Passionate lovers,
These winter and spring days.
March and April,
How they so
Tear at each other, caress
With smiles,
Fall together,
Push apart, preen,
Rush oblivion and break
As waves at high tide
On each other’s panting flesh.
Rain
Seeds dashed,
Rainbows unfurl,
Sudden sun, dark squall,
A mating in time and space,
Conjunction of contraries.
—
Moon worn thin
High north wind
Spring thaw.
—
Half a moon
Ice in the river
Slowly melting.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged april, Haiku, landscape, March, moon, nature, Poetry, rainbows, spring, storm, weather | 2 Comments »
KEY TEN
(Glen Mor and the Ard Ri n’a Sidhe, Mull)
“We shall give to you here
The skill of the Song of the Land.
Words of silver,
Words of gold.
Sweet gale and honey
On the tongue tip.
The melancholy of the curlew
And the lapwing.
The smooth stream of the blackbird;
The harsh heart of the eagle.
For you are only human –
Life as sweet as the scent of violets
And then gone.”
—-
Here, then, is the last of the Ten Keys to the Green Kingdoms and the words that discover their essence. Collecting environmental and subtle energy essences can be an uncertain thing. One can doubt the veracity of what is perceived, of what images and thoughts pass in front of consciousness. We knew the island of Mull still retained a sentient link to the Fairy Kingdoms, once felt throughout Britain, now rarely encountered or paid attention to. These words formed and seemed to me to emanate from high in the hierarchy of the Secret Commonwealth, the Otherworld realms. Delusion is easy for humans, however. I wished that I could be shown some veracity of the intent and content of the words. Immediately thereafter, as I was gazing out from the coach window, a grey heron flew close alongside us, keeping pace with the vehicle. Those who know, know the heron as a significant messenger of the Hidden Kingdoms. These things happen, likely or not. The Green Kingdoms underlie all levels of landscape, history, myth, psyche. They are the dreaming of the world. Those who might have been touched somehow by one or more Key may like to look at using the essence as a spiritual nutrient. Please go to http://greenmanshop.co.uk
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, being human, eloquence, essence, Glen Mor, High King of the Sidhe, immanence, immortality, inspiration, Keys to the Green Kingdoms, mortality, Mull, myth, noosphere, Otherworlds, Poetry, Scotland, the numinous | Leave a Comment »
KEY NINE
(Undines)
“Your science of rigidities
Are lies of the fearful.
We, here, are void and free.
Infinite, immortal flow.
Limitless, deathless
Tuned, turning tides,
Roaring silence.
Impossible song
None can forget.
Escape you frozen fears,
Melt,
Meander.
You are, anyway,
Made vessels for our fierce bliss.
Flow,
Willing.
Let go.
Find us,
Void and free.”
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, belonging, consciousness, environment, essence of being, Faerie kingdoms, flow, Freedom, identity, Iona, Keys to the Green Kingdoms, landscape, liminal doorways, liquidity, Mull, Otherworlds, Poetry, Scotland, transformative, undines, water, water spirits, waves | Leave a Comment »
KEY EIGHT
(Iona)
The heart beats
Then it stops
Then it starts again.
How strange!
The eye that is
The organ of understanding
Is the well
From which fall tears.
Storm clouds rush in,
Salt on the air.
Amongst the leaves
A thrush singing:
Listen, listen, listen to me.
Beauty, beauty, beauty.
No heart can overtake
The long passages of time.
Beauty dissolves.
Kings, saints, seasons, tides
All vanish, vanish
Into the hollow hills.
The hollow hills
Will vanish into the sea
And sunset.
The eye
Forever bathed in tears,
The heart that starts
And stops –
The thrushes song.
The clouds
Pass over:
Sunlight
On the mounds of the dead,
Dancing with the eternal dancers.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, birdsong, burial ground, elegy, ephemeral, essence, holy ground, Iona, Keys to the Green Kingdoms, landscape, light, memory, passing, Poetry, sacred island, saints, Scotland, the ineffable, the numinous, weather, Western Isles | Leave a Comment »
KEY SEVEN
(Faerie Travellers)
Cap of invisibility,
Cap of indivisibility.
From whence do the elements separate?
From the instant of central balance.
From what flows the certainty of form?
From the heartbeat between what was
And what will be.
At the corner of sight:
Eyeblink or distant lightning?
What you know will blind you.
The oldest foundations are no longer in sight.
The ancestors watch this world,
All have names, sing their genealogy,
Have woven you.
Sink into the weave,
The world wears you.
Wear yourself lightly
Leaving no footprints.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ancestors, biophilia, convocation, ecology, fairy hitch-hikers, ferry, identity, Inner Hebrides, Keys to the Green Kingdoms essences, landscapes, Scotland, symbiosis, the invisible, the Sidhe, timeless time | 8 Comments »
PERCEPT
Moving towards silence
A step of attenuation
A lessening and an expansion
As when
Rain begins
At the edges of woodland:
A green cooling,
A descent of,
A coalescence.
The slowing breath
An evaporation of thought,
Of need,
A taste of solicitous solitude,
Space to merge
Within and without.
A new flame lit,
Passing from, out of,
Into, transparency,
Veils parted, reformed.
Lands laid out
Slowly travelled,
A shadow of sunlight
And cloud.
The sound of a small stream
Hidden amongst grassesPERCEPT
Moving towards silence
A step of attenuation
A lessening and an expansion
As when
Rain begins
At the edges of woodland:
A green cooling,
A descent of,
A coalescence.
The slowing breath
An evaporation of thought,
Of need,
A taste of solicitous solitude,
Space to merge
Within and without.
A new flame lit,
Passing from, out of,
Into, transparency,
Veils parted, reformed.
Lands laid out
Slowly travelled,
A shadow of sunlight
And cloud.
The sound of a small stream
Hidden amongst grasses.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ambience, art, change, landscape, movement, nature, placement, Poetry, searching, silence, Sound | Leave a Comment »
KEY SIX
(Sheaval, Barra)
To bring us home safe
She waits upon the hillside.
To bring us home safe –
Old roads straight worn
From loch to lochan.
The cry of seagulls
From the land
Lost in mists.
Bell.
Chalice.
Cloud.
Watcher.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ambience, art, Barra, bay, bell tower, guardians, harbour, hidden path, hills, Home, landscape, mist, Otherworlds, Poetry, protectors, return, roads, Scotland, the numinous, ways, Western Isles | Leave a Comment »
KEY FIVE
(Beinn Sguraval, Barra)
Mountain wearing a cloak of flowers.
Grey door.
See in new ways:
Relax, allow your sight.
Where your attention flows,
There is a doorway.
Veils of rain
Thousand primroses
Wonderful!
Melt meanings,
Dissolve barriers.
Music is the ordering of silence.
See with your heart.
Nothing is hidden but in clear view.
You yourself are the key.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ambience, ambient art, art, Barra, Fairy Kingdoms, flowers, hidden doorways, landscape, meadow, mountain, myth, Otherworlds, perception, Poetry, the numinous, Western Isles | 2 Comments »
KEY FOUR
(St. Columba’s Well, Barra)
At the green knees of Beinn Tangaval:
Little cave,
Stream of inspiration.
White dove,
Among the wind and weathered rock
Orchid, lousewort and asphodel,
secret and safe.
In the bay:
Turquoise and violet waters,
Arc of sand.
On the lochside shore
White feather on the air.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ambient art, art, Barra, Celtic druid saint, Columba, essence, faith, grace, immanence, inspiration, Keys to the Green Kingdoms, landscape, mythic, numinous, Otherworlds, Poetry, Scotland, spring | Leave a Comment »
KEY THREE
(St. Brendan’s Chapel, Barra)
Nowhere nearer
The Isles of the Blest,
The dead gather together,
Warrior and child.
Coaxed by a hand of hills
The land launched
Into silver sunset ocean.
Go on, you can do it.
It will be alright,
Wonders await you…
The voyage into mystery
Stepping stones to heaven.
Eternal islands,
Eternal seas.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ambient art, art, Barra, biophilia, doors, essence, folklore, guidance, history, Isles of the Blest, keys, Keys to the Green Kingdoms, landscape, mythic, Otherworld, Outer Hebrides, passages, Poetry, saints, Sidhe, soul healing, sunset, the dead, the numinous, Tir na n'Og, transformation, transition, travelling west | 4 Comments »
