As we move towards the end of the year, and the season of Advent, I've been reflecting on how this year began for me, when I spent 3 months living in (and taking care of) the home of a friend in the tiny village of Molinaseca on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. That settled… Continue reading Where no-one is harried and nothing is forced…
We're experiencing a heatwave in Spain at the moment, with record temperatures announced each day in the town where I'm currently living, and a 'record-record' reached yesterday, as we tipped over into the 40-degree-plus celsius realm. The mornings are still comparatively cool (in the low 20's) but, from 2pm onwards, the temperature gradually climbs, shutters… Continue reading Why I go down to the river…
Yesterday I received, not for the first time, a life-giving lesson in the powerful and ever-present reality of the quality of Grace. How it lives within each of us. How each of us has the power to use it gently, kindly, wisely, consciously, as part of our own way of being, through our own choice… Continue reading The Rosebush…
There was a time when I would regularly visit a Chinese restaurant with a friend, partly because we enjoyed their food, which was delicious, but also because we'd visited Hong Kong together and it was an unspoken way of recreating a shared good memory from the past. We were always given two fortune cookies at… Continue reading The Mountains and the Valleys…
O soul, most beautiful among all creatures, you who so long to know the place where your Beloved is, so as to seek him and become one with him, now it has been stated: you yourself are the home in which he dwells. Here is a reason to be happy; here is a cause for… Continue reading Revelation
It is the work of a lifetime, coming to know and understand the beauty and truth of these two aspects of Love... The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love". And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with… Continue reading On Love…
“O God of earth and altar, Bow down and hear our cry, Our earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die; The walls of gold entomb us, The swords of scorn divide, Take not thy thunder from us, But take away our pride. From all that terror teaches, From lies of tongue and pen, From… Continue reading A Hymn for our Times…
There´s a Celtic folklore belief in something called ´Thin Places´. These are places around the world where the gap between Heaven and Earth is so thin that the magical quality of Heaven can be actually, physically felt. Clarity; perspective; sudden recognition of what really matters in life; feelings of immense peace and great joy; a… Continue reading Be the Change…
The day will come when you and I will cease to be. And all that was said, and thought, and done will melt to nothing. And in that moment of returning to the earth again, as water, - Heaven sent, momentary, lingering ... in this space that lies between - some of us may pause… Continue reading The Melt
It’s just over two months since my Korean flatmates left Logroño, carried away into the darkness one morning in a taxi bound for Barcelona airport and then onwards, by plane, back to Seoul, family, friends and home. It’s amazing how quickly that time has passed and how things have changed, both for me and for the… Continue reading Why not take all of Me?
La Casa de Paz 