MaW session 24th August 2021

 

The sun stole a few of our writers away today leaving us with a smaller, cosier group.

Adrienne introduced her "Noticing the content of the undercurrent" practice with a  poem "Well of Grief" by David Whyte 

Bev took a writing prompt from the poem "Shore Leave" by Charles Causley:

 

but I hasten away

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And now for some of 

YOUR WRITING:

INVISIBLE

by Karen Ewing

Our telephone rings, but I choose not to answer

Knowing you will reach for it before the third ring,

I know the news already.

The chaotic dialogue of Orderly, Manager

And an anguished son, estranged by mile upon mile of motorway.

Against the invisible background she weeps.

A tax payer all her life,

Never a burden,

Reduced to this.

Entombed in a failing hospital bed,

More dishonest than her failing eyesight.

Why now? Why me?

I’m ninety-three for Heaven’s sake.

Deep within this noisy, post pandemic ridden ward

With its odourless food,

The one sense she can never recover is her sight.

I close the door on their conversation 

Riddled with anger and disappointment and fear.

“Capacity - we have no capacity today, Sir

No capacity to discharge your mother home today.”

Another day we will never recover.

And still she weeps silently into our telephone.

Shore Leave

by Doreen Kelly

I have been chosen for shore leave this evening. Oh what will the others think? In the depths of the darkness I cower not sure if I'm good enough. Am I strong enough? Am I good enough? Am I the correct size and shape to fit into our mosaic to join the wishy washy dance? But I hasten to do my bit as even shore leave needs all to do their bit. Away we hasten towards the rising moon, away from the unfaithful ocean toward the siren of the shore. Goal achieved, peace follows as shinge rolls, rearranges and forms anew. In that moment I looked up and observed a goddess at peace yet awesome. Statuesque in the moonlight. I tiptoe away hoping not to be the cause of her stirring. Please don't let the mirror shatter on my account.  

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Thanks to you all ...

... for your heartening feedback as always!

Kay: wonderful thanks kx

Giovanna: “before you glimpse beneath the surface of my skin and ask” I love this Cath

Catrice: “Memories like unstirred dirt”

Giovanna: ALL OF THAT KAY!!!

Catrice: “What scribble of my pen, would be worth the read” — so honest and poignant!

Catrice: “This shrug of ailing earth”

Giovanna: “touch the body, smooth cotton skin”

Kay: thankyou everyone   a wonderful session  kx

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Thanks to funders

Lapidus Scotland gratefully acknowledges the support of Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership's "Wellbeing for Longer in Glasgow Fund" (managed by Impact Funding Partners).

MaW session 10th August 2021

Today Adrienne introduced her senses practice with a poem "The Road" by Kenneth Steven.

Bev took a writing prompt from the poem The Way it Is by William Stafford:

there’s a thread you follow

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And now for some of 

YOUR WRITING:

Thread

by Bonbon

I wake up every single morning with a joy to be alive

I wander around MY world with my wonderfully happy dog, he’s just padding and bouncing beside me 

I engage with almost everyone in my path even just with a nod or a smile or an hour long conversation

I sometimes give - I sometimes receive

When I listen I hear so much pain, grief, sadness and tremendous confusion and turmoil

Strangers we are - yet we open up and reveal so much of ourselves

Just in one day , the thread of me is weaving in and around people I may never meet again

Our threads have criss-crossed but never tangle 

We’ve woven a beautiful fabric together, all shapes and sizes, but always large enough for us to take something away

In parting ways - I wander on - somehow my thread feels stronger

There is a thread to follow (to Sutherland)

 by Joyce Nicholson

The road north, north north and west,

landing in home, where I have never lived,

but deep down, in the thick threads of being, connecting ancient memory.

Here among the peat bogs and waterlied lochans

I find the start and end of my threads in this world,

Three billion years of geoshifting thrust beaches on top of mountains

and left the bones of lynx, polar and brown bears in limestone caves.

The majesties of Suilven, Canisp and Quinag sharply slope to gaping white wild beaches

where, just before jagged cliffs lie two heroes of ours holding us closely with their threads of peaceful praxis, ever alive. 

I'm following my heart

by Karen Ewing

I'm following my heart.

I've grown accustomed to the quiet stirrings of nature,

And birdsong,

And wildlife

Here, in my magical nature park.

I remain free to choose

Who I see,

Who I visit,

Who I invite to my new home.

I learn to care less about offending, more about the necessity of solace.

I am in control,

I am steering this ship which occasionally tries to throw me overboard.

I have no need for endless chitter chatter, and gossip, and white noise -

The whisper of my new life, my newfound self beckons.

It is enough.

And I relish the peace which comes from knowledge,

And writing,

And listening,

And breathing.

Solitary rules!

Although I have some need for company

Now it is measured, precious, timely

And when the clock pauses and the conversation stops,

I return to my other life -

My life of wild swans,

Leafy lanes and

Frothing streams.

The Mill where the reed beds churn, and fold, and float away upstream

Into the future.

My thread of new life,

Newly lived in the dawn of another day,

I am breathing in my future.

‘there’s a thread you follow’ (William Stafford)

by Britt Doughty-Godchaux

It pops out of something you’re wearing

the thread. Maybe it’s an old jumper or

a sock as you bend to pick something else up

off the floor. That thread is you. 

It is the you you forgot. It’s the you

you forgot when you were trying to figure

out who to be. 

You pick it free, and unfurling before you

is that person past. The one with

sharp corners, tactless responses, 

clearer vision. 

It’s like that jumper or sock from

where the thread emerged came itself

from a box in the attic with a

hinged lid pinned down with lifetimes of

dust. 

You are that treasure inside. 

You were waiting there for you to find you.

And now that you have, 

what will you do?

untitiled

by Doreen Kelly

There's a thread you follow that weaves through the different colours and textures of our homes. Following it as it runs through hopes and fears you flow through your life. A shaper stronger needle is used to guide a double strand out of the front door and into the community. The thread stubbornly binds together hatred and love, the needle stabs and tugs the double strand of cotton through grass and pavement, unthinkingly the artisan binds justice and injustice together.

You follow as the cotton cuts into your ever so sensitive hands, sharing the suffering you are not watching from a distance. 

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Thanks to you all ...

... for your heartening feedback as always!

Annan: I’m aware of how my body is more sensitive to others stress when I allow myself to open and be aware.

Annan: My protective self wants to engage when I hear of death and ambulances, and this is how I shut down in day to day life. How to be open and not take in others pain? Or is it ok to let the pain in and pass through me?

Catherine: sorry for being so late, didnt realise the time

Bev: there’s a thread you follow

Giovanna: Hi all, sorry I’m late. Can anyone tell me the prompt? thank you!

Amber: there’s a thread you follow

Giovanna: Thanks Amber

Giovanna: “the shark in me” I want to have that framed!

Amber: Thank you for sharing your experience Karen and Bev. Very current and useful for me to hear.

Britt: Karen, could you please write your poem out (whether this vision or the next or the next) as I think I might need to refer back to it in future. Thank you!

Giovanna: So glad I made the last hour, so many brilliant words here, thanks averyone

Amber: Really wonderful to hear from everyone who spoke this evening. Plenty of resonance on topics in my life and food for thought

Annan: Thanks everyone. Your words and honesty inspire me and call upon my higher self.

Karen: Such a powerful session. Thanks everyone, God Bless xx

Nichole: Thank you, take care everyone

Catrice: Thank you for this class.  Much appreciated.

Joyce: thankyou what nourishment

 

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Thanks to funders

Lapidus Scotland gratefully acknowledges the support of Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership via the Wellbeing for Longer in Glasgow Fund managed by Impact Funding Partners

MaW session 3rd August 2021

 

Today's mindfulness practice was Loving Kindness and Adrienne introduced it with the poem "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye.

 Bev introduced the writing sessions with  ~ "Revenant" by David Donnison

long gone though you are

or

your kindness is

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And now for some of 

YOUR WRITING:

Your Kindness is…

by Joyce Nicholson

 

Your kindness is a safe refuge

among violent recurrent storms and even calmer peaceful days,

your kindness is the lightest of loves, lip curling and nurturing holding,

your kindness is a solidarity to me and all beings, an equanimity of love,

kindness is the most powerful essence of hope and transformation.

Metta to all beings, regardless of the place you were born, where you travelled from to get ‘here’,

or what mother tongue was geid to you,

Metta to you regardless of the house you live in or the street you lie down in to sleep, the clothes you wear or the work you do, 

Metta to you regardless if you eat too many carbs, indulge in ‘the drink’ or inject crack and heroin into your arm or groin,

love and solidarity to all beings, transforming our hearts and minds, that is what your kindness is. 

inspired by David Donnison’s ‘Revenant’

by Kay Ritchie

 

In primary 1

I was the one who tied boys’ shoelaces, read The Secret Seven to the class.  Perhaps that was why Miss Haggart, renowned harridan, now long gone, showed patience when I wrote with the wrong hand, left instead of the right, wrote my letters back to front.

She didn’t rap my fingers with a ruler.  She didn’t tie my hand behind my back, although she terrified our mothers, terrorised the boys.

But looking back I realise that she was of that generation who’d lost fathers, brothers, lovers, to the war, were traumatised, numbed and often hard as rock.

So I consider her indulgence at my cack-handed copperplate a kindness, a sort of love & I appreciate.

On our anniversary

by Annan Paterson Hansen

Your kindness is

the thing my father 

read about before we

said our vows.

How could we imagine

that sweetness could

grow sour with days

of disappointment?

Now we lie together,

face to face.

I say “I’m sorry” and 

you say “I’m broken”.

Forgiving and healing

through these years

of love and pain,

we are transformed,

so that even if we 

head now towards 

the great unknown,

alone and afraid,

we hold hands

as companions of mystery.

The grateful understanding

of thirty eight years.

Long gone though you are

by Doreen Kelly

Long gone though you are, your assurance still lingers. As long as I breathe on this Earth your influence can never be banished. Your different view of the world and the questions you dared to voice opened my mind. The world may have been telling me that my differences were wrong, a problem and a source of shame that required to be hidden deeply away from society. You acknowledged it all and never questioned my experiences and interpretations. What you did question was whether THEY are, were and could be correct?

      Friends may have been hard to come by elsewhere but your ironclad assurance sent me back to my everyday world stronger and more resilient. In these days of social media I learned that throughout these twenty odd years our loving kindnesses have seen us sitting on our immoveable rocks gazing towards each other throughout our late teens and young adulthood. We were separated by arguments and dogmas that we probably didn't fully know or understand. A brother's, mother's and sister's actions threw up walls that we had no technology to help us climb back then.

prompt: long gone that you are (David Donnison)

by Britt Doughty-Godchaux

Is it bizarre that I know you’re going 

long before you’ve gone? 

Is it bizarre to imagine your memories

even as we make them?

Can the present be bittersweet and missed

even as I sit steady in your gaze?

These are the things of flesh, of flesh

leaving as it holds souls near. 

These lips and hands will not stay

even if they are not parted. 

How do I hold you close knowing

the holding is foolish?

(Although it’s also all I can do.)

These koans of this lifetime

these thousand meals at this table

these moments caught or forgottenn

they are life. 

Until they are something else.

The things unknowable beyond. 

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Thanks to you all ...

... for your heartening feedback as always!

Joyce: thankyou xxx

Kay: such a lovely exercise   thankyou kx

Catrice: I feel so lucky to be part of this beautiful community. This series is part of my own personal self-care.  Thank you. 💚

Susan: sending everyone everykindness

Adrienne: ❤️

Bev: long gone though you are or your kindness is

Bex: Thank you all for sharing your time tonight. I'm slipping away just now but look forward to seeing you next week xx

Giovanna: I completely agree with that CArth

Britt: I love that line 'companions of mystery'. Amazing.

Giovanna: “traumatised, and numb and often rock hard”

Britt: Agree. I know too many who are rock hard from their losses.

Giovanna: “your kindness is the lightest love”

Doreen: I loved the rhythm of that Helen

Britt: Agree, Doreen!! And it is so interesting that we keep dinosaur bones around and visit them and ignore death. I never thoughts about it.

Britt: Thanks for sharing that, Doreen...

Helen: Thanks Doreen,,,brave to share and great that you have reconnected

Helen: brilliant last line

Joyce: wonderful Kate thankyou xxx

Britt: I'd love to read that again.

Doreen: That was amazing, Amber

Helen: fabulous tribute, he sounds a very special person

Amber: that made my hair stand on end

Catrice: From my children’s laugh-loud lips — Love that line!

Helen: blown away

Doreen: That's why Giovanna makes us all jealous and question whether we should be allowed to use the same words.

Giovanna: Don’t do that Doreen, your words are so important

Giovanna: Wait until they all see your amazing book

Doreen: "Laugh loud mouths" amazing phrase

Annan: Got to run to my meeting  on the hour. Thank you all and blessings.

Giovanna: thanks Cath they sound great

Amber: Thank you for creating this wonderful space Adrienne and Bev.

Amber: Great to spend this time with you all

Kay: such wonderful generous words shared at these workshops    thankyou to everyone   kx

Britt: Thank you!! <3

Giovanna: HUge thanks again to everyone, and especially Bev and Adrienne xxx

Y: Thank you all. Tonight was so incredibly powerful. I feel so lucky to be a part of this group  Love to you all xxx

 

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Thanks to funders

Lapidus Scotland gratefully acknowledges the support of Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership via the Wellbeing for Longer in Glasgow Fund managed by Impact Funding Partners

MaW session of 27th July

Today's mindfulness practice was a bodyscan and Adrienne introduced it with this poem:

Between

by Bev Schofield

What is the heartbeat without the silence 

between the thudding pump of our life organ? 

What is day if there is no night into which it can dawn? 

What is spring if there be no winter out of which to bud,

and what is winter’s respite without summer’s

punishing expectation of achievement?

Rest now, in the place that you thought was dark;

in the silence where you feared the heart 

would never beat again. Heal

in the spaces between your breaths. 

Embrace the exquisite stillness of that quiet 

till you care no more what’s to be done with the breath to come

nor what was said by the breath before.

Bev offered several writing prompts inspired by the poem "These Days" by Giovanna McKenna:

waiting

waiting quietly

moving silently invisible

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And now for some of 

YOUR WRITING:

inspired by ‘These Days’ by Giovanna Mackenna

by Kay Ritche

 

like waiting for Godot

I topple off the edge of each day

burn up dead time

return with the night

to blackbird blues which

croon a crease into the boredom &

wait   a burstingness in my heart for

what will be

untitled

by Bex Woodsford

So just wait

      still silent sitting

Not twisting

       Not turning

Body breathing

        surrounded by space

Expanding to embrace

         the chance of a new possibility 

Not a race

          No striving

And new steps may emerge in the dance

Moving silently, invisible

by Candyce Reynolds

 

Walking the streets,

I am barely noticed

Or so it seems

 

My mind, which is still young and pert thinks..

I must move silently

Not heard, so not seen

 

The truth I know

is within me

It is

My body

It registers a void --

Invisible, Invisible

Grey hair transparent; my creases fold onto each other

Nothing there to respond to

 

I worry that my gaze will start to mimic theirs

That I’ll become more and more see-through,

Quieter, smaller

Eventually impossible to be seen or heard

 

I want to jump up and down, yell and push them

To be noticed

To be notable like I used to be

A head nod in passing

Perhaps a hello

That’s all I ask.

 

I want to remind them:

Grey is a color and creases have dimensions

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Thanks to you all ...

... for your heartening feedback as always!

Amber: Hello, sorry that I'm late! Very happy to be here.

Catherine: I am sitting in a park with children so will keep audio and camera mainly of as on holiday

Kay: as always   wonderful thanks adrienne

Kay: lovely to see you catrice

Joyce: that was fabulous Adrienne thankyou xxx

Karen: Sorry I haven’t been able to participate properly- I’ll take the theme and write something later. Visitors still here…

Bev: No prob Karen

Catrice: Here listening today. Camera off.

Nichole: Lovely Bex

Catrice: Beautiful

Joyce Nicholson: I love I gap the mind

Giovanna: “that period when you are arriving somewhere but still elsewhere”

Annan: Yes!

Giovanna: “my creases fold on to each toher

Nichole: Wonderful Candice

Giovanna: each other” “I am not invisibel”

Candyce Reynolds: thanks

Giovanna: “where has the ground gone? / where is my next breath?”

Nichole: Thank you Giovanna, that was  so moving

Joyce Nicholson: amazing Giovanna thank you

Giovanna: thank you ❤️

Nichole: Beautiful and powerful Amber, thank you.

Giovanna: “I lived through the mess / the political unrest” “for friends on the edge of hope / and for those who’ve already chosen to leave us”

Bex Woodsford: So powerful

Giovanna: I loved that Amber, and maybe it’s my poet’s mind but it certainly felt like poetry to me. I’d love to read it again

Doreen Kelly: I agree

Giovanna: “golden fresh dampness / the joy of petals up-stretched” “intentfully making space”

Nichole: Thank you

Giovanna: Thank you Bev, Adrienne and everyone, I feel so lifted for being with you all tonight

Doreen Kelly: Thanks. Night night,

Kay: thankyou thankyou thankyou

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Thanks to funders

Lapidus Scotland gratefully acknowledges the support of Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership via the Wellbeing for Longer in Glasgow Fund managed by Impact Funding Partners

MaW session 20th July 2021

Course 2 started with a remarkable session that brought all the reassurance and connectedness of the Mindfulness and Writing "room".

Adrienne introduced her Mindfulness with the Support of Breath practice with a poerelatively new piece by John O’Donohue: The invitation to friendship with Nature

Bev took a writing prompt from "The Journey" by David Whyte:

the one line already written inside you

or

you are not leaving, you are arriving 

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And now for some of 

YOUR WRITING:

by Kath Higgens

“…the one line already written inside you” David Whyte, The Journey

I have tasted a wedge of freedom

and now am ravenous for more.

What does it mean to come to the open page

as to the ocean –

full of swell

ready to carry me away?

What do the poets mean when they say

let the poem lead you, let new discoveries

surface from the seabed –

or no, not even from there –

maybe from the fluffy, swirling, whitish foam

whose flecks glance off the incoming wave –

something hanging in the air

that wants to emerge into being,

that you didn’t know was waiting there?

For this I give myself to the discipline of the page –

the quest to bring to the dazzling light

the one line already written inside me

by Doreen Kelly

The one line already written inside you is not about judgement. Not about right and wrong. And not about similar or different. Search for that one line while throwing away judgements. Unburden yourself of all unneeded past criticism. Shame has no place in this search for that golden first line. You are not meant to find the one line written gently inside your core as a leaving gift, as a revelation at the end of it all. 

No you are arriving and if you listen well enough that silken line will whisper out from within you as you arrive at the starting line. The trick then is not to be distracted by those trying to carve themselves on to you. By all means build on the solid foundation within you but do not allow those hammers and chisels anywhere near the one line already written inside you.

Inspired by David Whyte’s ‘The Journey’

by Kay Ritchie

 

there were no sharp edges to her voice

she took words into her mouth to warm

then Kay she’d say & it was the bonniest sound

which took the edge off guddled-up emotions &

still I find her lines

written on my heart

in perfect copperplate

encouragement   advice   support

but what I’d give just to hear her

say my name

one more time

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Thanks to you all ...

... for your heartening feedback as always!

Kay: thanks Adrienne   have missed your sessions  kx: really beautiful, thank you Catrice

Catrice: Thank you, everyone!  Very kind.

Janey: Absolutely beautiful Catrice. Really moved me

Catrice: So sorry Cath.  Sending you love from USA.

Nichole: so sorry you’re going through that, Cath. thank you for sharing your pain, beautiful words xx

Janey: Cath , thank you for sharing which I know must be painful

Joyce: sending love to you Cath xxx

Nichole: gorgeous Kay, thank you so much

Catrice: Remarkable Kay!!!!

Britt: 'a love lead life'....

Nichole: wonderful Joyce, in the beautiful dharma

Nichole: thank you Helen, so moving

Nichole: really powerful Doreen, thank you

Kath: thank you Nicole. Courageous.

Catrice: Might be buried, but it’s not dead. — Good line Nichole!

Nichole: Thank you :-)

Karen: thankyou so much for your lovely comments and for making me so welcome. x

Catrice: Masterful, Sally.  You master brevity and depth so well.

Janey: That was wonderful Sally

Joyce: sally you are amazing xxx

Catrice: “But yet there is Fatih in these boughs and branches”. — Lovely, Brit!

Catrice: *Britt

Nichole: Thank you so much, Britt. Such beautiful imagery. Gorgeous reminders of nature and life. Love x

Catrice: So vivid.

Nichole: Thank you xx

Karen: have a wonderful week

Catrice: Thank you.

Kay: thankyou bev and adrienne   wonderful to be back with everyone   x

Joyce: fabulous,  moving and inspiring  xxxx

Y: Thank you for such a beautiful evening. Ps. I love the evening session. I was awake lol xxx

Jan: Thanks everyone

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Thanks to funders

Lapidus Scotland gratefully acknowledges the support of Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership via the Wellbeing for Longer in Glasgow Fund managed by Impact Funding Partners

MaW session 19th June 2021

A great again today - Adrienne introduced her Loving Kindness practice with a quote from Albert Einstein:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Bev took a writing prompt from the poem

LIFE IS THE POEM

by Kay Carmichael

          He continues quick and dull in his clear images; 

          I continue slow and sharp in my broken images. 

          ...

          He in a new confusion of his understanding; 

          I in a new understanding of my confusion.            Robert Graves

to try is a mistake

it is better

to wander through paths of uncertainty

to taste surreptitiously

to smell the faint perfume 

of unorthodoxy

to savour an error

time stretches and contracts

to meet our longings

not to wrap in plastic

the thoughts that conflict

new understanding of my confusion 

Kay shared a link with us:

Poetry and Settled Status for All - a Call for Submissions

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And now for some of 

YOUR WRITING:

‘New Confusion of My Understanding’

by Judith Boardman

I thought I understood, had it all clear in my mind – the past, the present, the future, a linear explanation. Persistently looking back at past mistakes, regrets, missed opportunities. Hoping that the future would be different, that what I had learnt would influence decisions and actions to come. I barely noticed the here and now, my breathing, my feet on this solid earth; hardly took heed of this precious moment. But now my understanding of has been shaken. As the snow globe fragments settle, I’m coming to realise that now is all that matters, all there really is. Time does not exist. Is this confusion? Am I throwing up into the air all that I felt sure of, everything that once seemed clear? No, not confusion, but a fresh clarity and perspective on what is important. Focus on now, it is the only reality we have. The dwelling on the past is what brings confusion, along with the anxiety of what is to come in these uncertain times. Be present, it’s enough.

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Thanks to you all ...

... for your heartening feedback as always!

Jules: It's sunny and breezy in west Wales..

Kay: can't believe this is the last    these meditations have given me so much strength these last few weeks   thankyou so much  kx

Jules: I'm sorry Einstein but . I cannot embrace the bluebottle that bombarded me all through that. The equivalent of a jet ski with wings bouncing off every surface...

Beccy: :D

Jules: Love it Beccy!

Hilaire _: That was profound Adrienne, thank you!

nicholevilleneuve: I have to leave early today, sorry I’ll miss the last of the writing. Thanks very much for the opportunity to be involved in the past 6 weeks of wonderful mindfulness and writing. Very best wishes to 

Bev: (prompt) new understanding of my confusion

Kath: Mark Nepo

clairebolger: I like the comparison of being able to live with uncertainty because we embrace uncertainty in the act of writing a poem. Thanks Kath.

Beccy: powerful and I could feel myself there

Beccy: great metaphor for life!

Kath: Wonderful, Beccy!

Kath: sharp-tongued/long grass - love it

Judith: I liked the 'go through the thorny bush not around it' - good advice

Jules: Wonderfully powerful Catrice..

Jules: Wow Calire!

Beccy: I love how it captures this big idea in just a few lines

Jules: remembering only what we need to say..

Beccy: love that - a good reminder that it is all a gift

Helen: thanku everyone for sharing this space and time.

Judith: Thank you for letting me share this time with you. I have been humbled and overwhelmed by your wonderful words.

Catrice: Thank you.

Louise: To Adrienne and Bev, and all here in our connected kindness  - thank you for these sessions. A calm inspiring wholeness amongst my whirlings.

Kay: thankyou bev Adrienne and everyone    hope to see you all again soon    kx

Kath: I have loved all your smiling faces and affirmations, making this such a safe space. Thanks to everyone of you!

Sheila: Thank you everyone this has gladdened my heart ❤️

Beccy: Thank you - I've grown fond of all your faces so quickly x

Angie: Thank you for a wonderful session. Have a wonderful weekend. xx

Fenella: for me, the mindfulness is an essential component as it frees the mind to do the unexpected, for good or not!

Helen: thanku to Bev and Adrienne for providing such a special safe plavce

Jules: Thankyou I hope to join in some more morning sessions. And would like to be able to connect with all the wonderful women here

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Thanks to funders

Lapidus Scotland gratefully acknowledges the support of Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership via the Wellbeing for Longer in Glasgow Fund managed by Impact Funding Partners

MaW session 12th June 2021

Another powerful session: Adrienne introduced her Mindfulness with the support of Sound practice with 

The Sound of the Sea

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,

  And round the pebbly beaches far and wide

  I heard the first wave of the rising tide

  Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;

A voice out of the silence of the deep,

  A sound mysteriously multiplied

  As of a cataract from the mountain's side,

  Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.

So comes to us at times, from the unknown

  And inaccessible solitudes of being,

  The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;

And inspirations, that we deem our own,

  Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing

  Of things beyond our reason or control. 

Bev offered two possible writing prompts from the poem Summer Farm by Norman MacCaig

with metaphysic hand I lift the lid and see

or

a hen stares at nothing with one eye

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And now for some of 

YOUR WRITING:

With metaphysic hand I lift the lid…

by Claire Bolger

With metaphysic hand I lift the lid and see memories of others calling out to me. They got deposited there over time, many footfalls on stairs, bringing their offerings to the attic of my mind. Left there for safe keeping. A sanctuary of sorts. I play them back through me when I walk the sands of my time. Take in the sea as it pushes at my toes and listen. I go deeper in, let it bathe me, paddling all the way to the end of the line. And there I see another creature like me on the sand. Seal eyes that are open to the depths.

Inspired by Norman McCaig, from Summer Farm

by Beccy Golding

“A hen stares at nothing with one eye”

… but with the other it examines the ground for seeds and grit that will help it grow shells to form around the eggs it will hatch. Our pet hen, Cassie, would sometimes lay eggs with soft shells, held together by the inner sac, surface tension just holding, like a pond with water boatmen skating. She’d lay double yolks too sometimes, and race us to the back door when we opened her run – racing to the dog food in the kitchen. Sometimes I’d hold a half bitten Malteser between my teeth and she’d peck at the honeycomb. Peck, peck, gauging her peck with one eye, still accurate, and one eye staring at nothing, or something, the blue of the sky before it falls in, the missile, the meteor, the comet, ready to cluck and scrabble, the same way she did – she could never contain herself – the same way she would announce an egg she had laid, and I would wonder, if ever she could keep a secret, maybe she could brood her egg and hatch it, maybe there would be a chick. But she was not a secret keeper, proclaiming her eggs, dashing for doors, pecking for food. As a chick we kept her in a kitchen drawer with a layer of newspaper, and even when she had a garden to scrabble in she’d run to a newspaper and scuff and peck the newsprint. Maybe she was reading all the news that was in the world, with one eye down and one eye to the sky.

untitled

by Kath Higgens

Afraid of where a thought might take me

I sink down into my body

ably guided by a gentle voice.

How good it feels to have a companion

in this dark and lonely place.

I hear the starlings scrabbling on the tin roof,

I look out afar at mountains, still and stately.

How much safer it is to stay with these

sounds and sights that save me from my thoughts.

Remember, I tell myself, with all the compassion I can  muster,

to return again and again over the next hours

to this safe place, this body, this sensate location – 

afraid of where a thought might take me

a hen stares at nothing (after Norman MacCaig)

by Hilaire

her egg coddling inside her

not yet ready to enter the world

the jelly shell trembling towards crisp solidity

albumen and yolk still considering

their yin and yang relationship

mother hen withholding her cluck

paused in her sifting for food

as a sunbeam lights on a likely patch

for settling

for puffing of feathers

and laying of plans.

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Thanks to you all ...

... for your heartening feedback as always!

Kay: thankyou me   thankyou Adrienne   thankyou everyone

Kay: perfect

Joyce: thank you Adrienne  -  you are wonderful xxx

Jules: Lovely and soothing Adrienne...

Kath: thank you to our two wonderful facilitators

Adrienne: Thank you everyone

Hilaire: That was wonderful Adrienne - thank you

Bev: with metaphysic hand I lift the lid and see or a hen stares at nothing with one eye

Jules: That's amazing Angie, and I believe God is in all..

Beccy: Fab - love it!

Beccy: love the list

Kath: Lovely, Angie

Helen: beautiful...the jeans of my ancestors, and the eves pudding..wonderful

Hilaire: Love that Angie!

Jules: So powerful Cath..

Helen: Sorry about that Bev

Lesley: really powerful Cath, loved the line about the sword of war thrust into innocent hearts. x

Joyce: brilliant Beccy x

Jules: Wonderful Beccy. I want hens!

Adrienne: me too

Helen: really good journey that too us on..hung on every word..Beccy

Beccy: love the sum up in the last line

Jules: That is so simple but deep Sally..

Helen: many footfalls on stairs...haunting

Jules: beautiful Claire..

Beccy: my mind created beautiful images listening to that.

Beccy: "the panic of surviving" - great line

Lesley: Claire, loved that, especially memories of other calling out to me..and the footfall on the stairs. x

Beccy: so many amazing words in there!

Kath: Lovely, Kay

Jules: You took me on that journey with you kay, the scudding swallows.. fabulous!!

Jules: Ive lost sound again will rejoin..

Helen: beautiful endings

Jules: All these poems are worthy of an anthology....

Jules: Thank you another great session. 

Joyce: thankyou xx I will miss you all next week  -  go well xx

Angie: thank you everyone for a wonderful morning. xx

Kay: wonderful session   thanks to everyone   kx

Helen: wonderful...thanks for all your sharing and support

Hilaire: Thank you everyone! That’s set me up for the rest of the day

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Thanks to funders

Lapidus Scotland gratefully acknowledges the support of Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership via the Wellbeing for Longer in Glasgow Fund managed by Impact Funding Partners