grateful

So little left of 2021, and yet so much achieved and shared!

I am grateful to your support throughout another challenging year driven by the imperative of a terrifying bug that keeps animating the human world…

Grateful to those who have given the poet’s work an extraordinary platform that has reached far further afield than expected – they know who they are, and let it be some of the those magic stepping stones to greater things.

Grateful to our planet for homing the woman in such extraordinary surroundings, as survival has remained de rigueur.

Grateful to my angels, whether on Earth or in the sky.

As our homeworld rotates with grace towards the dawn of a new year, I, like you, live in hope. Hope we can eventually free ourselves from this new form of biological terrorism; hope we can come to our senses (as a species) and start to look at ourselves as a wiser community coming to terms with our own paradox and allow both ourselves and our future generations to continue striving on Earth in a less demanding manner, and with so much more respect towards Mother Nature.

I am grateful to each sunrise glowing into my eyes – each turn of tide, seasonal return of our migrating avifauna and marine fauna.

I am grateful to be alive and walk the shore – marvel at the abundance and beauty of life. I am a mere visitor as the rest of the animal and vegetal kingdom. And yet, with so much joy I celebrate it all with either a pen or pixels…

Today, I once roamed the southern part of the island, and stopped to watch and wish – wish for a brighter chapter ahead.

Captured time capsules of the wild in my “little black box” and pray the island continues to home this sanctuary of life.

Strangely, some of our mudflats are currently homing species that should winter so far away from us… A sign of deregulation, change from our natural world. An unknown omen.

I can only hope for harmony to continue in the great cycle of life, and I wish for human wisdom to override that current state of selfishness.

I want to believe we can achieve this and more.

We owe it to the balance of life – that of the vegetal and animal kingdom to which we belong.

I am grateful to each and everyone involved in protecting our homeworld. If we too are adding our own stones to this great edifice, and are prepared to accept changes in our lifestyles, our efforts and resilience will pay off.

As I am striving to start assembling a new collection of poetry during Yuletide and ritual of passage to a New Year, let me wish each and everyone the very best for 2022 – good health (first) light & love, daily joys and happiness.

Life is short, precious and unique for each one of us. I, like you, am deeply grateful for it.

Let’s see what the New Year brings .

Namaste fae 60N 🌿✨

Wheeled to Life

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Hours away.

So far away from its power, and yet mighty for just hours, as night reigns as an empress. We are reaching the longest night as Yule prevails.

Yesterday’s walk around da voe, this inlet of water where birds and selkies venture for survival looked so magic at the golden hour.

Tis like a dream.

As long as light warms rocks and kelp uprooted by the latest storm, starlings and shore birds feast like kings.

Tis just magic.

They all fly in. Our homeworld feels so generous in such harsh times.

Within hours, gold turns purple as our star vanishes so fast.

Tis now the time for da haigrie to fish at dusk.

I watched it wade and stand solemn like a statue; a sudden flick of eyes and neck as it scanned all around its world in search of prey…

Then went the catch.

Night creeps too fast. Just around 4, p.m. that is… I had to rekindle head beams to trek back home.

Another day just gone to rust… Wheeled inside life and realm of death, Yule celebrates every lost soul. Time to reconvene with spirits, night, candle light so precious feels life of us all.

Tonight, my heart back in each voe where life is tied to ebbing tides; where selkies find respite out on boulders…

Tomorrow we cross the solstice, as mid-winter settles at last.

I hear the return of the snow, the longest night and the sweet smell of cinnamon inside my home.

Tis that moment when I reconvene with angels; freedom to wander through my world, in my own time and place.

Happy Yuletide to each and all!

Hame

This place on Earth and in my heart where I belong, because my senses say it so, has recovered seasonal white, or even bluish icicles now we stand so far from the sun.

And yet shorter days can shine.

This morning, I’m waking up to a hot bowl of porridge whilst the cabin heats up a bit. If my duck down quilt kept human and cat warm whilst the temperature plummeted below what can be read on room thermometers, that polar wind from Arctic Tromsø is still blasting…  Tis the realm of Yule encroaching on my Nordic world.

Yule, the festive time as we come to a halt – light candles on window sills or on chimney mantlepieces… Share a table free from the pressure of time, tokens of love and marvel at the starry sky from the back steps of our own home.

My bowl of porridge cooled too fast.

This little light we cling onto as darkness vanishes juist a few hours to let our star hover below 10 degrees of elevation either in a shameless crystalline sky (or sometimes in a halo that fills a light metallic sky) feels so precious. Tis the moment to wander through mires an braes (mossy areas of fields or meadows and hillsides) and reconvene with our own bays bathing in light.

How I love walking to the sea.

It fills my heart with happiness, this inner peace that has no price. Tis this moment when we reconnect with the higher self, the child within eager to reach edge of the most magical world.

Because it really is magical!

The blue of sky and horizon so inviting, the playful selkie (seal) inside kelp – the gentleness of water flirting with pebbles as tide retreats at a slow pace… Our Earth’s rhythm allows it all.

All around us, what looks barren and just dormant under snowflakes will wake again in a few months. Yet, for now, my whole world shines in blue and white. As as snow melts on higher grounds, wir local burn swells and runs down to the sea. Cycle of water, source of life.

Late.

Our first snow came late this autumn, not till the end of November. Mother Earth has her own agenda. Unusually warm, Hairst (autumn) felt a long Indian summer… Only to vanish inside flying gales the island knows at this time of year. We brace ourselves for the season of bleaker times.

First snow feels a welcoming sign winter with its palette of own colours has its own grip on us.

First snow invites us to get out and reconnect with Mother Earth, Nature and life we can take so much for granted… Blessed with the place that holds so many treasures, the call of the wild is strong.

First snow has come and gone, yet each return of icicles draw us so closer to the magic of Yule. My heart rejoices at each furtive appearance from our boreal sun. Today, it is shining in a glacial NE wind, and as the cabin warms slowly, I will make my trek out, refill my heart and let da bairn inside to reconnect with the natural world. It feels my shield against the artificial world – that manmade realm shackled to the material, where gold prevails above sand grains, shells and pebbles.

My island is my treasure chest.