword dance in Shrewsbury

'Sergeant Musgrave's Dance' performing outside the
Severn Valley Railway in Bridgnorth

Yes! Cool ceilidh band 'Ceilidhography'

Pigsty Morris on the Iron Bridge

The Severn Gilders

The Poynton Jemmers

Wolfshead and Vixen

Gilders and Band

Windsor Morris finish a Cotswold dance in spectacular style

The final dance: Three Jolly Black Sheepskins

Happy Birthday!

For more photos feel free to check out my set on flickr

Mother Dear

... It was not that long ago it first occurred to me,
that my mother was a person in her own right ...

The End of Words

When words fail, there is always Sigur Ros.

But then we have to remember that Sigur Ros have words too.

artwork by cody campbell

Let Us Encircle The World With Light

Quakers from Cumbria and Lancashire are encouraging everyone to "Encircle The World With Light" by lighting a candle every evening from 9 - 10pm as witness to our common humanity

... because it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness ...

"...Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that..." Martin Luther King Jr

Principled and Inspirational Folk: Roy Bailey

Folk Musician Roy Bailey returned the MBE he received for "services to folk music" on the 23rd August in protest over the government's foreign policy, in particular the failure of the UK to call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. I applaud Roy for his actions and his statement - he is a truly principled and inspirational folk hero.

Here is the statement he made:

"AS A LIFE-LONG SUPPORTER OF THE LABOUR PARTY I AM SO APPALLED AT THE GOVERNMENT'S FOREIGN POLICY THAT I HAVE DECIDED TO RETURN THE MBE I WAS AWARDED FOR "SERVICES TO FOLK MUSIC". I CAN THINK OF NO BETTER WAY, LAWFULLY, TO EXPRESS MY HORROR AND OPPOSITION TO OUR FAILURE TO CALL FOR AN IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE IN THE LEBANON AND TO OUR COMPLICITY WITH THE USA'S POLICY OF SUPPORTING ISRAEL'S ACTIONS IN PALESTINE.

TONY BLAIR'S SUPPORT FOR THESE POLICIES IS FOR ME A BETRAYAL OF ALL I TOOK THE LABOUR PARTY TO STAND FOR. THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION ON ALL SIDES AND THE CHAOS IN BOTH IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN IS THE RESULT OF SUCH DECISIONS. THE PARLIAMENTARY PARTY AND THE CONSTITUENCY PARTIES, BY REMAINING SUPPORTIVE OF THESE POLICIES, ARE DISCREDITED AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED.

I AM NOT SO FOOLISH AS TO EXPECT ANY GOVERNMENT TO BE ABLE TO DELIVER ALL ITS MANIFESTO PROMISES. I UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT THAT COMPROMISES HAVE TO BE MADE. HOWEVER, WHEN IT COMES TO WAGING AN ILLEGAL WAR IN IRAQ, THE KILLING OF INNOCENT PEOPLE IN AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ AND NOW, THE LEBANON, I CAN NO LONGER ACCEPT AS AN "HONOUR" A RECOMMENDATION SUPPORTED BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THAT I BE AWARDED THE MBE.

TONY BLAIR INSISTS HIS DECISIONS ARE IN SUPPORT OF DEMOCRACY. WE CANNOT BOMB PEOPLE INTO ACCEPTING DEMOCRACY ANY MORE THAN WE COULD SLAUGHTER PEOPLE INTO ACCEPTING CHRISTIANITY.

I UNDERSTAND MANY PEOPLE WITHIN THE FOLK MUSIC COMMUNITY HAVE APPLAUDED SUCH AWARDS AS A WELCOMED RECOGNITION FOLK MUSIC MAKES TO OUR COMMON CULTURE. I TRUST THEY WILL UNDERSTAND MY REASONS FOR NOW REJECTING AND RETURNING THAT AWARD.

Roy Bailey


I would like to share some fragments from 2 of Roy's songs:

From "I Ain't Afraid", (words by Holly Near - written in response to the rise of religious fundamentalism). Click here to hear a sample from Roy's song.

"...I ain't afraid of your Yahweh
I ain't afraid of your Allah
I ain't afraid of your Jesus
I'm afraid of what you do in the name of your God...

...Rise up to your higher power
Free up from fear, it will devour you
Watch out for the ego of the hour
The ones who say they know it
Are the ones who will impose it on you...

...I ain't afraid of your Bible
I ain't afraid of your Torah
I ain't afraid of your Koran

Don't let the letter of the law
Obsure the spirit of the your love..."



And from "More Than Enough":

"...there's always the money for missiles and tanks
there's always the money for generals and banks

there's always the money for new ways to kill
but a limited budget for you if your ill

yes there's always enough for a war
but there's never enough for the poor...

...consider how little of life that we know
we bring nothing, take nothing, pass through and go

we're all of us poor when it comes to the night
in need of the darkness, in need of the light

if we'd learn to want less and love more
there'd be enough for the poor

if we'd learn to want less and love more
there'd be enough for the poor

'cos there's more than enough for us all..."

Thank you Roy.

I've only seen Roy perform once, at the 2005 Burntwood Folk Festival, where he did 2 wonderful spots with John Kirkpatrick. I look forward to seeing them again on Saturday 4th November 2006 at Hope Village Hall near Minsterley in Shropshire.

"Don't let the letter of the Lord obscure the Spirit of your Love"

That line from Holly Near's song, 'I Aint Afraid', performed so brilliantly by Roy Bailey draws me to Poem XII from 'Last Poems' by A. E. Housman:

The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.

Land meets Sea meets Sky: The Carpenter's Son

During our week in Port Isaac, Cornwall back in July, I looked out and saw three telegraph poles in a corn field on the other side of the small valley. I dwelt upon this view for quite some time, and from it I came to the conclusion that there is unity in creation and that we are not estranged or need reconciling with the world in which we live. We just need to use this gift that may be seen as an "original blessing" to avoid showing indifference to the earth and all life upon it.

'The Carpenter's Son' by A. E. Housman

Here the hangman stops his cart:
Now the best of friends must part.
Fare you well, for ill fare I:
Live, lads, and I will die.

Oh, at home had I but stayed
'Prenticed to my father's trade,
Had I stuck to plane and adze,
I had not been lost, my lads.

Then I might have built perhaps
Gallows-trees for other chaps,
Never dangled on my own,
Had I left but ill alone.

Now, you see, they hang me high,
And the people passing by
Stop to shake their fists and curse;
So 'tis come from ill to worse.

Here hang I, and right and left
Two poor fellows hang for theft:
All the same's the luck we prove,
Though the midmost hangs for love.

Comrades all, that stand and gaze,
Walk henceforth in other ways;
See my neck and save your own:
Comrades all, leave ill alone.

Make some day a decent end,
Shrewder fellows than your friend.
Fare you well, for ill fare I:
Live lads, and I will die.

Land meets Sea meets Sky: The Qualities Of Its Silences

Well summer is gone and the summer heat is dying down. And with it slowly fade specific memories from my small summer travels.

Whilst visiting Cornwall and Snowdonia I walked around many churches, and managed to grab plenty of snatches of quiet time for reflection.

Despite finding these profoundly spiritual and moving places at the time, now, when contemplating my encounter with them retrospectively, one poem comes to mind:

'In Church' by R. S. Thomas.

And this is a difficult, jarring and uncomfortable poem.
And it is meant to be.
And it sits uneasily with the uplifting experience I had of exploring these churches during the long, warm and sweet summer days.

By exploring R. S. Thomas' words I hope to find a way of coming to terms with the prospect of a physically absent and non-interventionist God, to see if it will help me in my struggles of how to relate to

"the presence of absence"

'In Church' by R. S. Thomas

Often I try
To analyse the qualities
Of its silences.

Is this where God hides
From my searching?

I have stopped to listen
After the few people have gone,
To the air recomposing itself
For Vigil.

It has waited like this
Since the stones grouped themselves about it.

These are the hard ribs
Of a body
That our prayers have failed
To animate.

Shadows advance
From their corners
To take possession
Of places
The Light held
For an hour.

The bats resume
Their business.
The uneasiness of the pews
Ceases.

There is no other sound
In the darkness
But the sound of a man
Breathing ...

Testing his faith
On
Emptiness,

Nailing his questions
One
By
Bne
To an untenanted Cross.

Land meets Sea meets Sky: The Tide's Pendulum Truth

At the end of Summer:

'At The End' by R. S. Thomas

Few possessions: a chair,
a table, a bed
to say my prayers by
and, gathered from the shore
the bone-like, crossed sticks
proving that nature
acknowledges the Crucifixion.


All night I am at a window not too small
to be frame to the stars
that are no further off
than the city lights
I have rejected.


By day
the passers-by, who are not
pilgrims, stare through the rain’s
bars, seeing me as prisoner
of the one view, I who
have been made free
by the tide’s pendulum truth
that the heart that is low now
will be at the full tomorrow.

Summoned by Bells

"When the bells justle in the tower
The hollow night amid,
Then on my tongue the taste is sour
Of all I ever did"

A. E. Housman Additional Poems IX

St. Tudy's Church, Cornwall

"From Coventry I went to a place called Atherstone, and when I was two miles off it the bell rang upon a market day for a lecture, and it struck at my life, and I was moved to go to the steeplehouse. And when I came into it I found a man speaking, and as I stood among the people the glory and life shined over all, and with it I was crowned. And when the priest was done I spoke to him and the people the truth and the light which let them see all that ever they had done, and of their teacher within them, and how the Lord was come to teach them himself, and of the Seed Christ in them; how they were to mind that, and the promise that was to the Seed of God within them, which is Christ. And they were generally pretty quiet, only some few raged, and it set them in a hurry and under a rage. Some said I was mad, and spoke to my outward relations to tie me up. And I passed away in peace in the power of the Lord God, and the Truth came over all and reached in the hearts of many people"

from The Journal of George Fox

Beddgelert Church

Eight O'Clock

"He stood, and heard the steeple
Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town.
One, two, three, four, to market-place and people
It tossed them down.

Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour,
He stood and counted them and cursed his luck;
And then the clock collected in the tower
Its strength, and struck."

A. E. Housman Last Poems XV

St. Genny's Church, Cornwall

"Ring them bells, ye heathen
From the city that dreams,
Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
Cross the valleys and streams,
For they're deep and they're wide
And the world's on its side
And time is running backwards
And so is the bride.

Ring them bells St. Peter
Where the four winds blow,
Ring them bells with an iron hand
So the people will know.
Oh it's rush hour now
On the wheel and the plow
And the sun is going down
Upon the sacred cow.

Ring them bells Sweet Martha,
For the poor man's son,
Ring them bells so the world will know
That God is one.
Oh the shepherd is asleep
Where the willows weep
And the mountains are filled
With lost sheep.

Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf,
Ring them bells for all of us who are left,
Ring them bells for the chosen few
Who will judge the many when the game is through.
Ring them bells, for the time that flies,
For the child that cries
When innocence dies.

Ring them bells St. Catherine
From the top of the room,
Ring them from the fortress
For the lilies that bloom.
Oh the lines are long
And the fighting is strong
And they're breaking down the distance
Between right and wrong."

"Ring Them Bells" by Bob Dylan, from 'Oh Mercy'

Drinking from a Spring

"As I went down, on the hill side I found a spring of water and refreshed myself, for I had eaten little and drunk little for several days..."

George Fox on coming down from Pendle Hill

"sweetly doth the water of life flow, and pleasant streams are drunk of those who keep patient in the will of God"

a letter from Richard Hubberthorne to Margaret Fell

"And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams."

from 'Fern Hill' by Dylan Thomas

Shrewsbury Folk Festival

I had a brilliant but exhausting time over the Bank Holiday at the first Shrewsbury Folk Festival with good company, engaging conversation, great beer (especially the Wye Valley 'Butty Bach' and 'Dorothy Goodbody’s Golden Ale'), superb dancing and ace music. Here are some photos to give a flavour of the atmosphere over the weekend:

Camping at the County Cricket Ground

Mark blowing his Didgerydoo

The Oysterband on Saturday night. The last time we saw the Oysterband was a year ago at a concert in the small village of Titley in Herefordshire. The concert was called 'Under The Green Hill'

Eliza Carthy and Ratcatcher, Jon Boden

Mmmmm ... Simon trying a 'Raspberry Zinger' Smoothie

The Tim Van Eyken band performed an amazing set. Check out his MySpace site and make sure you listen to 'Barleycorn' and 'Fair Ellen of Ratcliffe'. The encore 'Twelve Joys of Mary' was simply superb - the sound of Tim's white melodeon is so warm and mellow.

The Urban Gypsies

Festival Atmosphere

Stomping Ceilidh band Mr Gubbins' Bicycle

In terms of our morris dancing, for me the real highlights were the Severn Gilders doing a cracking version of ‘Portland Hill’ to the tune ‘The Galopede’, and the Ironmen’s storming rendition of the ‘Benthall’ Stick Dance to the tune ‘Wind The Bobbin’ Up’ – it felt wonderful! The tunes are still stuck in my head!

The Band were great!

Here we are on Saturday dancing 'Jackie Robinson' in Shrewsbury Square

The Severn Gilders in the dancing arena in Shrewsbury Quarry

There are more photos from the Folk Festival on my flickr page set